


Raffica

by sordidhumor



Series: Conscience [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Noir, Alternate Universe - Race Changes, BDSM, Binge Drinking, Body Dysphoria, Body Modification, Catcher Dominant, Consensual Violence, Crimes & Criminals, Demisexuality, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Financial Issues, Foster Care, Gun Violence, Homophobia, Human Experimentation, Illegal Activities, Kidnapping, Leather Culture, M/M, MSM, Mamihlapinatapei, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Multi, Politics, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Psychotherapy, Queer Themes, Rape Recovery, Recreational Drug Use, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Self-Harm, Sex Work, Sexual Violence, Suicide Attempt, la douleur exquise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-11 10:54:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 603,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12933738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sordidhumor/pseuds/sordidhumor
Summary: The echo after the gun blast--that shaking in your ribs, screaming in your ears, the trill of your heart in your throat. Sometimes coming down from battle is worse than the fight itself.





	1. Dark Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This quivering pile of rot is dedicated to The Boxer & The Barber.

_In my dark times I'll be going back to the street_

_Promising everything I do not mean_

_In my dark times, baby this is all I could be_

_Don't think my mother could love me for me_

_In my dark times_

_Light one up, let me bum a smoke_

_Still calming down, dripping throat_

_I got another man's blood on my clothes_

_But an endless fog’s the life I chose_

 

 

“[Dark Times](https://youtu.be/UmzD3ACa-i8)”

The Weekend, Ed Sheeran

 

 

 

_April, 2001_

 

 

The night was beyond dark—clouds hid the moon and stars, creating an oppressive black world.

The further Harry walked from the light of Hogwarts castle, the less he could see, until his vision pinpointed a foot in front of his nose. He zipped his leather jacket, turning up the collar in anticipation of the rain about to fall. The clouds overhead were thick and heavy, ready to drown him. 

It was close to three in the morning. Half an hour ago he’d been screamed awake by a howling Patronus courtesy of Fred Weasley. Barely understanding half the message, Harry had scrambled into denims and a tshirt, grabbing his wand on his way out the door. Draco had blindly thrown sparks from his wand—which soared straight through the smoky image of a blue-butted baboon, but it was the principle of the thing. Draco was quite sick of being shouted awake in the night because of Harry Potter’s incessant hero bullshit. 

“Try not ter get yerself killed… again,” his husband had mumbled, watching Harry stumble towards the door with only one shoe on. 

Harry laughed dryly. “Only because you asked, love.” 

Then he was out in the cold darkness, walking to the edge of the castle grounds. From there he would Apparate to Diagon Alley, where the twins waited for him at their shop—waited for him with some problematic situation which only he, Harry Potter, Saviour of The Universe, could solve. 

 

 

 

 

There were no lights on at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Streetlights cast a wavering light over the empty alley, fog clinging to the shadows. 

Most of the debris from the war had been cleared away. A few shops had reopened, though most were still under construction. Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes had boards over a few of the busted windows, and the sign hanging over the door was in need of fresh paint. But the exterior had been cleaned, and there was merchandise to be seen through the windows that had been replaced. It was only a matter of time before the twins reopened for business. 

Disillusioned so no one would see him, Harry approached the rear door and knocked three times. The door opened under his hand with no one on the other side. He heard voices in the cellar and took the stairs, drawing his wand on instinct. 

He blinked several times, struck dumb, struggling to process the sight before him.

“Ohhhhhh-kay,” Harry drawled, waving his wand to make himself visible to the three people in the cellar. “I love you both like brothers. You know that. Which is why I’m giving you five minutes to explain yourselves before I fetch the Aurors and have you locked up.” 

Because Fred and George had a terrified-looking muggle woman tied to a chair, a gag in her mouth, her eyes bugging out in terror. The girl couldn’t have been more than twenty. She wore pajamas and no shoes, her long brown hair tied up in a haphazard bun at the top of her head. It looked as though Fred and George had literally kidnapped her while she slept. She gazed at him pleadingly, rocking in her chair as much as her bonds would allow. 

“So, um…” Fred scratched the back of his neck, blushing. “I’ve had a bit of a cock-up.” 

Harry raised a sardonic eyebrow. He flipped his palm, silently asking for an elaboration. 

Fred was too embarrassed, his eyes fixed on the toes of his trainers. George spoke for him. “The night you stopped You-Know-Who, we went on somewhat of a bender. We were celebrating. Ended up at some pub doing shots. Fred met this lovely creature,” he pointed with his thumb to the woman currently tied to the chair. “Taylor. He got her number and they fooled around for a while. 

“Then a week ago she calls, upset. Says she’s up the duff and it’s Fred’s.” 

Fred interrupted, his voice shaking with anger. “She said she wasn’t keeping him—my son. She was gonna kill my kid, Harry. I _had_ to do something.” 

Harry pushed out the breath he’d been holding in his lungs. It whistled through his teeth in a long, not-quite-Parseltongue hiss. He unzipped his jacket, put a hand to his hip, and started thinking out loud. 

“In Taylor’s world, she has the right to do that. To have an abortion. She doesn’t need your permission. Technically, she didn’t even have to tell you. That was a courtesy.” 

“That’s beyond fucked up!” George interjected. 

“I know,” Harry shrugged ruefully. “But it’s the law—their law, anyway.” 

Taylor screamed behind the gag in her mouth. 

“Well _our_ law,” Fred blustered, “says a father has equal rights to his child; half-and-half, bastard, or otherwise.” He pointed at Taylor’s stomach, where they hadn’t placed any ropes out of concern for the fetus. 

Worried, Harry noted that the twins demonstrated more concern for the unborn baby’s welfare than Taylor’s. But then again, people always got a little nuts where their kids were concerned. That much was universal. Their fears didn’t excuse their gross mistreatment of this poor woman; but the heightened emotion of the situation would make it that much harder for Harry to de-escalate things. Like dismantling a live bomb, it might be better to detonate in a safe location than to risk cutting the wrong wire and doing even greater harm on site. Harry decided that listening to the twins and gathering more information would do more good than a lecture on bodily autonomy and muggle’s rights. 

“I’m protecting my son,” Fred insisted fiercely.

“Son? You know it’s a boy?” 

George nodded. “We did the spell.” 

 _So much for speaking in code_ , Harry thought. _Another muggle’s memory to be modified. Another crazy day in the life of Harry Potter._  

“Well…” Harry said out loud, running a hand through his hair, rolling his eyes, resigned. He was going to help Fred and George, even if it was insane. The Weasleys were his family as much as Draco or Hermione. He would do anything for them… including this. “Shite.” Harry chewed his lip briefly. “We’re gonna Obliviate her, right?” 

Frightened, Taylor’s gaze darted between the three of them. Harry watched as hope drained from her face beneath the gag. It was now obvious to her that Harry was on the twins’ side and not hers. Her shoulders sagged as she began to sob. 

Fred shook his head. “You’re the only one who can do this Harry.” 

Skeptical, Harry’s face hardened. His voice was flat, devoid of emotion. “Do what?” 

“The Imperius Curse.”

Harry looked away. This was hardly the glorious, pastoral future he’d looked forward to after defeating Tom Riddle. His life was only just getting back to normal: he had NEWTs in a few weeks, and already the Aurors were working hard to recruit him. The last thing he needed was more Dark Arts in his life, more proverbial skeletons in his closet. 

“Please Harry,” Fred begged him, stepping forward, pressing his hands to his gut. “I couldn’t ask this of anyone else. I thought you would… understand. About family.” He looked back at Taylor, real sorrow in the lines of his face, real pain at what he was asking his mate to do. “I won’t let her kill my baby. I’ll get a flat outside the alley, in London, and we’ll live together as boyfriend and girlfriend until the baby’s born. Then we can let her go.” 

“And Obliviate the hell out of her,” George muttered under his breath. 

“That too,” Fred agreed. 

Behind them, Taylor cried. 

“I want my son,” Fred said. “He’s as much hers as he is mine. I want my son, Harry. Please help me save him.” 

Harry took his glasses off, pressing the hard points of his wrists against his eye sockets until little blue and purple stars chased each other across the blackness. 

Saving people was in his blood. Fred and George knew that. They knew he’d killed people in the tunnels under Hogwarts, knew he felt a debt for the lives he’d taken. They knew how he felt about his family: his mother had died for him, and he in turn had died trying to save Draco. They had his back to a wall; penned in by his own nature, his own penchant for saving people and preserving innocent life, especially the lives of those he considered his family. 

“Our mutual mates from Durmstrang say you’re the best when it comes to Unforgiveables,” Fred admitted. “I might’ve asked one of them but… this ought to stay in the family.” 

There it was again. _Family_. 

Fred gulped. “I trust you with both their lives.” 

Harry’s guts shook. As much as he didn’t want to do this—to put an innocent muggle woman under a powerful enchantment and sustain it for the next nine months, forcing her to carry a child she didn’t want inside her body—his friends gave him no other choice. If he refused, they would find someone else to do it. Probably Dmitry or Yuri. Harry wouldn’t let the burden fall to them; Dima with memories of his murdered mother, and Yuri whose fiancée was still missing, presumed dead. 

Harry would be the one to do this. There was no other way around it; at least, none that he could see in the moment. 

Harry put his glasses back on and drew his wand. Dangerously he pointed with it, going between Fred and George, making himself frightfully clear. 

“I love you guys. You’re my family. Never forget that. But after this, you’re all out of favors.”

 

 

 

 


	2. Hollywood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Harry Potter can do no wrong, and still be wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** PTSD, depression, grief, anxiety, panic attacks, jerking off, kidnap, questionable imprisonment, Weasleys

 

 

_I've got a picture in my head, in my head._

_It's me and you, we are in bed, we are in bed._

_You'll always been there when I call._

_You've always been there most of all._

_This is not Hollywood, like I understood._

_It’s not Hollywood._

_I've got a picture in my room._

_I will return there I presume, it should be soon._

_The greatest irony of all, shoot the wall._

_It’s not so glamorous at all._

 

“[Hollywood](https://youtu.be/9aCX59dQ5ts)”

The Cranberries

 

 

 

 

Draco stared at his piano. 

The house was dead quiet. No portraits chattering. No more house elf noise. He could hear the clock in the next room—Harry’s makeshift office—ticking, ticking. 

It was almost better when Harry was gone. Easier, somehow. At least he didn’t feel the need to pretend anything when he was alone. He could just sit, drinking in silence.

It was worse when Harry was home. Because Harry wanted to cheer him up, wanted to _do_ things. 

They’d gone to “dinner and a movie”… which was a thing muggles did, apparently. They went doubles with Ron and Hermione. South Asian food, many many beers, and a comedy about muggles doing a very poor job at robbing a bank. Draco hadn’t gotten half the jokes, needing Harry or Hermione to explain it to him. Ron understood little better, which they’d bonded over. The beers helped. 

Corbin Warrington and Ephraim Summerby sent along an invite to their wedding. Draco didn’t feel much like going—Warrington had always given Draco a creepy vibe in the Slytherin showers. Judging by his choice of Summerby, he liked ‘em lithe and blond. Draco hoped they’d be happy together… but not enough to sit through an entire day of ceremony and small talk with people he barely knew. 

Harry sent along a large bag of gold with their regrets. 

They still went to the lavish stag party. Harry had been to Spain once before—a battle where he’d nearly died, no surprises there, and nearly gotten Misha Ionescue killed as well. Harry had never been to Marbella. Draco insisted. 

Marbs was genuine decadence, even by Draco’s standards. By day, beautiful muggles in designer swimwear doused each other with champagne at beach parties. By night, they danced like vixens, dripping with diamonds under the colored lights, beckoning. Harry picked up VIP and bottle service at the club, treating their party to the good life. Their hearts had pounded in time to the beat, Apparating home well past dawn to pass out in bed, still dressed. 

Harry had literally nothing to wear when they left Hogwarts. Nothing in his closet or Draco’s fit his new frame. Draco did his best to charm a few necessary articles to Harry’s new size. That night in Spain, his husband looked handsome in his dark blue suit paired with a rose-colored linen shirt. The men all ditched their jackets, rolling up their sleeves in the heat. Draco left his cuffs down. The Dark Mark had no business being seen under the new world order. 

Draco had little business being seen, either. He hadn’t been outside for at least a week, shutting himself in the house. It had been several days since he’d showered. He wore Harry’s gym shorts and a singlet, guzzling a bottle of wine in their living room, alone. 

Harry was out. Harry had important things to do. People wanted meetings with Harry, owled him, called by the restored floo network, and sent messages to the muggle mobile phone he now kept in his pocket at all times. Harry had to charge it every night in the kitchen, the only room with muggle electricity. Harry nervously unplugged the toaster before plugging his phone in, warning Draco not to run too many appliances at once or the old wiring may start a fire. 

Draco wasn’t keen on lighting up the house. He avoided Harry’s cell phone, and anything having to do with the kitchen, or food. Liquids were fine—preferably booze. 

Alcohol was his lifeline. It kept him from feeling much. Or thinking much. 

He rested his fingers against the ivory keys. Still, blinking, silence. There was nothing he wanted to play.

 

 

 

 

Harry Apparated home rather late. It was the weekend and there were drunk muggles parading down the main streets, going to and from clubs and pubs. The occasional taxi came down their street, light slicing through the sitting room window, bright compared to the haze of the old-fashioned Lumos-powered lamps keeping number twelve Grimmauld Place from falling into total darkness. 

Draco heard Harry come home but didn’t move. Harry knew where to find him if he wanted. 

A familiar head of unruly black hair poked through the doorway. His shoulders were broader now, his torso and legs longer. With him came a faint burning smell. 

“Alright?” Harry asked him. 

Draco thought he ought to be the one asking. Harry had a bit of dirt on his face—or soot? He seemed singed. Draco couldn’t quite tell in the dim light. Harry’s clothes were all black; a muggle military uniform, rather bulky, with the letters S.W.A.T. printed in white over his chest. 

He was working again, in America. Not every day, but Leon Harper called him over for the odd job. Harry said the money was good. Draco always cut him off at that—talking about money wasn’t the done thing in pureblood culture. The mere mention of their finances made Draco supremely uncomfortable. 

Black was a difficult color for Harry. It matched too much with his hair, making him look sallow and vaguely ill. All black washed him out. On top of the monochromatic color, Harry wasn’t wearing his glasses. The typical decoration missing from his face only made his image more strange, ghostlike, hovering darkly in the doorway like some specter. 

“I’m knackered,” Harry announced. “Need to get my contacts out. Gonna grab a beer and use the bath upstairs. See you up there?” 

Draco glanced between his piano and the bottle of wine he’d nearly finished. There was nothing much for him here save for a few swallows of Malbec a basket of laundry to be folded. 

Fucking laundry. They had no house elf, and so Draco reduced himself to day-drinking and sorting Harry Potter’s socks. At least those still fit. 

Draco nodded vaguely. “Meet you in bed. I’m nearly done here.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

After two beers and a long bath to scrub off the grime, Harry found Draco curled up in their bed, feigning sleep. Harry lifted the sheet, crawling in next to him. 

He buried his face in the curve of Draco’s neck and inhaled. Pale hair tickled his nose. Harry’s lips traced a familiar path, dotted with little circular scars—cigarette burns—leading from Draco’s shoulder up his neck. Harry ruffled Draco’s hair with his nose, breathing over his skin… breathing him in. 

This was everything he wanted. Especially after the night he’d had. 

A couple of American teenagers got it in their heads to make a bomb out of a pressure cooker, muggle-style. To make matters worse, they penned a threatening owl to the American Ministry, pretending to be Death Eaters. The Americans scrambled Leon’s team in response. 

It amazed Harry how insensitive people could be. Impersonating a Death Eater would never be funny—they’d taken too many loved ones from too many people. Perhaps American kids, more removed from the situation, didn’t see it that way. 

Harry had gotten up to his share of hijinks at Hogwarts. He was no angel. Given his own less than stellar history, he was prepared to be somewhat lenient. That spirit of forgiveness disappeared when their bomb detonated on his team. 

The trio of fifteen year old boys had received a surprise dressing down from Harry Potter himself, still brushing debris off of his shoulders from the tool shed they’d exploded. Harry had put the fear of muggle God in those boys. They wouldn’t be setting a toe out of line for a while. 

Their parents had been mortified. Naturally. The adults also seemed allergic to responsibility, acting as though they couldn’t hear anymore when Harry suggested that their lack of attention likely contributed to the boys’ miscreance. They would rather have a team of American Aurors punish their kids than deal with it themselves. 

He needed to find another way… a _better_ way. He was one man. He couldn’t keep fighting individual battles of ideology like this. It wasn’t the most effective use of his time and he knew it. 

He would think of something. Tomorrow. Tonight he had Draco’s backside nestled against him, milky skin under his mouth, Harry’s big hands exploring. The man’s smell got to him every time. So what if he hadn’t showered in a while? Draco wasn’t ripe or anything—he smelled like himself, just more intense. Harry licked the long column of Draco’s throat, nipping at his ear, breathing him in. 

Draco feigned indifference, still pretending to be asleep. But under Harry’s hands, he gave the slightest shiver of anticipation, his spine arching slightly, pressing back, giving the pressure they both wanted. 

Harry pushed his boner harder against Draco’s ass. He was instantly stiff at the feel of Draco under his hands. Warm fingers mapped a line up Draco’s chest, following the muscles of his lean arm to wrap their fingers together. 

Draco growled a little; keeping up the ruse that Harry had woken him. 

“Any interest in a blow job?” Harry offered, biting his neck again.

Draco curled into a ball. “Not really.” 

“I’m offering,” Harry clarified. He wanted to suck Draco off. 

Draco buried his face in his pillow—pulling his hand from Harry’s to punch the pillow into a better position. He was stalling, gathering his thoughts. Harry let him. 

“… Not really in the mood.” He shrugged. Sharp shoulder blades ground against Harry’s chest. 

Harry bit his tongue to keep from growling. He was horny as hell, and Draco had to know how good that felt—the rough scrape of him against Harry’s sore body. He let out a long breath, puffing out his cheeks, bringing himself down. 

Draco said no, and that was that. Harry needed to deal with himself. 

He missed sex. So fucking much. They hadn’t exchanged so much as a frot or a blowjob since leaving Hogwarts. Harry missed it, wanted it. Probably because he wanted to make Draco happy, and sex was usually the quickest and most effective route to bliss. Draco didn’t like talking much: he liked fucking. 

Harry couldn’t recall Draco ever turning down sex before. But he was glad that Draco at least felt comfortable saying no if he didn’t want it. He missed Draco’s passion. He missed feeling close, connected, like they were working together towards something. Harry missed intimacy. Naively, he’d thought they might be having a ton of sex now that the Death Eater war was winding down to manageable levels. They were no longer in fear for their lives every day. They had the time. It just… wasn’t happening like Harry had planned. 

“Fair enough, hun.” Harry kissed the back of Draco's neck before pulling his hands away. “I'm gonna… jerk off, I guess. Be back in a bit.” 

Naked and hard, Harry left their bed to take care of himself.

 

 

 

 

Harry stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. There were purplish half-moons under his eyes, which happened when he was stressed. His eyes were narrowed against the bright lights of the bathroom, so different from the dark bedroom where he wanted to be. His hair was crazy from running his hands through it—pulling more than necessary, recalling how Draco often yanked him around by his hair, belligerent and sometimes even controlling, when they fucked. He never minded. It turned him on when Draco fought for what he wanted. 

Harry hadn’t wanked over the sink in more than a year—it was a throwback to life with the Dursleys. Hurried tugs, always nervous, needing to finish fast before someone caught him. It hadn’t exactly been pleasant. That had been the whole of his sexuality prior to Draco.

He preferred Draco. Insistent hands, wet mouth, insults and fists. He preferred rolling around, bruises, screaming as they came within seconds of each other. 

That got his hips thrusting into his hand. It was how Draco tossed off and it worked. Probably because it felt like fucking. The movement helped, knocking his hips forward in a steady rhythm. He imagined the cold pedestal sink his hips connected with was the cushion of Draco’s ass. He wanted to reach forward and curl his fingers in Draco’s hair—pulling, holding him still, helping him take it. 

“Shit,” he gasped through his teeth. His hips sped up. “Draco… Draco….”

 

 

 

 

He was a shit husband. 

Witches would line up around the block to have a go with Harry Potter. Bent blokes would make a queue all the way to Scotland to get Harry’s chosen lips around their cocks. 

So what the fuck was wrong with _him_? 

Draco couldn’t remember turning down sex with Harry. Ever. It was his motto never to let an erection go to waste. His stupid body was reminding him, precome cooling on the sheets as he slowly let his hardness fade away. 

Draco heard his name from the bathroom—a needy, rising word, repeated, ending in a broken hiss of Parseltongue. _Fuck_. Harry was in there right now, tossing off, thinking about him. 

He just… didn’t want to fuck. He didn’t want anything. That was the problem.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Leon Harper stuck his head into the ammunitions storage room. He thought everyone else had gone home. He was wrong. 

Harry Potter sat at the worktable, his back to the door, reloading 9mm cartridges. 

Leon shook his head. The lad had grown like nothing he’d ever seen before. Overnight, Harry had gone from a pip squeak to being as tall as a grown man. His already broad shoulders filled out. His arms were lanky and muscular, his long legs tucked beneath the desk, looking a bit cramped. He had his sleeves rolled up, latex gloves on his big hands, deftly loading rounds. 

What seventeen year old was that adept with an extended tactical magazine? 

Leon let out a silent, chest-deflating breath. Sometimes he regretted taking Potter under his wing. 

Harry was the most powerful wizard Leon had ever known—Tom Riddle included. He’d been struck by nostalgia the day they met. His paternal instinct kicked in, urging him to protect and guide this young man as he’d done his father. Well, Leon _tried_ with James. Harry wasn’t nearly so hard-headed as his father had been. Maybe some of Leon’s wisdom had stuck inside that dark head of his. 

Still, Harry was barely eighteen. He might look like a young man now, but in so many ways Leon felt culpable, even guilty: he held himself responsible for taking away some of Harry’s childhood. 

Harry had his mother’s intelligence. And her compassion. Those qualities saved him from bitterness, jadedness, burning out. Harry didn’t have his father’s massive chip on his shoulders. Harry felt no need to prove himself to others. He did his work out of respect, a kind of calling which bordered on religious. Harry wanted to protect people… to save them. That selfless quality came overwhelmingly from Lily—who was able to teach even a rambunctious glory-hound like James Potter the importance of devotion. 

Harry looked exactly like James, though. The resemblance had been striking before: now, he was a mirror looking into the past. His messy hair, long nose, lean limbs, sandy skin. Even the way he hunched his shoulders, focused on his work. Harry was absolutely his father’s son. 

He looked dazed. Or contemplative, feeding through his clip with practiced, efficient movements. He’d been at it for a while, with stacks of refilled magazines on the table beside him. 

Leon broke the silence with a bark. “Wot the hell are ya still doin’ ‘ere? Work’s done fer today. Go home, laddie.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry did not Apparate home. He used the Public Apparition Point in The Leaky Cauldron instead, casting a Concealment Charm over his Beretta and giving a polite wave to Tom the barkeep before ducking out into distinctly non-magical London. 

There must’ve been more than one show letting out. The sidewalk was congested with muggles holding playbills from various theatres, chatting and laughing, walking slowly along. Cars and busses honked in the street. The flashing lights from the theatre marquees lit up the night. Harry did his best to get out of the bustle, turning down Shaftesbury Avenue, then up Frith Street. 

On the corner of Frith and Old Compton was a café which served a chocolate-stuffed croissant rated by Draco as being “not a French patisserie by any stretch of the imagination, but passable if hungry enough.” Which was about as good as you were going to get with Draco. If the café was still open, Harry would have ducked in and gotten a snack for his cantankerous househusband. 

Instead, with the café closed for the evening, he went to the side door, ringing the buzzer for the third floor flat.

 

 

 

 

The flat was shockingly small. The kitchen and living were one room, with only two windows. There was space enough for a sofa, a coffee table, television, and bookshelf. It was a proper one bedroom rather than a studio, with a full size tub in the bathroom. Harry was made to understand a proper bathtub was a rare find in Soho. He’d helped them move in a few days ago, and stopped back to check on them. 

When Fred told him how much he paid for the place, Harry about hit the ceiling. 

“Seventeen hundred a month?!” 

“More like nineteen hundred after utilities,” Fred murmured. “You didn’t see the other options, Harry. They were absolute dumps. I couldn’t have Taylor living in a place like that.” He glanced over his shoulder at the muggle girl puttering around the kitchen area. There was a stove and oven, a microwave, and a fair amount of counter space for her to work.

Harry had to admit their new flat might be small, but it was clean and cute—recently renovated in a modern minimalist style, with what looked like new windows and a shiny wood floor. There would be plenty of light during the daytime. Taylor was humming to herself as she washed a few dishes in the sink. 

“How do you like living in London?” asked Harry. 

Fred shrugged. “It’s different. Louder than I thought. But I’m getting used to the noise.” He and George had lived in the flat above the joke shop, even after the Death Eaters attacked. They refused to be scared off. Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes was already back up and running—Harry had stopped by the other day for a refill on Peruvian Darkness Powder, and to say hello to his friends. 

When Fred moved out of the flat above the shop, George invited his long-time girlfriend Angelina Johnson to move in. It was good to see his friends moving on, living their lives, now that the worst of the fighting was over. There were still pockets of violence. Their world wasn’t perfect. But it was a hell of a lot better than before. 

Harry would have found it heart-warming to see both twins in happy relationships… that was, if he couldn’t reach out across a dark magical tether to feel Fred’s muggle girlfriend—Harry’s Imperius captive—going about her business like nothing was wrong. Just as Harry had instructed. 

It bothered him. Deeply. He could perform any spell for which Voldemort had the capacity eighteen years ago, when he planted his horcrux in Harry. The Dark Arts were like buttering toast to him these days—his default, where he went without effort or conscious thought. He didn’t exactly like that about himself. 

It wasn’t anything like when he cast the curse on Draco. There was no intellectual clarity, no mind-bending connection. Maybe because Taylor was muggle, and Draco was a wizard? Perhaps it had something to do with the bond between him and Draco. His husband _wanted_ Harry in his head, reading his thoughts, controlling his body. Taylor didn’t. 

He had to keep reminding himself that he was doing this for Fred. For the baby. 

Harry looked behind him, over the back of the couch, at Taylor. 

“Sorry,” he called to her. “I forgot to ask what you do for work. Very rude of me.” 

She turned, drying her hands on a towel. “That’s alright, sweetie,” she told him brightly. “I’m a makeup artist. Mostly for tele—news anchors, actors in daytime dramas, that sort of thing. My best mate Ella is a hair stylist, and for a while we’ve been doing weddings together. We’re trying to make a business out of it.” 

Harry nodded. “I’d imagine there are tons of weddings in London. Sounds like a solid idea.”

“Thanks,” she smiled at him. “We do alright. I’ll have to slow down the next few months of course. But after the baby comes, I plan to go back.” 

Harry knew that was true. What remained of Taylor’s active consciousness—the parts of her brain which weren’t devoted to running her organs and informing her when she needed to eat or use the toilet—was planning for her future. Harry had instructed her not to worry too much. When she got too stressed she started spotting, and that was bad for the baby… or so the doctor told her and Fred, who reported back to Harry, asking for some adjustments to the spell. They’d arranged for Harry to drop by one or two nights a week, to check-in an be sure everything was going alright. If Fred was her jailor, then Harry was the warden. 

A timer started beeping in the kitchen. Fred, who was still adjusting to muggle technology, started looking around for the source of the noise. 

Taylor laughed, opening the oven. She pulled out a heavenly-smelling meat pie. Her artistic hands had made a pattern of leaves on the crust going all along the rim of the pie. It was quite pretty, and smelled like heaven. 

She caught both wizards sniffing the air hopefully. Laughing at their faces, she waved her oven mitt over the pie, helping it cool… and wafting the smell closer to their waiting noses. 

“My mum’s recipe,” she told them. “Makes the house smell like beef for days, but I love it.” 

Fred got up on his knees, leaning over the back of the couch. He was smelling the pie. But he was also sneaking a look at Taylor’s butt as she leaned down again, closing the oven. 

“Harry darling, you should stay for dinner.” 

“I wouldn’t want to….” He wasn’t sure what exactly he was protesting. Maybe that he was an inconvenience. Or that they didn’t have an extra place at their dinner table. But they didn’t have a dinner table. By the looks of it they sat on the couch and ate watching tele. 

“Join us,” she insisted.

“Please,” said Fred. 

“I’ll pack some for you to take home. Can’t have you blokes starving, now, can I?” 

Harry gave in. It was just easier to say yes—which was how he’d landed in this situation in the first place.

 

 

 

 

He actually forgot. Sitting on the couch with Fred and Taylor, eating his second helping of pie while watching a singing competition on tele… he literally forgot that this was not normal. 

He didn’t have to think about controlling or regulating Taylor’s behavior through the Imperius Curse. He gave an instruction and she followed it thereafter without question. _Don’t tell anyone about magic. You and Fred are in a relationship. You’re having his baby, which was an accident, but you’re happy about it. Go about your day as normal. Get your rest. Quit smoking. Take your prenatal vitamins. You’re excited to meet Fred’s family tomorrow._  

They were meeting up with the Weasleys for brunch the next morning. Fred floated the idea of doing it at the Burrow, but with Mrs. Weasley still recovering, and Charlie in a wheelchair, he decided against the family home. It would be less stressful on their mum to meet at a restaurant instead. And that way Mr. and Mrs. Weasley wouldn’t have to buy or pay for anything. 

Harry offered to foot the bill, which mortified Fred at first, but after thinking it over he accepted going halfsies. The extended Weasley clan was getting pretty big; with Fleur’s sister Gabrielle visiting from France, plus Ron and Charlie bringing dates, there would be sixteen of them in all. They reserved a private dining room at a bistro. Tomorrow, Taylor would meet the Weasleys… and the family would learn about the little Weasley on the way. 

Fred had asked Harry and Draco to be the baby’s godfathers. The Potters would soon be godparents twice-over. A part of Harry looked forward to the experience—he’d dreamed of becoming a father, and helping to care for his friends’ kids was a step in that direction. Draco was flattered to be asked, even if the offer was more out of deference to his being Harry’s spouse than from familial affection. Technically, Draco and the Weasleys were fourth or fifth cousins if Harry remembered right. 

He and Draco hadn’t discussed the idea of children. Not yet. That was _long_ in the future to Harry. He wasn’t ready to be a dad at eighteen, nor did he expect Draco to be. James and Lily were twenty and twenty-one years old when Harry was born, meaning his mum was nineteen when she conceived him. Harry didn’t think he could be ready in a year’s time. Two years wasn’t enough, either. He and his parents had lead very different lives, after all. Harry wanted to wait. _At least five years,_ he thought. _Maybe ten. Maybe longer._ They actually had the luxury of time now. There was no gauntlet hanging over his head. With Voldemort gone, they could plan their lives, rather than doing everything out of fear or for survival. 

For the time being, Harry was happy just being together, figuring out how to be married. He and Draco were living under the same roof again, which felt amazing. They were enjoying life with their friends, supporting and celebrating them. Soon they’d be babysitting. For now, that was more than enough. 

Fred gestured at the singing contest on the TV screen, swallowing a mouthful of pie. He was on his second serving as well. 

“Really?” he moaned. “This chap’s awful! Where do they find these people, anyway? Off the street?” Muggle television was a relatively new concept to Fred, and he jumped in head first. The talent competitions were his favorite—wizards didn’t have anything like it as far as Harry knew. Hogwarts didn’t exactly put on an annual variety show like a normal school. 

“They have to show the baddies,” Taylor explained. “That way when someone good comes along, they sound better by comparison, and you get attached to their success. Show-business, luv.” She patted Fred’s knee, comforting him as the bloke on the tele continued his pop song. 

Fred groaned again when the bloke hit a sour note. 

Harry still didn’t know much about music or singing: he did find that his appreciation had heightened. Like Draco, he now flinched when something was off-key or off-tempo. It was a gut reaction he hadn’t had prior to dying in Slytherin Commons. Draco lamented it as “the curse of perfect pitch.” Which it would appear Harry had inherited from Draco, by way of _Se Impetro Munus_. 

They suspected the effects went both ways. Only time would tell how much they’d gained from one another. 

Draco hadn’t sung or played a single note for him since they left Hogwarts. Sometimes Harry missed the sound of Draco’s voice, singing or not. He wanted to know what Draco was thinking, feeling, and music was the way his husband expressed himself most easily.

Fred put his fork down; apparently the less-than-perfect singing was causing him to lose his appetite. “Harry’s husband is a better singer than anyone on this bloody show,” he declared to Taylor before looking past her to Harry. “You should take him to one of those auditions so they can hear someone with real talent.” 

Harry bit his lip. He tried to smile but… there was no way that would happen. Draco _was_ an amazing musician. He was almost supernaturally gifted. He loved music. Draco was also competitive as hell, and a show-off to the highest degree. He might actually do quite well in a musical contest; it played to his strengths, after all. 

The problem wasn’t Draco’s singing. It was the attention he would invariably attract.

What remained of the Death Eaters were still being rooted out by various Ministries around the world. Key players had survived the battle at Hogwarts—Philippe Didier among them, a fact which certainly kept the Potters up at night. Small factions were rallying around flash-cotton tyrants, each claiming to be Voldemort’s heir. Aurors played a game of international Whack-A-Mole, trying to keep their movements in check as splinter groups rose and fell with the sun. Harry still believed that Draco showing up in the media—any media—would garner the kind of attention that would get him death threats, if not another attempt on his life.

Even without the remaining Death Eaters… Harry didn’t think Draco was ready to appear in the public eye. There would be pressure on him, and an immeasurable stress; part of which came from his marriage to Harry. Their affiliation would forever make Draco a target. 

For now, Harry wanted to keep their lives simple. A double date with Ron and Hermione. Brunch with the Weasleys. Simple things. He wanted Draco to have all the time he needed to figure out what it was he wanted, to decide what the next phase of his life would be—without outside pressures weighing him down. Draco had a lot to consider, now that he was going through life as a Potter, no longer a Malfoy. Theirs were going to be long lives, and happy. Harry wanted that more than anything.

Taylor turned down the volume on the show, turning to Harry, excited. “Your husband’s a singer?” 

“Um…” Harry pushed his hair out of his eyes. It was getting long; he should ask Draco to cut it for him. “Draco’s a musician. He just started singing recently. He’s not very confident yet, but I think he’ll get there.” 

“Draco’s bloody good,” Fred argued. “Hands down, best singer I’ve ever heard. He sounds better live than most people can manage on an album.” He raised his eyebrows sternly at Harry, like he was daft if he didn’t agree. “The guy’s gonna be a rock star.” 

Harry faked another smile. 

He didn’t know if being an artist was something Draco wanted. Probably because Draco didn’t know what the fuck he wanted, either. Harry wasn’t about to lean on him to make any big choices. His friends were allowed to have their opinions. Even a part of Harry agreed that Draco was captivating and so talented—he _would_ do well as a singer. But he didn’t have to be one. Draco didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to. Harry would never force him. 

Draco didn’t have to have a career unless there was something which interested him. Harry was more than happy being the sole earner in the family. Draco could pursue music if he wanted to, and Harry would support him in that endeavor, too. But lately, Draco didn’t seem to care much for music. 

“Thanks, Fred. I’ll be sure to pass on the compliment.” 

“He’ll be there tomorrow, right?” confirmed Taylor. Harry nodded; yes, Draco planned to come. He was the baby’s godfather, after all. “Good. I wanna meet the chap who took you off the market,” she teased. 

Harry realized she was calling him cute. He didn’t feel like that much of a catch. Comments about his appearance—even compliments—still made him uncomfortable. 

“Done,” he nodded, rising. “I should be getting home. Thanks for dinner, it was lovely. I’ll see you both tomorrow.” 

They said their goodbyes, Taylor preparing a container with some meat pie to bring home to Draco with her best. 

Harry left like a muggle—through the hallway, down two flights of stairs, and back out into the street. 

Fred didn’t want to arouse suspicion from the neighbors, and the property management company had installed several security cameras in the hall for the safety of the residents. Harry had noted the cameras when he helped them move in, mentally marking their locations and field of recording… just in case. 

He was too good at vigilance. Paranoia, too. 

The cameras captured him going into the flat. So they needed to record his leaving, too. 

Once Harry explained the technology to Fred—in hushed tones, while huddled in the bathroom out of Taylor’s earshot, pretending to show off the bathtub—he agreed that coming and going in non-magical fashion would be best practice moving forward. It wouldn’t do if Fred’s visitors never seemed to leave his flat, or disappeared from security footage. 

Fred never claimed to be a skilled Obliviator. It was better not to risk exposure. The last thing they needed was some Ministry shill showing up at the flat claiming Fred had broken the International Statute of Secrecy. 

Fred’s place was in the heart of Soho, a popular part of London dominated by trendy restaurants, bars, and clubs. People swarmed the night streets—drunk, or wanting to be, moving in packs of mates or pairs of giggling couples. There were three different gay bars visible from the street corner. Harry recognized them by the rainbow flags flying above their doors, lit by swirling lights. 

Standing on the corner, Harry endured more than a few sets of eyes raking over him. It was a sense he’d picked up from quidditch, knowing in his bones when someone was looking at him without having to meet the person’s eyes. The skill served him well as a fighter, allowing him to mislead opponents. It also made his skin crawl—in public especially, clubs and pubs, places where people gathered wanting to get laid. 

He could feel a pulsing of the people around him; flushing skin, guiding gazes, setting nerves alight. A year ago he’d been almost immune to sexual energy. Now it buzzed around him; like magic crackling in the air, he could practically hear it. 

He’d learned perhaps too well to read sexual desire. He’d had to drag it out of Draco kicking and screaming. That honed his craft. It wasn’t quite Legilimency—mostly because he couldn’t control it, couldn’t shut his sense off. He wasn’t a machine with an off switch.

So many people moving every-which-way. Unpredictable noise. A flash of headlights . Laughter, high heels against the pavement. 

Harry took a deep, steadying breath. He found himself doing that a lot lately. He had to listen to the air leaving his lungs, pressing it out. He’d learned the breathing technique from martial arts, a method by which he could never become winded even when struck in the stomach. It reminded him that no matter what happened, he had a choice in how he reacted to it. Even if his action was to stay still and breathe. 

It was fifteen minutes north to Regent’s Park by bus, or half an hour if he walked. He decided on the bus—he wanted to be home, with Draco. They had a lot to talk about, and he didn’t know where to start. But going home was the first step, and that was an action he wanted to take.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Eleven year old Harry Potter had been jealous of the Weasleys. He met them trying to find his way onto Platform 9 ¾. Mrs. Weasley had escorted her children through King’s Cross Station, speaking loudly about the hidden platform, Hogwarts, and the Hogwarts Express. She’d practically announced them as magical to anyone who’d cared to listen. 

Adult Harry realized that Molly had done so to keep her children calm, to give them confidence in the muggle world which they visited so infrequently—mostly due to financial constraints. Mrs. Weasley was bolstering morale. She lifted her children’s spirits, telling them by her own actions that there was no reason to be afraid. And perhaps she’d even spotted young Harry looking confused and meant to help him, including him in the ranks of her children—giving him comfort and a sense of belonging, even in something so simple as getting onto the magical platform to catch the train. 

The Weasleys had something which Harry never knew before. They had each other. 

Seeing them together—hugging, laughing, even poking fun at each other—tugged at an old and deep wound in Harry’s chest. It was hard to accept that he was one of them. Every time the family got together, Harry found himself psychologically sidelined; his heart turning inevitably to his parents who would never be there, Sirius who was taken from him too soon, and everyone else he’d lost. He didn’t want them to be replaced. There was no substitute. It was hard to accept the new love in his life even as it engulfed him in the warmest embrace.

Harry reached for Draco’s hand… knowing he felt it too. Draco wasn’t ready to lose his mum. He didn’t feel ready to be a godfather, either. He didn’t know how to be part of a family like the Weasleys—people who genuinely and unconditionally cared for one another. People who could forgive him for the bad choices of his past, who saw he was trying to remake himself.

Walking into that bistro dining room, to a crowd of mostly red hair and freckles, everyone talking and smiling, having a pleasant morning… it was surreal for both of them. They felt the odd men out. Neither were sure they belonged. 

Viktor Krum, who’d been sitting with Charlie, jumped up when he saw them. Viktor wrapped one arm around Draco, his other seizing Harry by the upper arm, pulling the Potters close. Viktor shook him a bit. 

“Harry! Zhis has got to stop,” he teased. “Zoon you vill be taller zhan me.” 

Draco looked between the two of them, assessing. Harry slouched slightly. It made him uncomfortable when others commented about his appearance; his discomfort was only evident in the low angle of his shoulders, and a slight concave shape to his chest. If Harry stood up straight and squared his new frame, it would be more obvious that he was already the same height as Viktor. Draco worried his husband was still growing. 

Harry smiled and politely changed the subject. “How are you?” 

He sounded so genuine. Harry did care about other people; sometimes that became a crutch. Harry dumped all of his energy into other people so that there was none left to spare for himself. 

“Good,” Viktor nodded. 

Draco asked, “How’s Charlie?” 

Viktor glanced over his shoulder, to his boyfriend still confined to a wheelchair. Charlie seemed as though he was adjusting. He couldn’t return to dragon taming without the use of his legs. At least for now, he was laughing boisterously with George and Angelina Johnson. Draco could tell Fred and George apart only because the pair wore sarcastic muggle-style tshirts with their names written on them. If they went to the W.C. and switched their tops, Draco would be screwed.

Viktor squeezed both Potters to his chest. “Ve have zhe best doktors in Bulgaria,” Viktor confided. “Ve talk of surgery. In a year, perhaps two, Charlie could be valking.” 

Harry’s smile shifted, becoming real. Green eyes lit, warming. He understood Charlie and Viktor were living together. 

“That’s brilliant,” Harry offered. 

“Yes it is.” Viktor released them, taking a step back. “I vos getting a coffee for Charlie. Harry, Draco?” He offered to fetch them a drink from the self-serve at one end of the room. 

Both shook their heads, declining politely. 

Harry was up early that morning. Most days he woke not long after sunrise and went for a run. He started a pot of coffee when he came home, so that Draco woke to the smell of roasted beans and the sound of his husband singing in the shower—or tromping naked and damp through their bedroom, hunting for clothes that fit. 

More coffee wasn’t necessary. 

Harry wore his only pair of functional denims, along with a plain grey tshirt. Draco could remember when that shirt had been loose on him. Now Harry’s pectorals and arms were tightly encased, showing off how well he’d developed in the last year. When Harry raised his arm to clap Viktor on the back—yes, the flexing of his lats had actually put a tiny hole in the shirt’s side seam, just below his armpit. The bigger he got, the more it would rip. 

Harry desperately needed new clothes. 

Draco borrowed a black athletic shirt. The material was breathable, with long sleeves to hide his Dark Mark. It made him especially uncomfortable to have the Mark visible in magical public. He needed more things with sleeves. 

As Viktor stepped aside, Ginny Weasley took his place.

Harry pressed his glasses up the bridge of his nose—giving himself a second. 

“Hey, Gin.” His tone was classic Harry: mostly clueless, a dash of sheepishness, and all unconscious charm. 

She walked into his open arms, wrapping hers around his waist. Like Draco, the top of her head tucked comfortably under his chin. Harry looked down at her, stroking her long hair against her back, the fresh copper strands familiar under his fingers. 

“You’re so tall…” she mumbled against his chest. “It’s weird.” 

“I know.” 

Ginny peeled herself away from Harry, transferring immediately and without hesitation to Draco. If possible, Harry was more surprised than the ex-Death Eater himself. Her arms curled around Draco’s neck, holding him tight. Draco’s eyes closed, his head pressed to Ginny’s—they were roughly the same size—as he readily allowed her in. 

Neither said a word. 

Something had shifted. Ginny and Draco weren’t exactly friends but… that embrace… it meant something.

Harry reserved judgment. He had to silence a spluttering little voice in the back of his head, spitting questions, wanting to know what was up, what had changed. He forced himself to take a deep breath. He looked around the room, smiling at people, waving to Ron and Hermione that he would come sit with them in a minute. 

If his options were Draco and Gin hating each other, or his husband and his ex finding enough common ground to get along, he would take the second option every time.  

 

 

 

 

Fred didn’t wait long to make his announcement. As soon as everyone had arrived, he positioned himself and Taylor at the head of the table, raising his arm for attention. 

“Well you’ve all met Taylor,” he slipped his free arm around her. “Before we eat I just have one more thing to say.” 

Fred looked down at her. He was beaming. She pressed against his side, smiling back just as bright, taking his hand when he offered it. Fred nodded, letting her break the news. 

“We’re having a baby!” 

Mrs. Weasley shouted—a delighted, happy sound—and jumped up, pulling Fred and Taylor into her arms. Bill and Fleur held hands; it had to be hard on them, knowing Fleur wouldn’t be able to have kids. Ginny put an arm around Fleur, rubbing her back. With a big smile on her face, Fleur blinked rapidly before getting up, insisting she be the next to congratulate the happy couple. 

“Harry and Draco are the godfathers,” Taylor explained. 

Fred chuckled. “No offense, George.” 

George waved his twin off. “None taken. I want nothing to do with nappies and midnight feedings. Have fun, boys!” He lifted his cup of tea to the Potters, cheersing them, then repeated the same gesture to Fred and Taylor. 

Hermione scooted in her seat, moving closer to Harry. “Do you know anything about babies?” she inquired of him.

“Nope.”

Her expression darkened. “Have you ever held one before?” 

“Nope,” Harry repeated. Now he was just egging her on. Draco waited for the inevitable punch line. “Why don’t you send me whatever books I should read once you’re done with them.” And there it was. Ron laughed. Draco kept quiet. He would need those books, too. 

“I…” Hermione stumbled. She couldn’t find fault with that. So instead she nodded. “I’ll owl—mail them to you.” She caught herself just in time. 

“Perfect,” Harry nodded, the matter settled. “Thanks, ‘Mione.” 

Excited chatter continued around them. 

Draco was seated between Harry and Angelina. He didn’t know much about her, other than she’d played Chaser for Gryffindor and was apparently dating George. She caught his attention, asking, “Looking forward to being a godfather?” 

“Yes,” Draco lied brightly. “Absolutely.” 

He was fucking terrified. He couldn’t remember being in the same room as a baby, let alone being expected to care for one. He came from a very different background than Harry or the Weasleys, which became apparent on days like today. 

In his world, a birth announcement might have been made quietly by owl to family and close friends, and only at the end of the first trimester, when the mother would start to show her condition and secrecy was no longer an option. Gifts would be purchased and sent to the family home. A nanny and any additional staff would be interviewed and hired prior to the birth. There would be no party, no gathering of family to celebrate like this. 

Magical people experienced a higher rate of miscarriage than muggles for unknown reasons, so their customs evolved to spare the family should the child not survive. The birth rate was better now, more consistent as medical technology advanced, but wizarding gestation remained more dangerous than the muggle version. Draco wondered if anybody had bothered to warn Taylor. 

The muggle girl looked so… happy. She was smiling from ear to ear, freely hugging everyone, chattering away. She was thinking of names—most of which Draco found atrocious or ghastly. Mason? Was his godson supposed to be a builder? It wasn’t Draco’s place to say anything about the naming of a child who wasn’t his; though he expected Fred would intervene privately, suggesting family names. _Septimus. Lancelot. Gideon._ They had good options there. 

Draco always figured that whatever wife was foist upon him would conspire with his mother to name their offspring. He hadn’t imagined having much choice in the matter. His duty was to sire; fucking, one of the few activities he excelled in. He never anticipated much involvement with his offspring beyond conceiving them. And that was more or less the opposite of the Weasleys views on lineage. Draco felt like an alien, like a man sitting in a foreign country, marveling at how those on the other side of the world lived. 

Draco wouldn’t be studding. Not now. Not married to a man—the most famous man in the entire wizarding world. 

“What about ‘Harry’?” Molly Weasley suggested as a possible name for the baby. 

“Oh please,” the real Harry interrupted, shaking his head vehemently. “Don’t.” 

“Mum,” Ginny chastised. “ _Everyone_ is gonna name their kid after Harry. In twelve years, half the firsties on the train to school will be called Harry.” She did a good job of not saying ‘Hogwarts’ whilst clearly talking about Hogwarts. 

“Or Harriet!” laughed George.

Harry groaned audibly, smacking his head on the table. Apparently he hadn’t thought of that. Hundreds of babies being named in his honor left Harry feeling mortified.

Hermione put a hand on Harry’s shoulder, meaning to comfort him. She didn’t choose the best topic to lift his spirits. “I’ve always meant to ask. Any idea why your mother chose _Harry_ and not Harold or Henry?” 

Draco wondered as well. Muggles sometimes gave their children diminutives as legal names. It was uncommon amongst magical people, who often favored complex or ancient names. One was unlikely to bump into another wizard called Harry prior to The Boy Who Lived. A wizard might be called Harold, Henry, Harland, Harrison, Hargrove, or even Harvey. Henrik was quite a popular name amongst wizards in Scandinavian countries. All of those might be shortened to Harry as a nickname, but wouldn’t be the chap’s legal name. 

The question of Lily and James’ motives only served to make Harry more depressed. With his forehead still on the table, he shrugged, announcing in a monotone that he had no idea why. 

“Repeating names can be confuzing,” Viktor said from across the table. “In my family ve have Boris, two Barys’, and a Borislav. Hard to know who anyvone is talking about ven half zhe men are called Boris.” 

“And naming traditions can become ex’austing over time,” commented Fleur. 

Bill nodded. “Like the Blacks. Eventually you run out of constellations, right?” he glanced down the table at the Potters. 

Draco conceded. “I will admit: Puppis and Fornax are odd names, even for a Black” and by Black, he meant wizard, successfully disguising his language. “I was told, if I’d had a brother, he would have been called Corvus, which I find rather striking. There are eighty-eight major constellations, but less than half of those are useable as names. We rather backed ourselves into a corner with that.” 

All things considered, Draco was lucky not to have been called _Coma Berenices_. Or worse, _Telescopium_. _Leo_ wasn’t so bad, though it didn’t suit him. A repeat of _Orion_ or _Cignus_ he could have lived with. Most of his life he’d aligned and defined himself by his surname more than his first name. The Malfoy name hadn’t been said to his face in a while, and he was getting used to that. 

“Naming traditions are tricky,” concluded Charlie. 

Their waitress was coming round, taking food and drink orders. Everyone was careful to keep their conversation especially innocuous with multiple muggles in the room. Their chatter about names continued as everyone hastily looked over the menu. 

Arthur Weasley said to Harry, “I believe in your mother’s family, the women were named after flowers?” 

Harry picked his head up, nodding. “Yeah. Lily and Petunia.” Both were dead, which depressed him. Family was always a rough subject for Harry. He tried to put on a good face. The Weasleys meant well—they were thinking of baby names on a Saturday afternoon, which was a cheerful thing to do. This was a celebratory act. Draco knew Harry was trying to see it that way despite the awful memories it inevitably dredged up for him. 

“Don’t you think flower names can get… I dunno… dismissive of women’s authority?” posed Angelina. “Would you really feel comfortable if you were about to have an operation and your doctor walked in, introducing herself as Daisy? As a woman, I would want my daughter to have a stronger name, to help in her career, and to give her confidence.” 

“I think there are authoritative flower names, too,” argued Hermione. “Lily. Rose. Iris. Jasmine.”

“Poppy.” Added Ginny. Poppy Pomfrey sprang to everyone’s minds, and she was the definition of a respected woman. 

Bill thought of a few names. “Holly. Violet.” 

“Amaryllis,” Mrs. Weasley chimed in. 

Fleur kept the list going. “Dahlia. Azalea.”

“Delphinia,” Harry suggested. 

“Oh, I like zhat one!” cooed Gabrielle. 

“Pretty _and_ assertive,” agreed Fleur. 

“Delphinia is a lovely name,” Mrs. Weasley approved. 

Draco licked his lips, his brow furrowed. “I… I like it too.”

Hermione smiled conspiratorially at Draco and Harry. “You two should keep that one.” 

Confused, Harry looked at Draco. He hadn’t paid much attention in Astronomy and hadn’t caught Hermione’s reference. 

“Delphinia,” Draco repeated. It was a perfect name. “A flower name which also sounds like the constellation Delphinus.” 

Harry had coincidentally landed on a name which combined the traditions of both their families. 

The rest of the group kept going, thinking of women’s floral names which weren’t diminutive or childish. 

Harry wasn’t listening. He was looking at Draco—wishing he wasn’t half so skilled at Legilimency, wishing Draco would practice some fucking Occlumency now and then, wishing the barrier between their minds was a bit thicker. 

Behind his stone cold veneer, Draco was freaking out. He wasn’t accustomed to light banter questioning his culture and traditions. He wasn’t used to casual family gatherings, or good news, or thinking about baby names. He didn’t know how to do it. Harry felt the same way—adrift, wound tight, unable to appreciate a moment of happiness while waiting for the other shoe to drop. If a squad of Death Eaters burst through the door right now, they’d both be better prepared. At least they’d know what to do: Harry would draw his wand, pushing Draco behind him, shielding him; and Draco would poke his head around Harry’s side, looking for an opening to help. 

They didn’t know how to deal with finding a name for their imaginary future daughter. This was a good thing, and they didn’t do “good.” They did _near death_ , _unorthodox_ , and _offensive_. That was their territory. Draco couldn’t reconcile the person he was with whatever the Weasleys saw in him. They saw a future he couldn’t—a time where he and Harry might be needing baby names. Because Draco was involved now. He couldn’t get by with absenteeism, bystander-ism. He couldn’t be devoid of human connection, the way his father had trained him. That wouldn’t do. 

They were staring at each other. Not speaking. Not blinking. They read one another’s minds like open books, scanning the pages, arriving at the same conclusion. 

They each had their strengths. This vein of conversation—talking about their future like any other normal couple might—did not play into either of their skill sets. Draco would cut off a finger for a change in subject. A part of Harry wanted to climb under the table and hide. Neither of those options were feasible. 

Draco’s hand touched Harry’s leg under cover of the table. His fingers had the slightest micro-tremor, a nervous reaction. Harry put his hand over Draco’s. Which was stupid—as it intensified their connection, giving him a full-blown dose of the alarm bells going off in his husband’s blond head. But he wanted to hold Draco’s fucking hand. He wanted to feel the scratch of the broken stone he wore on his finger. He needed to feel Draco, there with him. 

 _What about Narcissus?_ Harry asked in his mind. _Name a kid after your mum?_  

 _No fucking way, Scar Head_ , was Draco’s sharp retort.

_What about Sirius?_

Draco considered. _Maybe as a middle name._  

 _See? We can do this_ , Harry thought, more for his own edification than for Draco. _The more we do this, the less weird it will feel._  

 _Do what?_  

Harry squeezed his hand. _Be happy. Turns out we’re really bad at it. We should practice._

“Are there any flower names for boys?” Taylor asked. 

That stumped the group. Harry and Draco rejoined the conversation, trying to think of male names based in words for flowers. Harry thought Draco ought to be able to think of one, being better at Potions and speaking multiple languages. 

Viktor was the first to think of one. “Cypress.” 

“Sorrel,” said Draco. “Or Jarred—it means ‘rose’ in Hebrew.” 

“Aster,” offered Harry.

Taylor raised her eyebrows at Fred. “Those are all good boys names,” she said. 

Harry couldn’t complain. So long as his nephew wasn’t saddled with a moniker that would get his ass kicked on the playground, Harry wouldn’t say a word about whatever name Taylor and Fred picked. Their kid, their rules. He was just there for moral support… and last minute babysitting. He seriously hoped Hermione sent books. 

“Um,” Harry turned to Draco, speaking out loud rather than picking his husband’s brain in front of everyone. “What do you think of floral names?” 

“I’m not overly fond of them,” Draco admitted. “Generally speaking.” Which meant he was okay with Delphinia for a girl, but they might not be naming their imaginary future son after a flower, too. 

“Draco, didn’t you used to date Pansy Parkinson?” Ron pointed out. 

Harry signaled the waitress. He lifted his arm, saying loudly, “Could I get a beer?” 

Draco raised an eyebrow, drawling, “ _Date_ is a strong word.” He then held up two fingers, indicating to the waitress that he would be needing a drink as well.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry tapped a stiff rectangular business card against the kitchen table. He spun it with his fingertips, smacking a different edge against the table each time. His fidgeting fingers weren’t helping him think. 

He didn’t know how to fix this mess. 

Years ago he would’ve gone to Ron and Hermione with his problems. A part of him still wanted to. They were getting on better now. Ron was joining the Aurors Department—they had a training class in the fall, giving him the summer free. He helped Fred and George at the joke shop a few days every week. Hermione’s family was leaving for a short holiday visiting friends in Ireland. When she got back there would be offers from multiple Ministry Departments waiting for her—Harry was sure of that. Hermione wanted to do something in Muggle Relations, to improve understanding and cooperation between their peoples. Harry understood why she would feel the need to bridge that gap between her two cultures. He felt it, too. There was a rift between the magical and muggle worlds. He experienced it on a daily basis. 

He needed some perspective. More than Ron or Hermione could give. He needed someone with experience—being married, being in a war, dealing with what came after. 

It seemed everyone else knew what came next. Everyone around him seemed to know something he didn’t. His friends were getting jobs, getting their first flats, getting married, announcing babies! 

Meanwhile, he and Draco were... he didn’t know what they were. 

His whole life he’d had some authority or force hanging over him, guiding his actions. The goal of his childhood had been clear: survive Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia. Get out alive. He accomplished that by going to Hogwarts. His next objective materialized: fight and defeat Voldemort. He’d done that. 

Now what? 

Did he need Dumbledore’s ghost to pop out of the pantry to give him his next mission? He ought to be able to figure himself out, to know what he wanted and make it happen. He’d spent the last year training as a soldier, a man of action; as such, the only situation which worried him was one in which he had no course of agency. 

Faced with almost infinite options, Harry found his new freedom a tad overwhelming. Everyone around him seemed to have a clear vision for themselves… and a vision for him, too. Even the people who loved him offered their opinions into the void of his current meandering, mission-less life. They thought they were being helpful or motivating, but all it did was cloud his already unclear vision. Harry wanted to forge his own path… the trouble was, he had no idea what his path looked like, or where is should lead. There was no blueprint to follow, no one to model himself after, no antithesis to steer him away from what was unlike him. He was an adult for the first time—quite literally a grown man—and he had no idea what to do next. 

He was getting into trouble, feeling less and less like himself, because he didn’t know where he was going. His flying blind wasn’t helping anyone. In fact, it was starting to get people hurt. 

 _He_ was hurting people. That had to stop. 

Harry’s elbows made a heavy _thunk_ , connecting with the worn kitchen table. He drove his fingers into his wild hair. Pulling his hair reminded him of Draco: it also helped him focus his mind, helped him think. 

He wanted to improve his relationship with Draco. He wanted to learn how to be married in body and soul. He wanted to become a more effective communicator. He wanted to do something about the sad state of his wizarding government. He wanted to be a better friend. He wanted his family to keep expanding, to be there for the people he loved and be able to support them in whatever they needed. 

As hard as he tried, Harry wasn’t very good at any of the things he truly wanted. He’d built a totally incongruous skill set over the last seven years, one which no longer aligned with his goals. Harry knew how to kill people. He knew how to keep his head on in a crisis. He got real good at bottling his feelings for later. He could shoot a rifle or cast a disarming spell. He had no idea how to live. Calm, little things fled from him. His own thoughts and actions, and the situations which he created, were beginning to repulse him. 

Harry didn’t like the wizard he was turning into. He could barely make Draco laugh anymore. 

He had to fix this. 

His mind made up, Harry snatched his cell phone. He dialed the number on the business card.

 

 

 


	3. World of Hurt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Step One of being a grown-up is admitting that you fucked up. The rest of your life is learning how to fix it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** catharsis, language

 

_“To love is to feel pain,” there ain't no way around it_

_The very nature of love is to grieve when it’s over_

_The secret to a happy ending is knowing when to roll the credits_

_Better roll ‘em now before something else goes wrong_

_Know that it's a wonderful world, if you can put aside the sadness_

_And hang on to every ounce of beauty upon you_

_Better take the time to know it, if you feel anything at all_

_So if what you have is working for you, or you think it might stand a reasonable chance_

_and whatever's broken seems fixable and nothing’s beyond repair_

_If you still think about each other and smile before you remember how screwed up it’s gotten_

_or maybe still dream of a time less rotten_

_Remember, it ain’t too late to take a deep breath_

_and throw yourself into it with everything you’ve got_

 

 

“[World of Hurt](https://youtu.be/KHSYRgwlnOc)”

Drive By Truckers

 

 _This is Hell_ , Harry thought. _I have Apparated to Hell_.

The air stunk like sulfur. It was swampy, and oppressively hot—physically heavy against his skin. In an instant, his tshirt was glued to his chest and back beneath his leather jacket. His entire body was sweating, down to his feet, wet in his shoes. 

It wasn’t hell. It was Savannah, Georgia: in the southern United States, in early June. 

He used the Public Apparition Point in the muggle airport. Walking through the terminal, he’d only raised a few eyebrows for traveling without so much as an overnight bag or a briefcase. America was so vast that he was unlikely to encounter a single or witch or wizard in the entire building. 

He was here on a recommendation from his colleague, Kitarou Hitori. The Japanese-American Obliviator had gone through a rough patch several years ago, having lost his wife. Hitori swore to anyone who would listen that it was his “holy trinity” keeping him level: martial arts, Prozac, and his psychiatrist. 

After the war—after a lifetime of choking down his feelings, burying his issues in the back yard of his psyche like a dog with a bone—Harry was finally ready to talk. His mind was long-overdue for some heavy examination. 

He wanted a trained professional, because he was reasonably sure he had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—if not from fighting Voldemort for the last seven years, then certainly stemming from the Dursleys gross mistreatment of him as a kid. He also wanted someone who at the very least _knew_ about the magical world—because it would be too complicated to lie about his situation, and lying would make it a lot harder to really get help and get better. He reasoned that there had to be someone out there who fit the bill; the relative of a muggle-born, perhaps, with a mental health certification, who could work with him. 

Hitori’s shrink was a military widow, and a Squib. It was this unique combination of Dr. Beasley’s credentials and magical background which brought Harry to stinking-hot Savannah this sunny afternoon. 

Harry peeled off his jacket, fanning his chest with his tshirt as he walked a few meters to the rental car park. He got into his hired car, a nondescript sedan, and began his drive to the doctor’s office using Hitori’s excellent directions. 

Blessedly cold air conditioning washed over him, unpeeling his back from the driver’s seat. Draco referred to AC as muggle magic, and insisted it should be added to Grimmauld Place as soon as possible. Harry couldn’t agree more. 

Once his body was sufficiently cooled, Harry realized that the area was in fact very beautiful. The sunlight was clear, reflecting off of a pale blue ocean as he drove through the sea-side downtown. Outside the city, willow branches swayed in the breeze like a woman drying her long hair in the sun. Some type of creeping vine grew on nearly every tree, sort of dripping like pale green snow even in the heat. The back-roads were covered by a deep green canopy overhead, blocking out the sun, dappling the grey asphalt as he drove along. 

A sticker on the map he purchased warned him not to touch the Spanish Moss, as a kind of bug called a “chigger” lived in the plant, and would get in his clothes, bite him, and infest wherever he was sleeping that night. Draco certainly wouldn’t thank him for bringing foreign pests home. 

Draco… didn’t exactly know where Harry was—or rather, what he intended to do. Draco had no idea Harry was about to see a therapist. Harry wasn’t entirely sure how to broach the topic… which was another good reason to get his ass into therapy. 

Dr. Beasley’s office was right on the coastline; thirty minutes outside of the capitol in a posh suburb surrounding a golf course, the building itself next to an elegant seafood restaurant with an unobstructed view of the marshlands leading out into the ocean. 

Harry parked in a municipal car park across the street, his jacket flung over his shoulder. He stood on the shore a moment, breathing in the beach. Shallow waters lapped against the rocks and sand. Gulls cried. The sun was warm, luxurious against his skin. The air smelled like salt and something deep fried—he blamed the ocean, and the adjacent restaurant’s seafood special on the lunch menu. 

He wasn’t even tempted to have a cigarette. The air was too pure. The sound of the waves in his ears was enough to calm his nerves.

It was a peaceful place. He liked already that the office windows faced the ocean; it would give him something relaxing to look at as he dumped all of his very fucked up problems on an unsuspecting psychologist. 

The interior of the office was dark wood and sea-glass green paint. Plants hung in baskets from the ceiling. Bob Marley played on the speakers. The receptionist was a young black man with a drawling southern accent. He started, Harry’s own British clip sounding especially foreign against his syrupy syllables. 

“Dr. Beasley’s almost ready, sir.” 

“Cheers.” 

Harry sat and resisted the urge to start twitching.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Akilah Beasley was a tall, amber-skinned African American woman, equal to Harry’s new height of five feet and ten inches. He was still getting used to seeing the world from this angle. Some mornings he got out of bed and cleaned his glasses, thinking there was something wrong with his depth perception. There was a lot to get used to, and like most of his major problems, it was all in his head. 

She insisted he call her Akilah. Her natural afro made a fluffy eight inch halo around her head, reminding Harry of the saints in Nebojsa’s Orthodox iconography. They always had oblong golden circles hanging around their heads. Unlike the saints, Akilah’s face was not in pain, though she did look serene. Harry recognized a quality like Albus Dumbledore, a person accustomed to listening to a great many problems, able to refrain from taking action despite the chaos their ears might be subjected to. It was a quality he was sorely lacking. As a soldier Harry always took action. His reactions were his power. 

Dr. Beasley’s private office had windows spanning three of the four walls, looking out at the marsh. Part of the building was on pylons, constructed on the shore and jutting out over the gentle waves. It was almost like being on a boat. The blue-green water surrounded them, sunshine streaming through the windows. 

Akilah didn’t have a pen or paper, or a muggle recording device. Her brown eyes fixed on him, her hands folded in her lap, echoing Harry’s own hands clasped together between his knees as he sat leaning forward from the edge of his chair. 

Even in a pensive posture, Harry was alert. He felt the tightness throughout his body, ready to spring to his feet at the first sign of danger. His bare arms showed a network of active muscles, flexing beneath his skin. _Draco_ was inked against the inside of his left forearm in coiling Fraktur script. His husband’s name. The reason he was doing this. For Draco. 

Akilah was observing him—his posture, his many scars, his quiet unease, his eyes shifting around the room. 

“How’s about you debrief me?” she offered. She had a low voice, with a dark rasp that spoke of a few cigarettes and some heartbreak before she got wise to her own gut. 

Her words snapped Harry right out of the funk he stewed in. “Wha—sorry?” he sat up straight. 

The corner of her wide mouth turned up. “Most of my patients are military, coming off a mission or deployment. That might not be where it all started, but it’s probably where your head’s at. So we can start with your last combat and work back if we need to.” 

Harry let out the air he’d trapped in his lungs. It took a few seconds to let it all go—to strip back the layers of protection he built up around his thoughts, his true feelings, so that he could go about his day without bursting into a fit of rage and punching a hole through the nearest wall. 

Akilah was here to help him. He had to let his guard down for her to do her job. 

He started talking. “I’ve been on the same mission for seventeen years. I was supposed to avenge my parents. James, my father—he died protecting my mother, Lily. And she died protecting me. I didn’t know that for years. I was told they died in a car wreck. But they were murdered. Their killer’s name was Tom Marvolo Riddle. Most people don’t know that—Voldemort’s real name. I spent years learning everything I could about him. I knew I was going to have to face him. Mostly because he kept trying to kill me first. 

“There was a prophecy about it. I don’t put much store in prophecies; I think they cause more confusion than anything else. But this one said, _neither can live while the other survives_ , which seemed clear enough. According to the prophecy, a child would be _marked as his equal_. Most people think that means my scar.” He wiped his hair away from his forehead, showing the infamous lightning bolt shape on his forehead. “The prophecy said one of us had to die. Specifically, _at_ _the hand of the other_. And that’s where it gets tricky. Because everyone who knew about the prophecy assumed that meant I would be able to kill him when the time came. Even Voldemort thought I could do it. He kept trying to bump me off: and every time, barely, I survived. Up until maybe three seconds before I died, I was as certain as everyone else that killing Voldemort was my destiny. And then…” 

Harry tipped forward again, folding his hands together, leaning on his knees. He spoke the truth to his own feet. “Everyone was wrong. Because some deity or fate thinks it’s hilarious to trap important information inside a fucking riddle, and laughs while we try to figure it out and get ourselves killed.”

He tapped a finger against his scar. “It wasn’t me who was marked to kill him. I marked my husband, Draco. The person I love most in the entire universe. I marked him as _my_ equal. I gave him my ring, my heart, my life. My magic gave him this same scar—on his lip. I kissed him, because I knew I was dying, and I wanted him to know how much he’d changed my life… how much I loved him. I passed onto him a magic that we still don’t completely understand. Because he is my hand, ever at my side,” Harry quoted the ancient pureblood wedding vows. “Draco took down Voldemort. Not me.” Harry rolled his eyes. “Voldemort died _at my hand_. A play on words which is not even remotely funny, if you ask me. 

“I scarred my husband for life. Literally. Physically scarred, and emotionally. Draco is a survivor. And I’m one of the disasters he’s lived through. 

“So I guess I’m here to unpack my shit. There’s a lot to sort through, and up until now I haven’t had the time. It might’ve started with my muggle aunt and uncle who raised me—the Dursleys—the ones who lied to me about my parents and acted like my having magic was a curse. 

“There’s my uncle, Vernon, who beat me as a kid and encouraged my cousin Dudley to do the same. My mum’s sister, Petunia, who routinely locked me in a cupboard and starved me for weeks—which I survived, because hey, I’m a wizard! A handy fact I didn’t have at the time, making it frightening for a seven year old kid who hasn’t eaten or shit in twenty days and thinks _this has gotta be the end_ … but no, I went on living. Aunt Petunia’s dead now. Death Eaters.” 

He couldn’t seem to stop talking. “Once I started at Hogwarts, I only felt attracted to a handful of people. Three girls in seven years, and all three made the first move—they made _all_ the moves, to be honest. I very rarely thought about sex, which might’ve had something to do with the fact that Voldemort used dark magic to stick a piece of his soul in me like leftovers in a God damn refrigerator. 

“Being famous, I should’ve been getting laid left and right. That didn’t happen. I was too awkward: it never felt right. I had a weirdly asexual relationship with my best mate’s sister; she had a huge crush on me. We made out a lot. I broke up with her because I thought being my girlfriend would make her a target to the Death Eaters. As it turned out, being my ex made her more vulnerable than being with me. In hindsight, I think breaking up with her was just an excuse because I had no idea how to advance our relationship, physically, and… even though she’s very pretty and I respect her a lot, my sexual desire as I know it today just wasn’t there. 

“I was a virgin until last year, with Draco. Before him, I thought people were attractive—mostly women—but I never felt the need to do anything about it. In my head, their being beautiful didn’t have anything to do with me. Sex was a solo practice. Draco was the first person I ever _wanted_. As in, couldn’t keep my hands off him, couldn’t keep our pants on, constant sex. _Intense_ ,” he held his hands out as though he were holding something heavy, “emotional, spiritual kinda sex. I went from virgin to married man in six months. And I worry that maybe I’m drawn to him so strongly because of the magic we share as much as my own feelings. 

“A year ago, my mentor Albus Dumbledore was murdered in front of me—Draco was supposed to be the assassin, but he couldn’t do it and was about to defect from the Death Eaters. There was nothing I could do to stop it, and Draco ended up being raped and tortured for failing to kill the old man who tried with his last breath to save him. We were both sixteen. And then I fell deeply in love with this beautiful, broken soul… I, who had never felt more than passing attraction to anyone—until Draco insulted me, punched me in the face, and then kissed me. 

“I need to dig through all this. I can’t afford to keep making the same mistakes, stumbling my way through and fucking things up. I’m hurting the people I love, and that’s got to stop. I _need_ to get better. Draco is too important for me to ever hurt him again. He carried me through this. He brought me back to life. Now it’s my turn to catch him before he slips off the edge. 

“His broken pieces are tearing him apart. And I can’t help him put himself back together if I don’t know how to do that for myself.” 

Harry swallowed, his hands folded almost in supplication or prayer. It would take a miracle to untangle the narrative of his fucked up life into something anyone could learn from. He was better at salting and burning the earth behind him, rising from the ashes in his next, more violent form. This constant cycle of him and Draco lighting themselves on fire to save the other wasn’t sustainable, and wouldn’t do anyone any more good now that The Dark Lord was gone. Harry was left with bones and fragments, the destruction he’d wrought making a wreckage pile at his feet; forced to make some kind of sense from it before he could move forward. 

Akilah looked him in the eye. “How many people have you killed, Harry?”

It was a sudden question. He was able to answer without thinking. “Sixty. Death Eaters, except for the very first one. He was my professor. He got possessed by Voldemort and tried to kill me. I was eleven.” 

She took a minute to just… nod, absorbing that. He’d killed a man in self defence at eleven years old. Harry hadn’t realized how fucked up that was until he said it out loud. In seven years, he’d never talked about it. Nobody asked: so he buried it. 

“And you’re eighteen now.” 

He shrugged. “Not until the end of July.” 

She nodded, absorbing that information too. Somehow Harry felt a lot older. Most people went their entire lives without seeing half as much shit. 

“You and Draco are both seventeen. How many people has Draco killed?” she asked. 

Harry counted on his fingers, going chronologically. “Voldemort. His father. His aunt. And Mulciber, one of the two sons of bitches who raped him. We got him together, on the Wizengamot’s orders—they’re short on executioners these days, so while they argued over the details, we volunteered. We sorta… do everything together… including executions, I guess.” An awkward laugh bubbled in his throat. He shut it down with a forced cough. 

The room was dead silent. He couldn’t even hear the waves outside. Not for the cacophony in his head. 

Akilah showed no visible reaction to the insane stories of his life, which he appreciated. She heard the information he gave her, along with his opinions and feelings as he put voice to them. He’d only ever spoken this way with Draco. He was starting to get there with Ron and Hermione again… but this was a bit over their heads. He wanted professional help sifting through the ruins of his life. 

“You’ve been through a lot, Harry. More than most wizards can relate to or understand.” 

“Yeah I guess,” Harry shrugged. “It’s just me and Draco. We’re different sides of the same coin. We haven’t exactly had the same experiences but… he gets me. He got me through the worst year of my life. I need to learn how to take care of him now.” 

Akilah hummed, the same pitch as the waves outside the window. Harry could almost hear them again. “What’s goin’ down with Draco these days?” 

Harry ran his hand over his chin, a week’s worth of stubble scratching at his palm. Draco said he ought to grow a proper beard and Harry was going for it. For now, it itched. 

“I thought maybe he has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I’ve been reading a lot about it, because I think that’s what I’ve got. Both of us, really. 

“But Draco has these mood swings. They’re… extreme; he had them before the war, but they’re getting much worse, and he doesn’t seem to have any control over it. I’ll think he’s getting better because he seems really happy. We’ll go out with our friends and he’s a supernova—dancing, laughing, his energy takes my breath away. He might be flying for a few hours or a few days… and then he just crashes. Out of nowhere. For no reason. He loses interest in everything, including sex, which is insane because we used to fuck five or six times a day. Nothing I do can bring him out of it, either. I feel like I’m losing him to this dark, endless vacuum inside his heart. I can’t reach it. I can’t reach him anymore.” 

Akilah pressed her heavy lips, a knowing purr coming from her throat. Slowly she opened her mouth, the sound becoming one of comfort and assent. “Aaaaaaaaah. That, my friend, is called depression. Ain’t no man on earth got the panacea for that, even if he is The Chosen One.” 

Harry really appreciated that she could make a joke about his status. Most people treated him like some sort of god walking amongst them. To Dr. Beasley he was just another patient—a veteran of an ungodly war who needed help sorting through his experiences so he wouldn’t lash out at the people he loved. 

“You wanna help him. And that’s a great place to start. Would you like to talk about Draco today?”

Harry scratched at his stubble again. “Ugh. Not today. We should probably go for my stuff first. Since no one’s stuck their cock in me without my permission, I feel like my head-mess will be easier.”

Akilah cracked a wise smile. The expression split her mouth wide across her face, revealing straight teeth with a tiny gap between the two largest front teeth. 

“You know, one of the first things I notice in people who have survived something terrible is that they’re always ready to say someone else has had it worse than they did. ‘I was raped,’ they say, ‘but it’s not as bad as that one over there whose lover died in their arms,’ and so on. The people who survive always wanna show compassion for others who’ve felt that pain. Empathy in your gut is a good thing. You shouldn’t lose touch with it. 

“At the same time, we can’t let the suffering of others diminish our own pain. No one should apologize for their own wounds, Harry. 

“In emergency situations, our natural urge is to triage. To prioritize the worst. We think we ought to treat the gunshot wound before the poison victim, because bleeding out kills you faster. That makes sense to us: it’s military, organized, logical. We need to teach our rational minds how to converse with our emotions and exchange information in real time in order to exercise control, and become balanced—which is the goal of psychotherapy. Because sometimes the person with the poison in their veins is the only doctor in the house; and if we don’t focus on the poison first, a lot more people are gonna die before their time.” 

Since learning he was a famous, powerful wizard, Harry had been told to value himself—because he was The Boy Who Lived, because he was a symbol of hope, because he was the only one able to save them all. He was important because of his capabilities, his potential. It was almost radical to be told that he deserved love and care because he was human; worthy, by virtue of his existence. That by healing himself he might cause less damage to others, and learn how to heal them for the future.

 _I was bitten by a poisonous snake once_ , Harry thought. _It had a piece of Voldemort’s soul trapped inside it, the same as me_. Harry wasn’t sure whether he or Nagini had ever been set free from that weight. 

“Right now,” he said. “I’m the poison. Let’s fix that.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **POST SCRIPT:** Harry likely does have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But what does Draco have? Would love to hear your guesses in the comments.


	4. Fade In / Fade Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry’s understanding of Draco deepens considerably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** clinical psychology, PTSD; mentions of past rape, drug use, alcohol, and domestic minor sex trafficking

 

_“Go and find your way / Leave me in your wake_

_Always push through the pain / And don't run away from change_

_Never settle / Make your mark_

_Hold your head up / Follow your heart_

_We all get lost sometimes trying to find what we're looking for”_

 

 

“[Fadein / Fadeout](https://youtu.be/z5BGVL6Ja9M)”

Nothing More

 

 

 

 

After several concentrated sessions—hours dominated by Harry’s inability to stop himself from talking about Draco—Dr. Beasley mentioned she had some questions about his husband. She’d written them down on a small notepad currently in her hand. She held a pen in her other hand, ready to tick off points or make notes. They’d set aside two whole hours to devote to Draco—a double-session with only one subject. 

Her first question was simple and direct. “Who were Draco’s friends at school?” 

Harry didn’t have to think very hard. “Crabbe and Goyle. These two big goons who followed him around since first year. Their dads were Death Eaters, though they weren’t what I’d call bright. Mostly Draco was their boss. He’d get them to beat up people he didn’t like. That was usually me and my mate Ron.” 

“Doesn’t sound much like friendship…” Akilah observed. 

Harry agreed. “Yeah. Draco was… kind of a lonely guy. Controlling. Distant. Our school bully.” 

“Was he close with anyone?” 

Scrunching his face, Harry cast about. “Um… a first year student he mentored last year. Kieran Gweir. Turns out the kid’s dad was Mulciber—the guy who raped Draco.” Harry consciously unclenched his teeth; the subject made him especially angry. “Mulciber was a fucking pedophile. He liked young teenagers.” Harry twitched. He couldn’t help it; the thought of a thirty or forty year old guy finding kids sexy, and wanting to molest them, just made him feel sick. “He kidnapped and raped Kieran’s mom when she was fifteen. Draco and Kieran didn’t know about that connection when they met.” 

“What about prior to last year? Who were Draco’s friends besides Crabbe and Goyle, his enforcers?” That was an apt description of Draco’s relationship with his two brutes. They weren’t friends—they did Draco’s dirty work because they weren’t smart enough to think for themselves. Draco took what he learned about manipulation at the feet of his father and turned around to practice it on others. 

Harry’s eyes shifted, trying to remember who Draco spent time with as a kid. “He used to play quidditch with Theo Nott? More because their mums were friends, and they got dragged along. Draco basically did whatever his mum told him to. They spent a lot of time together. She taught him French, and music. He and his mum were close.” 

Akilah knew that Harry was hiding Narcissa at St. Mungo’s after she’d lost her memory, so he didn’t have to explain that Draco’s mum was around in body but not able to be there for him in spirit anymore. Narcissa Malfoy was more or less dead. Harry asked a few times if Draco wanted to go visit her. Draco answered each time with a half-hearted sigh and the sound of a wine bottle opening—Draco-speak for “don’t make me more depressed than I already am, you fuckhead.” 

Harry put a hand over his mouth, sorting through his memories of Draco’s life. He actually had to search his mind for who Draco hung out with prior to them becoming friends. “Draco’s dad used to throw girls at him. That never lasted long, since the relationships were more social climbing than personal. The girls wanted to be seen going out with him, and Draco took advantage of that to get laid. 

“Draco… partied a lot. I wouldn’t say these were his mates, but they got drunk together and fucked around. There was Blaise Zabini—Italian bloke, very smooth. He and Draco bonded over a shared interest in fashion. Chern Toleanu—his mum taught Dark Arts at Durmstrang. He and Draco used to get drunk a lot. They hooked up. Chern was supposed to inherit Cleansweep Broomsticks, but he died in the fighting at Hogwarts. And Vuk Ionescue—his dad was high-up with the Death Eaters, like Draco’s, and they were both in a rebellious phase… sleeping with blokes to make their dads angry. Vuk’s dad killed him in a duel. Draco and I are good friends with his two younger brothers now. They’re… I mean, they’re fun guys, but a bit more mature than their big brother was. The war definitely made them grow up.” 

Harry summed up his thoughts on Draco’s prior relationships with: “All of Draco’s so-called friends were surface relationships, not anyone he would confide in if he had a serious problem. That would’ve been his mum. But… he’s infuriatingly proud. He might not have gone to her unless things got really bad, and even then, he might’ve been too embarrassed to say something. He’s not good at asking for help, or accepting it when it’s offered. You have to frame it as a gift, basically, before he’ll let you take some of the weight off his shoulders.” Harry considered the impact this quality had on Draco’s relationships. “I suppose most people aren’t willing to jump through hoops and get burned by his fire for the privilege of being close to him.” 

Akilah made a mark on her notepad. “You said he liked to party,” she pointed out, looking back up at Harry. “Drinking? Drugs?” 

Harry’s head bobbed an affirmative. “Mostly drinking. That was around thirteen, when he started dating.” 

“Drugs?” Akilah repeated. Hers wasn’t a judgmental tone, but she wanted to know. The way she held her pen poised to write, the question of Draco’s drug use was one of the points on her list needing to be checked off. 

Harry felt nervous. He licked his lips, looking away. Draco’s history of substance use didn’t precisely feel like something he had any right to discuss, especially since much of what he knew wasn’t from Draco’s words but gleaned from his darkest memories. Harry’s knowledge came wholly by way of Legilimency, because Draco never talked about it with him. 

“After he lost his virginity he… went a bit heavy. He smoked weed.” Harry raised his eyebrows. “A _lot_ of weed.” An anxious laugh escaped Harry’s lips. He was definitely talking about someone else’s life and not his own as he recited words totally unknown to him, except from Draco’s mind. “MDMA. Coke. Oxy. Heroin a couple of times, with his ex.” 

Harry’s jaw locked up, his throat clenching. He didn’t like that he could see the images in his head, as though he had experienced them himself along with Draco. He saw with film-like clarity as Philippe Didier shot a needle into fourteen year old Draco’s arm, telling him the drugs would help him relax so he might enjoy anal. Draco did it because he thought there was something wrong with him—that he was screwed up somehow, because he was crazy about Philippe but he didn’t fancy the Frenchman’s cock in his ass. Draco preferred to get high and float through the unpleasant scene, rather than seeming mawkish or juvenile by complaining that it turned him off. He was so afraid of losing Philippe that he allowed the guy to repeatedly fuck him, even when he didn’t want it anymore. Draco was a good actor—he prided himself on his ability to convince anyone around him that everything was fine. Sometimes he even convinced himself. 

By muggle law, what Philippe did was statutory rape. Because Draco was too young to give consent. He’d been sold for sex. It didn’t matter that he was willing at first. Powerful men who should have known better took advantage of Draco, over and over again. 

Harry pressed his teeth together, breathing harshly through his nose. It burned at him that Philippe Didier had escaped the battle at Hogwarts, that a sick fucker like him was still alive in the world and able to do that to someone else. Harry pinched his thigh, hard, reminding himself that he needed to teach Draco how to shoot a pistol. If Philippe ever came near him, Harry wanted Draco to have every possible means of defending himself. Harry would find it supremely satisfying to put a bullet in the Frenchman’s head. 

Dr. Beasley made a mark on her notepad. “Do you get high together?” 

It was an abrupt shift from the violent path where his thoughts had drifted. Harry felt his face turn bright red. His cheeks burned. “Just pot,” he gulped. He couldn’t maintain eye contact, choosing instead to stare out the window as his pulse drummed in his ears. He could talk about Draco using all manner of drugs—because that didn’t incriminate _him_. Now Akilah was asking him to talk about his own life, and that made Harry uncomfortable. “W-we smoked at a concert. And on holiday. And, um, after he broke his hand playing quidditch. I was recovering from an injury, too.” 

Nagini had taken a chunk out of his leg. Then he’d spent the better part of three days starving in a prison cell in Mondova, doing his best to slip through constant assaults and an attempt on his married behind. He could laugh about it now—but only because he was, as Leon Harper called him, “a cynical son of a bitch.” 

Akilah actually smiled at him, reassuring him of the intention behind her next question. “What’s it like when you two smoke together?” 

Harry enjoyed it. Much more than he thought he would. But he didn’t want to say that outright. The same way he’d liked cutting class sometimes, but he’d never told Hermione or Mrs. Weasley that. They’d have his hide.

Harry Potter wasn’t supposed to like drugs. Harry Potter was supposed to be clean-cut, wholesome and perfect—The Boy Who Lived, Saviour of All. He wasn’t supposed to be married to an ex-Death Eater or enjoy taking Draco’s cock up his bum, either, but those things were just as true. He _liked_ getting high with Draco: if that made him a bad person, then so be it. 

“We usually have sex and then… talk. Stay up late. Laugh. Have more sex,” the memories had him smiling despite his nerves. “Draco used to play piano a lot when he was high; he would make up little tunes for me. Pot makes him sing, and I love that. It’s relaxing. For both of us.”

Akilah gave him an encouraging nod—recognizing his honesty. “There’s no need to be embarrassed, Harry. Many people who survive traumatic events find marijuana therapeutic, especially patients with PTSD. The chemical THC can help rebalance serotonin levels in the brain and stabilize your mood. It also has an effect on nausea and pain perception, so it’s a solid option when recovering from injuries.” She scribbled quickly in the margin of her pad, writing sideways. “Would you say that Draco’s mood swings are more pronounced or more severe when he’s sober? Without drugs or liquor?” 

Harry sucked on his tongue, thinking. Draco could be cranky and bombast on a good day. “He let his temper get the better of him when he was younger. That tapered off around the time he started drinking and smoking weed. He was also under a lot of stress, so it’s hard to say for sure whether he was getting better—you know, maturing and stuff—or if he was just repressing everything and getting high as an escape. I will say… he does seem to have a better grip on himself if he’s had a glass of wine or a joint. He still gets upset if it’s warranted, but he won’t fly off into another stratosphere provided he’s toked up recently. Pot keeps him more…” Harry held his hand out flat, drawing a straight line with his palm to the floor. “Level, I guess.” 

Harry compared Draco during his first few weeks at Grimmauld Place—sober and paranoid as fuck—to Draco after they’d started dating… and drinking together… and smoking pot together. The difference was night and day. With the stress of other people removed, and the comfort of some weed in his lungs, wine in his stomach, plus Harry’s mouth on his prick, Draco _had_ become a different person. He was more himself, the man Harry fell in love with under all that icy false demeanor and convoluted mental armor. 

Writing sideways again, Akilah jotted down a few more words. Her eyes moved to the next question on her list. “What about his grades? Did he do well in school?” 

Harry was grateful for the change in subject. Grades were something he was used to talking about, mostly because his had been bad, with the exception of Defence Against The Dark Arts. 

“Draco was consistently one of the top blokes in our year,” he recalled. “I think it was between him, Theo Nott, and Stephen Cornfoot for Head Boy. Cornfoot and Nott didn't come back to school last year, so Draco got it. He didn’t appreciate being third choice. He’s quite competitive.” 

“Did he work hard for his marks?” 

Harry shook his head. “Nope. Natural ability. Draco never studied much. He had tutors as a kid instead of a regular school, and his dad was merciless with him. So Draco was pretty far ahead of the rest of us, even at eleven. He speaks a couple of languages, can read and write in Latin, plays multiple instruments... just a smart bloke. 

“I don't think he cared much about school. He earned good marks so his dad wouldn’t go after him. And, I think, to have the teachers praise him. He’s a sucker for compliments. Draco was a real kiss-ass with a couple of professors,” he recalled. “He was always desperate for recognition—but only recognition from people who were cruel or cold, like his father. He wanted nothing to do with the professors who were kindest. He perceived them as weak, so their praise meant nothing to him.” Harry was thinking of Draco and Lucius’ repeated attacks on Hagrid; another example of Lucius Malfoy egging his son into bad behavior, teaching him to be a narcissistic, entitled, self-important dick. 

Harry could remember a few times where Draco was derogatory towards McGonagall or Flitwick. He’d made racist comments about Professor Firenze, too. As a kid, Draco only sought the approval of those who supported the warped world view he’d grown up with. Anyone with opinions different than his father’s was stupid, or crazy, or not to be trusted.

The Dursleys had done the exact same thing to Harry. They tried to make him a laughing stock so no one would listen to him, stick up for him, or believe him if he tried to get help. Even when he went to Hogwarts they made fun of the magical world which Harry loved, belittling all the people in it. 

It was some kind of fucking miracle Harry hadn’t turned out like Draco. He had his mum to thank for that magic which surely saved his heart as well as his life. 

Akilah made a check mark. “Has Draco ever mentioned suicide, or having thoughts of harming himself?” 

Harry didn’t want to answer that. He stalled, taking a deep breath—letting it fill his lungs, fill his stomach, then blowing the air out in a lengthy, steady stream—all the while staring at the carpet. His chest hurt. 

Dr. Beasley bobbed her head. “That’s a _yes_.” 

His body language had betrayed his thoughts again. 

“He does it almost… joking,” admitted Harry. “He predicted our deaths once: he said I was going to die in gory pieces at Tom Riddle’s hands, and that once I was gone he would kill himself before Voldemort could get him. Sometimes sarcastically he’ll suggest suicide as a way out of something he doesn’t fancy doing—he’d rather slit his wrists than go somewhere, or he’d rather drink poison than sit through something. He’s overly dramatic at times. He makes you think it’s a joke. But… a part of him isn’t kidding.

“His father almost killed him once, when he was little. Lucius choked him. A grown man with his hand around a seven year old’s throat. Narcissa walked in and stopped him.” Draco told him that story, on their honeymoon. He’d finally felt comfortable letting his partner in. The far-away look in Draco’s eyes had killed Harry. 

Nothing Lucius Malfoy did made sense to Harry. He couldn’t comprehend how a parent could do to their child half of the evil things which Lucius did to Draco. There should have been some parental compulsion—something vaguely resembling affection—to stop him from going that far. The Dursleys had beaten Harry because they were afraid of him, afraid of his magic. Harry couldn’t see the motivation behind Lucius Malfoy’s violence toward his son. Harry couldn’t make sense of it. “Draco has a complicated perception of death. Made worse, I’d imagine, after he saw me die.” 

Akilah’s next question was bang-on—like she’d read a book about Draco and was just clarifying the highlights. “Does Draco brag often, or exaggerate his abilities?” 

“Yeah, definitely,” Harry acknowledged. “He’s a proud person. Sometimes his bragging is justified; he _is_ very talented in a number of areas. But yeah, he overstates. He has a grand opinion of himself and his own abilities which doesn’t always match up to real life. Gets him into trouble when he under-delivers.” 

He was remembering the time Draco dressed Crabbe and Goyle up as a Dementor to scare the piss out of him on the quidditch pitch. Draco made big plans—they didn’t always work out for him despite his intelligence and cunning. It often took someone else executing his ideas to make it go right… and that someone else had to be brighter than Crabbe and Goyle. 

That earned him another check mark on the list. “How is Draco with money?” 

Harry’s lip curled. “His family was stinking rich. He always had money to burn. He’s… reasonable enough; he knows the stuff doesn’t grow on trees. He shadowed his dad on business trips, since he was expected to follow in the family business. The Malfoys were in commercial real estate.” 

Akilah prompted him. “Does Draco go overboard? Spending sprees?” 

“Oh _shit_!” Harry pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes beneath the lenses of his glasses. How could she have known? After the war and everything else which had happened in the last year, Harry had buried the rather upsetting tale of the day he’d lost nine thousand, six hundred seventy four pounds, five quid in a single afternoon. “I gave him a credit card before we started dating: he turned around and charged about four thousand at Gucci. British pounds,” Harry clarified the currency. “Nearly ten thousand pounds in one day.” 

He watched as Akilah converted the currency in her head. Since Harry’s paychecks arrived in American dollars, he was used to doing the math. Draco had wracked up close to fifteen thousand dollars in a single day. Harry paid the debt off within a few months, and was back to depositing his paychecks in his Gringotts vault again. 

Ten years living in a cupboard had taught Harry not to be wasteful, to always have a contingency for the future: because he often didn’t know where or when he might see his next meal. Draco had no such compunctions about stashing money away for a rainy day. Draco had never known a rainy day before his father was arrested. 

Harry shrugged ruefully. “I did make the mistake of telling one of the wealthiest wizards in England to get whatever he wanted, so… suppose I enabled that cock up. He hasn’t done it since,” he offered in Draco’s defence. “Draco appreciates quality things—clothes, racing brooms, holidays on the continent. That’s where the money goes. I’m the one who manages our finances. Draco doesn’t like talking about it… which is strange for a bloke who understands so much about economics and business.” Harry wiped the confused look off of his face, saying, “I assume being lectured about spending too much reminds him of his dad, and he’d rather not associate me with that asshole.” 

Akilah tapped the tip of her pen against her paper. Her face said Harry wasn’t likely to enjoy the memories brought up by her next question. He knew it was necessary, giving her a nod to go on and ask it. He wanted to know what all the questions were leading up to. 

“Have you ever witnessed Draco break from reality?” 

Harry swallowed. His eyes strayed to the carpet again. “Like… hallucinations?” 

Akilah explained, “A psychotic break. Rejecting the world around him. Believing things which aren’t true or real, even when faced with evidence. Occupying his own alternate universe—one where he’s right and everyone else is wrong, or out to get him.” 

“… _Shit_ ,” he hissed in Parseltongue.  

Harry had always known, deep down, that something about Draco’s mind wasn’t normal. He saw it sometimes, when Draco hurled insults and spells at him back when they were younger. After living with Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley for so many years, Harry could tell when someone wanted to hurt him. Draco never wanted to hurt Harry, or anyone else he went after for that matter. It was almost like he couldn’t control himself—he was being guided, Imperious-like, by the fucked up pureblood world he’d grown up in, everything which his parents told him was true which he’d internalized until he couldn’t tell wrong from right anymore. Draco knew his parents were lying to him… and he believed them anyway, constructing an alternate reality where he was the villain rather than the victim. He then turned around and hurt everyone in the ways he’d been hurt, reliving his experiences as the aggressor, as some means of regaining the power he imagined he’d lost. 

When Draco showed up at Grimmauld Place, everything which Harry suspected all along had been confirmed. He remembered Draco sitting alone in a bedroom, clutching himself, rocking, laughing madly; snapping back and forth between insulting Harry and making totally unrelated conversation about pigs and his birthday—believing Harry’s rather bad-taste joke that he would send Draco back to Voldemort, which was absolutely not true. Harry would never do such a thing, which was what made the statement comedic as opposed to a frightful threat. Draco had been convinced though. He truly believed Harry would let him die if Draco displeased him: because Lucius Malfoy would have sent Draco to his death, and that man was the closest to love Draco had ever known. That day, watching Draco was like observing multiple people attempt to speak through the same body… like being possessed. Contradictory realities existing in the same mind. At the time, Harry attributed Draco’s distressing state to extreme stress. And maybe the after-effects of torture, or side effects from the multiple potions which McGonagall had him on for his injuries. 

But what if this divorce from reality had been inside Draco all along, only visible to those who were forced to spend time with him? Maybe this was why no one in Slytherin wanted to get close to him, why his romantic relationships never lasted more than a few weeks, why he disappeared into a black hole anytime he got upset or his view of the world was challenged. Others saw it—his psychosis—and they ran from him. Harry was the first to see it and stick around. 

Harry spent the last year making excuses for Draco. He didn’t expect the same of Draco as he did of Ron or Hermione or any of his other friends. He gave his husband slack where he wouldn’t give himself a centimeter. Because he knew that Draco wasn’t like everyone else—couldn’t be like everyone else even if he tried. There was a part of Draco not in control of himself, out of touch with reality. Perhaps he never had been. 

“Under stress,” Harry confessed. “Yeah. Just a few times. It was bad. I… took care of him when it happened,” he admitted, “brought him back down to earth, because no one else wanted to be near him. No one else took it seriously—took _him_ seriously. His father made him that way, on purpose, so he could never get out.” 

“Gaslighting,” explained Akilah, her face turning sad. “A technique used by abusers. They make their victims question reality, question their memories, question simple truths. Gaslighting leads a victim to believe they’re not fully sane, to fracture their mind and prevent them from seeking help. This secures the victim in their abuser’s grasp, making them easier to control, easier targets.” 

Harry had been able to see beyond the layers of armor Lucius Malfoy had strapped onto his son like a muggle bomb vest, trying to keep people away, not wanting them to see the truth. Perhaps he saw it because the Dursleys had tried to do the same thing to him—telling everyone he went to St. Brutus’ Secure Center for the criminally insane, making him recite it when people like Aunt Marge came over. Having lived through it, Harry was primed to recognize the same bullshit being put on someone else. 

All along—he’d been chasing after Draco Malfoy, insisting the git was up to something sinister. Maybe that had been his gut, his own instinct knowing there was something wrong, something deeply terrible which he hadn’t yet learned to put words to. So he kept a close eye on Draco, for years. He chased Draco because he saw the signs that Draco too was being abused. Something in him thought he could help him, could stop it, like magic and Albus Dumbledore and the Weasleys had slowly intervened to save him. He’d seen Draco slowly broken, losing his hold on what was true. 

Harry hadn’t mentioned to Akilah every last horrible thing Lucius did to Draco. But from their many in-depth therapy sessions it became obvious that Draco’s father had been an abusive piece of magical garbage. Harry still felt like those were Draco’s stories to tell, and not his. 

Akilah made a mark on her pad—it looked like she was circling something. She tapped the tip of her pen again, considering everything they’d talked about. Harry listened to the sound of the water outside and beneath the office, the whisper of reeds and rushes in the breeze, and the faint chatter of the lunch crowd at the restaurant next door. He was getting used to the sounds here. The occasional gull cry or honking car horn no longer made him jump. 

“So, what’s the verdict?” inquired Harry. He was eager to know what it was she thought about Draco, how she had the insight to ask these questions which landed directly on tough parts of Draco’s life and behavior which had always been more or less a mystery to Harry. “What does all this add up to?” 

Akilah fixed him with a mixed expression—sorrowful, consoling, warning. “I’m always hesitant to assign a clinical diagnosis without assessing a patient in person,” she prefaced. “However… Draco’s situation is alarmingly clear.

“We have a young wizard who is distant, manipulative, and controlling,” she moved the end of her pen on the page, following along her notes as she spoke. “Who struggles to understand others and has no emotional bonds to people other than his immediate caretakers—his mother and you. Most of his life he’s been self-isolated due to a lack of trust stemming from childhood abuse. A history of self-medicating with drugs and alcohol in an attempt to escape, but also to reduce stress and regulate his behaviors to that of his peers. He exhibits reckless tendencies—his drug use, promiscuity, inability to remain in a relationship. and excessive spending. His perception of himself and his abilities is falsely inflated. He occasionally suffers psychosis and chooses not tell anyone—another self-regulating behavior which can make it harder to see his illness. He seeks out the company of those who reinforce his delusions. He hasn’t developed the skills to reach out when he needs help. He struggles in recognizing when he needs care, and is mostly unable to ask for attention appropriately.” 

She set aside her pen and notepad. Hands folded in her lap, she told Harry, “What you’re describing is a classic, textbook case of Manic Depression. It’s also called Bipolar Disorder, or Bipolar II.” 

Harry had heard of it. The Dursleys used to watch a ghastly program on television about muggles going off the deep end. They made Harry sit with them and watch it, thinking it would scare him into behaving as they wanted him to. At the end of every episode Uncle Vernon would threaten Harry with a children’s asylum if he didn’t fly straight—trying to dampen his predilection for magic, preparing his mind to deem himself crazy if a Hogwarts letter ever arrived. 

One episode of this show featured a woman with Bipolar Disorder. The woman became depressed, took her husband’s car keys without telling anyone where she was going, and drove off. Her body was found days later. She’d drowned herself. 

Harry remembered the program all these years later because, while the Dursleys prattled smugly about how _some people_ weren’t right in the head, Harry had put himself in the shoes of the poor lady’s family—frightened, not knowing where their mum was, her husband frantic whilst trying to keep the kids calm, and the constables not knowing anything…. It had to have been hell for the people who loved her. He didn’t see that as something to consume for entertainment. It was just scary, and sad. 

That tele show made people like the Dursleys feel superior: to someone like Harry, it only triggered his empathy. Because he’d suffered, he didn’t want to see other people in pain. He’d do anything to stop harm from coming to others.

“Bipolar is when someone doesn’t always have control over their emotions or reactions, right?” he asked for clarification, making sure his recollection was accurate. “Something might happen which would make a regular person upset or scared, but to the Bipolar person….” He trailed off, not having the language to describe something which he’d only experienced as a bystander. 

“Their illness can be triggered,” supplied Akilah. “Either becoming manic or entering a depressive episode.” 

That sparked a question for Harry. “What does ‘manic’ look like? Clinically? I’ve only ever heard it socially.” 

Akilah gave him a very thorough definition. “Manic symptoms are a spectrum. A manic episode can manifest differently depending on the person, their experiences, and what has triggered their mental state. Generally we would describe symptoms in three categories. The first being behaviors lacking in judgment, which might include excessive spending, overeating or not eating, sudden changes to lifestyle like quitting their job, moving to a foreign country, or abandoning their family at the Piggly Wiggly,” which Harry knew to be a chain of American grocery stores. That example sounded so concrete, Harry had to wonder if Dr. Beasley treated a few Bipolar patients, or if she was remembering an anecdote from a medical journal as evidence. 

“The second category are notably reckless behaviors—drunk or dangerous driving, drug use, thrill-seeking, or extreme sports. This is also where we see a lack of sexual inhibition, such as a person refusing to use condoms or engaging in taboo activities, like BDSM or group sex.” 

Harry never thought he would see a connection between Draco’s preference for violent sex with men and his Hippogriff baiting in third year, but there it was. Risk-taking, thrill-seeking behaviors were a part of how his brain worked when he was in one of these manic states. Observing Draco’s life through the filter of Bipolar symptoms was like watching planets align—what was once a jumbled mess abruptly fit together in a seamless kind of order.

“Merlin’s beard,” murmured Harry. “That’s Draco. What’s the third one?” He wanted to see if the last category lined up, too.

“Childlike behavior,” Akilah told him. “Hyperactivity, rambunctiousness, temper tantrums, unreasonable attachment to objects or people, even euphoria. It can sometimes be mistaken for immaturity, or Attention Deficit Disorder. I do see young people mistakenly diagnosed with ADD or ADHD who are actually Bipolar, yet they’re successfully masking their depressive episodes. One can look like the other.” 

Two instances vied for first position in Harry’s head. Both were memories of Draco at Grimmauld Place, shortly before the war. 

He recalled the first fight they’d gone through as a couple—Harry had wanted to sleep close in the same bed, holding Draco through the night, and the pureblood wanted nothing to do with him. After criticizing Draco for being unemotional and unnecessarily cold, Harry had walked out of their bedroom with his feelings hurt. He would always remember Draco running after him… one of the first times Draco had put forth genuine effort in support of their relationship. His husband had whined his name—loud, petulant, not unlike a five year old calling out for his mum. In that sound he’d experienced Draco’s affection, as well as his need to be loved and cared for. Apparently he’d experienced the manic side of Draco’s hidden illness, too. 

The other memory was more benign. It had rained for several days last summer, and he and Draco stayed in the house. What he’d interpreted as stir-craziness on Draco’s part had in fact been part of a larger manic episode. Harry had teased him, saying he would make the blond stay home while he went to the market alone. Draco pouted fantastically; and when Harry consented to his coming with, Draco had raced up the stairs with the energy of a grindelow after three bags of sugar. He’d tripped on the stairs, inelegant and gangly. In that moment—with his excitement, his exuberance at such a small thing—Harry thought his husband was adorable. The truth? Draco had been in manic euphoria. 

He immediately felt guilty for finding any aspect or symptom of Draco’s mental illness “cute.” 

Harry ruffled his hair. He had an embarrassing question. Given the topics he and Akilah covered, he didn’t feel so strange bringing up sex during their sessions. The fact that he and Draco weren’t fucking was something he wanted to change, and he couldn’t make progress on that front if he wasn’t willing to learn how to talk about their sexlife without turning red around the ears. 

“So us having sex five times a day would be a… manic behavior?” 

Tipping her head, Akilah considered everything she knew about Draco. “If you were a couple three times your age, sure, that could be considered manic,” she conceded. “Given that you’re still teenagers, and the amount of stress you’ve both experienced in the last year… there’s probably more to it than just a manic episode. Frequent marital sex could just as easily be a form of self-soothing—Draco subconsciously trying to regulate his neuro-chemistry. Men tend to fall asleep after sex. Bipolars in a manic state often have trouble sleeping. So a regimen of athletic, exhaustive sex _could_ be an indicator of mania… or it could just as well be a method of getting a good night’s sleep.” 

Harry rather liked that idea; doing something which made them both feel good, and brought them closer, which also had the added benefit of helping Draco get a decent rest. Draco usually stayed up late, which made him cranky in the mornings. The nights they used to fuck each other to sleep, Draco was more lucid the next day, smiled a bit more, groaned a bit less, and drank half as much coffee.

“What about me?” asked Harry. “I feel like I do some of that overactive shit sometimes. Especially the distracting and avoiding stuff.” 

Dr. Beasley accepted the shift in focus from Draco back to himself. “Let’s have an example. How about when Draco returned to Hogwarts and you stayed home to train as an Auror? That was a stressful time. What did you do?” 

Harry knew what he fucking did. “Obsessively cleaned the house, barely slept, took up long-distance running, and worked myself to the point of exhaustion,” he recited, mocking himself a little. “That’s kinda manic, isn’t it?” 

“Context is key,” Akilah reminded him. They’d been working on the sources of his own trauma. Akilah was showing him that as much as the Dursleys fucked him up early on, a lot of his current issues came from his short-lived relationship with Sirius, and from seeing his godfather die protecting him—just like his mum. Repeated events or images as concurrent trauma had a deeper effect on the mind, and behavior as a byproduct. Many of the things Harry wanted to change about himself were in some way connected to losing Sirius.

Akilah clarified his behavior in the context of his own condition. “PTSD sometimes has a reaction called Traumatic Orbital Hyperactivity. When exposed to triggers—in your case, seeing a loved one leave you—the mind can go into a highly active state. Intense physical activity serves as a distraction, to prevent flash-backs or a spike in cortisol, the stress hormone. You experience adrenaline instead, making you feel alert and energetic.” 

“My brain was trying to avoid feeling sad,” Harry extrapolated. “Because sadness means trauma. So, if I want to stop having an extreme activity response, I need to practice being in a similar situation… like having my friends walk away from me when we say goodbye, rather than me leaving first like I usually do. I don’t like seeing people walk away from me because it reminds me of Sirius falling through the veil, or Dumbledore falling off the Headmaster’s tower, and I feel helpless.” That was why Harry didn’t like seeing Draco get out of bed in the morning, why he always followed if Draco got up first. His heart was afraid of losing another person he loved. He needed to lie in bed and let Draco come back to him—to learn that it was okay to let go, to let his family have their own lives without him constantly watching over them. 

Harry thought of another way to combat his PTSD. “I should also hang out with my friends more often, to re-train my brain that people leaving isn’t forever.” 

Akilah pressed her lips in approval. “That’s an excellent exposure re-training strategy.” 

“But… that sort of thing might not work for Draco?” Akilah shook her head. He figured he was right, but wanted to check. “Because my issues are rooted in specific events, and his are more about brain chemistry?” 

“You’re willing to recognize a problem with your feelings and the way you react. Draco is not aware of his behavior being an issue. You recognize your triggers.” 

He frowned. “And Draco doesn’t. Or rather, he refuses to acknowledge he has triggers, or episodes, or breaks—because that would mean admitting there’s something wrong.” 

Harry put his arms up over his head, pulling on his wrists, stretching. It felt like an anvil had been lifted off of his shoulders. Knowing what was happening with Draco gave him a kind of power—a sense he’d acquired in battle of knowing his enemies, predicting their movements, and laying a trap for them to fall into. Except now, he wasn’t trying to kill anyone. He was using the same intuition and skill to save Draco, instead. 

He repositioned—forward, forceful, ready to do something with the knowledge he’d gained. “So the next big question: what can I do for him?” 

“Ideally I’d like to see him in therapy.” 

Harry snorted. “Not gonna happen. Draco hates talking, and he barely trusts me as it is.” 

Rueful, Akilah smirked. “I figured as much.” 

She went on, answering his question about how the condition was treated. “With Bipolar in muggles, we try a number of available anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, or mood stabilizers. There are side effects with these meds, which can be severe or intolerable; anything from drowsiness or lack of emotion all the way to an _increase_ in suicide attempts, hallucinations, or full-blown psychosis. It’s a struggle to find the right medication. Medicating magical people is _more_ complex because of how magic works in the brain. The chemical balance of the magical brain is far more delicate and complex. So a bad reaction to medication can be more extreme in witches and wizards.” 

Harry could picture it. A muggle having a reaction to mind-altering pills might suddenly take their own life. A wizard with Bipolar and incorrectly balanced meds would be far more dangerous; with magic, he might harm hundreds of people, take lives other than his own, and risk the exposure of magic: all because his meds weren’t right and he wasn’t in control of his actions. A Bipolar wizard on the wrong meds was a grenade with the pin loose, held in a trembling hand. 

Harry asked the follow-up question. “How is Bipolar treated in wizards?”

“Honestly? We don’t know.” She fixed him with a frank stare. Her hands rose, a kind of open-palmed apology for not having a better answer available to soothe him. “The magical community is far behind muggles in the mental health field. We have almost no clinical documentation, or records of treatment trials for mental illnesses. Ours are a secretive people, Harry. To our detriment sometimes. Magic is a great power. Add to that power a person whose control over themselves and perception of reality slips in and out,” she lifted her palms alternately, as though weighing two invisible objects against one another. A compassionate arc shaped her eyebrows, her brown eyes soft as she assessed their situation. “It’s fair to say that any witch or wizard with Bipolar Disorder would be unlikely to volunteer that diagnosis publically, for fear of being locked up or stripped of their magic in the name of the greater good.” 

Harry swallowed thickly. His throat wasn’t working quite right. He had to force himself to speak.

“Then I need to figure out how to help Draco—to keep his actions in check, to make sure the wrong people don’t find out. With his abilities,” which were in effect all of Harry’s aptitudes gained through accidently possessing him, plus Draco’s own considerable talents… “the Ministry would lock him up in a heartbeat if they thought he was a danger. They’d call him the next Voldemort.”

Harry shook his head, growling out, heavy, “I won’t let that happen.” 

Akilah’s eyebrows were still up. “Do you think that’s fair, Harry?” 

“I…” He couldn’t finish his thought. There was no defence. He’d spoken rashly—selfishly. “No. If Draco was out of control, if he really was going to hurt someone… he would need to be isolated. Restrained. For everyone’s safety. Even if it broke my heart to see him held down and fighting back. Because… it’s his disease, right? He wouldn’t actually want to hurt someone if he was thinking clearly. It’s the chemicals in his brain misfiring. I don’t want Draco to be arrested because he’s not a criminal—he’s sick. The Ministry wouldn’t see him that way. They’d only see his potential to hurt other people.” 

Harry took a calming breath. The thought of Draco getting arrested—being taken away from him and locked alone in a cell somewhere—was deeply upsetting. He forced himself to think, to explore how he could prevent that from happening. 

“I guess I said I wouldn’t let that happen because… I know how much pain it would cause him, to be put in prison like his father. Being arrested would make him flash back to being tortured, and I don’t know exactly how those memories would effect him—if it would set off a manic or depressive episode—but it would hurt him… traumatize him all over again. Punishing Draco for actions he can’t control is only going to make him get worse. I don’t want him to get worse. I’m… I’m afraid that he will get worse no matter what I do.” That was the deepest truth. “What I really mean is that intervention from the Ministry would do more harm to Draco, even if it stopped any risk to the public.” 

Harry took a breath, touching his chest. It was something Dmitry did, feeling his own heartbeat through his chest as a way to connect to his body, acknowledge his feelings, and control his reaction. It was a good method, and Harry might adopt it as his own. “ _I_ want to be the one to step in. I think that’s my responsibility as Draco’s husband. That’s what I signed on for. And I _want_ to be there for him, to be a part of him getting better, as much as I can.” 

Dr. Beasley was helping him apply some logic to his emotions. He was learning to work his way through his feelings in order to better understand the storms competing inside him. Sometimes his emotions came out the wrong way. He could come off as arrogant or domineering. That was something he wanted to fix. He wasn’t very good at it yet, but he was getting better by inches. 

Akilah nodded. “That’s a much healthier statement. Good work, Harry.” 

He felt a tad stupid, being congratulated for processing his feelings like any normal human being ought to have learned how to do by age eighteen. But he hadn’t had a normal person’s eighteen years, had he? Harry knew he was being ridiculously hard on himself. 

Less than a month ago he’d yelled at Neville to learn to take a compliment. He’d probably said that because it was something he struggled with himself, and projecting his flaw onto Neville helped distract from his own insufficiency. Harry liked helping other people because it took up his time and emotional bandwidth, leaving nothing left for self-reflection. He needed to learn how to take a fucking compliment and not twist it into guilt or a weapon for self-flagellation.

“Thank you,” he mumbled. “I’m trying.” 

Akilah went to her bookshelf, bringing back two books for Harry. The title of the first made him want to throw up— _Loving Your Bipolar Spouse_. He’d have to charm the cover or hide it from Draco, otherwise he was risking a serious fight just having that thing in the house. 

The second book seemed more promising. It was a clinician, a doctor who treated people with Bipolar and other mood disorders in a hospital setting, writing about his research into the inter-relationship between Bipolar, addiction, and trauma, among people in the gay community.

Seeing that there were muggles devoting their lives to this made it real. Draco’s situation was perhaps more precarious due to his powerful magic, and his lack of recognition or awareness of his own disorder. But the fact that Draco wasn’t the only one was kind of a relief for Harry. There was a roadmap. Other people had been where they were right now. And the doctor who wrote this book studied thousands of people over many years, figuring out what worked best—mapping out the landmines so Harry could avoid them, getting Draco on the quickest route to feeling marginally better. 

Harry handed the sappy book right back to Dr. Beasley, saying, “Yeah, I’m not gonna read this one.” 

She took it back. “Thanks for being honest.” 

Harry tapped the cover of the book he’d accepted. “This one looks good though.” 

He flipped it open, scanning through the chapter titles. There was tons of stuff about domestic abuse, child abuse, violent home life, drug addiction, sex addiction—Harry didn’t even know _that_ was a thing! Along with the chapters on gay men, he saw an abbreviation he’d never read or heard before. He looked up at Akilah, asking bluntly, “What’s MSM?”

Her head tipped, the light catching in her hair. “Well…” she said, her voice tilting upwards. “That’s you.” 

Harry didn’t say anything. He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to tell him how exactly that was true. 

“MSM is a clinical data point, but it’s also been adopted as an identity among a subset of men. The abbreviation MSM stands for ‘men who have sex with men.’” Which should have been obvious, but he would rather ask than guess wrong. That was the difference between himself and Draco: his husband would rather proceed on a false assumption than risk people realizing he wasn’t omnipotent. Harry would just fucking ask. 

Akilah explained, “In studies and research, MSM covers men who identify themselves as gay all the way to men who might’ve only had one or two same-sex experiences over the course of their lifetime. Using MSM removes sexual orientation from research, allowing us to focus on the subset of men who have had intercourse with other men regardless of whether or not they would consider themselves gay or bisexual.” 

“Then how did a clinical term become a social concept?” asked Harry. 

“Men like yourself were seeing this designation of MSM on forms and paperwork, in medical documentation, and so on. And for men like you who foundationally identify as straight—who are attracted to women, who have mostly straight friends, and whose lives very closely follow heterosexual culture—saying _I’m a man who has sex with men, but I don’t consider myself gay_ was much closer to how they viewed themselves. Socially, MSM has come to refer to an otherwise straight man who, for his own reasons, may have had a male sex partner. MSM is the way that men like you can give researchers the data they need, and be counted as part of the gay community, even when you may not consider yourself to be gay, or don’t participate in gay culture.” 

Akilah was right. MSM was the most accurate description he’d heard for himself.

“Gay culture…” Harry repeated blandly. “Like dance clubs and pride parade? Picking up blokes in bars?” 

“Exactly.” 

Draco had a foot in the door of gay culture. He knew how to pick up a bloke in a bar. He had gay and bi friends much earlier in life. And of course he knew how to fuck a guy. Whereas Harry, like Akilah said, lived exclusively in the heterosexual world… his socialization had been entirely straight until last year, most of his friends and acquaintances were straight, and he himself fit the norms of being straight. Except for the fact that he was married to Draco, another guy. 

Most of gay culture struck Harry as foreign and not applicable to him. He only felt an affinity to the “type” of homosexuality he saw between Dmitry and Nebojsa, or Viktor and Charlie. They were all very masculine guys—they were into sports, got their hands dirty, had tattoos, drank beer, swore like sailors, and generally didn’t give a shit. Nebojsa and Viktor were openly into women as well as men. Anyone who met them would have assumed they were straight… until being introduced to their male partner, anyway. 

“I think… the gay friends I do have are all MSM-kinda guys.” He gulped, willing himself to add, “Like me.” 

Dr. Beasley bobbed her head. “That makes sense. MSM’s generally socialize with straight people, so you would have encountered others like you as you came out and they came out to you. MSM’s are a pocket of the gay community who have very little contact with the rest of LGBT people. MSM’s have more in common with straight people, so that’s where they tend to make friends.”

Harry closed the cover of the book before he got more distracted. This was his rabbit hole to explore on his own time.

“Thank you for this,” he said. “I can already tell it’s gonna be helpful.”

Looking at the cover brought him back to why this was necessary. He was learning about these things in proximity and relation to Draco. Draco’s male friends and exes were overwhelmingly MSM-types, like Harry. Even Draco, who was comfortable calling himself bi depending on who was listening, was a part of this MSM appearing-straight-while-privately-boning-guys subculture. And maybe this book would talk about how hiding his bisexuality made it harder for Draco to trust people. Especially after the manipulation Draco suffered at his father’s hands over his sexual preferences. Yeah, it made a ton of sense. 

Harry could think of a few times that Draco and Viktor—even Nebojsa and Mad Eye Moody once—had teased him: telling him to his face how straight he was. Like he didn’t know. Now he realized they’d probably known about this MSM concept, and their jokes in a way had been reaffirming Harry’s identity, pointing out where he fell on the spectrum in relation to their more open bisexuality. Draco might always know more than Harry about being not-strictly-straight. Sometimes Draco suffered for it. It was one of their fundamental differences, Draco knowing too deeply, while Harry remained clueless. 

He set the book aside. “I wanna take some time to read this and come back with questions,” he explained. “For now, let’s get back to Draco because… fuck it, I’m worried about him. I can’t remember _not_ being worried about him. Everything you’re saying about Bipolar, and having episodes… it fits.” 

Harry admitted what was true, even though it scared him. “Draco was manic when he showed up at our house a year ago. He had a psychotic break. Hermione gave him a book to read, and she didn’t know there was torture in it. That must have triggered his psychosis. I thought it was shell-shock at the time, and possibly… I think he was overdosing on his pain potions, denying himself for a few days as self-punishment and then binging, almost like getting drunk.” That was a scary thought. He didn’t like acknowledging it. 

“I had to step in and start regulating his dosage. It took a couple of weeks for me to get him down to normal. Once we started hanging out, and drinking together, he leveled out. Getting drunk lead to us kissing, and then sober kissing, and…” Harry shrugged. “In six months he was a totally different person—caring, level, affectionate—the man I asked to marry me. 

“I think Draco was having depressive episodes at Hogwarts. This was when I was away, so I never saw him like that. The way he is now. He would always clean himself up so I didn’t see. He didn’t want me to worry about him. Fuck, that’s messed up!” Harry fell back, a fist in his hair, pulling. He could feel himself starting to sweat, an uncomfortable dampness to his tshirt across his back and under his arms, cotton sticking to his skin. He smelt his own deodorant as he carded a rough hand through his hair. “I was probably making his low’s even worse by not being there, and Draco was so paranoid that he hid what was going on from everyone, including me. He was… afraid of fucking up the war by asking me to stay with him, because he needed me, but he didn’t know how to ask for help staying in reality.” 

Harry had to stop. He ripped his glasses off, pressing his palms against his eyes. 

He forced himself to take a full breath. The idea of Draco suffering alone at Hogwarts made him feel his own PTSD rise up like a wave of bile in his throat, clawing away at his ability to breathe.

Draco reminded him of Sirius; trapped, alone and depressed at Grimmauld Place before he’d died. Harry’s mind was connecting Sirius’ behavior to Draco’s Bipolar. The recklessness and hyperactivity Sirius experienced at being confined in his home was a twin of Draco’s bombast temper at school. It was actually a really fair bridge to make: Draco and Sirius were cousins, and Harry understood mental illnesses like theirs tended to be genetic. Maybe… with his irresponsible sexual history, his propensity towards violence and bad behavior, his inability to hold down a relationship, his lack of close friends, and his difficulty navigating certain social complexities… maybe Sirius had been Bipolar, too. Harry hadn’t been able to know Sirius long enough or deeply enough to say for sure. 

Harry spoke with his hands still covering his face. 

“I’ve never actually had Draco around when he’s depressed. I’ve never been there for him when he was down,” Harry swallowed. Much as it made his heart pound in his ears and his whole body break out in a noticeable sweat… this was an opportunity to re-train himself. Instead of freaking himself out, imagining that Draco was going to go off and be murdered like Sirius was, he could use his real emotions of compassion and protectiveness to do something productive. 

He picked his head up, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans, ready to face his worst fear: losing Draco. “What can I do for Draco now? I don’t even know where to start. But I want to.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Together, Harry and Dr. Beasley put together a three-point plan of action to support Draco’s Bipolar condition. The actions were all for Harry, of course; he wanted concrete, physical things he could do to impact Draco’s mood. He created an obstacle course for himself; mentally and emotionally, a series of attempts to cycle through every day, making sure he was doing everything within his power to be there for Draco. 

Number one was creating outlets. Draco needed ways to express himself. Music was the most obvious. If Draco didn’t feel like playing the piano or teaching Harry to play, then they should go to another concert. If he wasn’t feeling a crowd, they ought to go for a walk through London and listen to buskers—street musicians who played for money all over the city. Some of them were really good, and Harry didn’t mind throwing a few pounds into their open cases or buying an album when they had one for sale. If Draco didn’t want to go outside, they could try the radio or listening to something at home. 

He should bring Draco out around London more; it had been a year since he gotten clothes, and given their age he’d likely outgrown a few things. They could browse window displays. Even the exercise, going for a walk together, would be beneficial.

Draco worshiped quidditch. They should get back on the pitch and fly together. They should subscribe to a quidditch magazine, read articles to each other, debate it. They should talk shop about the technical details of executing certain moves. 

The point of these outlets was to take Draco out of his own miserable head by filling it with something else, something he loves, something he and Harry could experience and enjoy together. 

Number two was to get Draco feeling good about himself—showering more than once a week was mandatory—but helping him to feel sexy and desirable became a part of Harry’s mission too.

Fucking could be an obvious outlet if Draco was up for it. Exercise was second-best. Otherwise this category consisted of compliments, which was an area Harry knew he fell short in outside the bedroom. When Draco was naked, Harry’s head filled with filthy things to say. He didn’t always know how to express his admiration when it wasn’t physical or sexual. 

Akilah’s response to his shortcomings in communication was to supply him with more books—one called _The Go-Giver_ , a story about morals and leadership, and the other a primer on Huna, the Hawaiian shaman’s practice of finding peace through a balance of love, visualizations, and action. Both books were very much Harry’s speed: short, purposeful, rooted in kindness, and full of ideas he could turn around and try immediately. Harry realized he was re-reading portions of these books almost daily. In seven years at Hogwarts he’d never been exposed to principles of philosophy, ethics, or business, and found in himself more curiosity than he’d expected. The books didn’t tell him what to say to Draco: they did help him refine an idea of the man he wanted to be—a leader, a husband, a peaceful and compassionate warrior—and how he might express those ideals in his conversation and through his daily behaviors. 

Harry had never thought of himself as sexy. It still confused and baffled him that Draco, or anyone else, wanted to take his clothes off and do stuff. He didn’t understand what others saw in him. In order to arouse Draco, there was a lot of work to be done on his own part, understanding his more mature, adult sexuality. To start with, his tossing off into the sink wasn’t going to satisfy anyone, so he stopped wasting his erotic energy on something which could never be fulfilling. He concentrated his energy, turning his attention and sexual gaze toward Draco instead. 

Even something simple like scent might spark Draco’s sexual interest. _Always be clean, always smell good_. Akilah recommended he try some cologne and see if Draco’s senses picked up. Harry had never worn cologne in his life, and it seemed odd to start now. On a recommendation from Ivan—who sported one of the most glorious beards Harry had ever seen, shiny copper-golden and perfectly trimmed—Harry picked up a Mediterranean-style oil to moisturize his own budding beard and the skin beneath it. The oil wasn’t strong. It carried a mild citrusy scent which struck Harry as a good thing for the summer. A few days later, a sleepy Draco voluntarily came closer in bed, burying his face against Harry’s neck, his nose pressed up to Harry’s jaw, inhaling against his new whiskers. 

He learned that visual stimulus was an important component of sexuality—Harry blushed when Akilah suggested he find a way to spend more time around Draco with his shirt off. How else was Draco expected to know that Harry was interested in sex? The pureblood wasn’t a mind-reader. If Harry wanted Draco to experience lust again, he needed to create a target, something for Draco to lust after. 

He knew Draco was into the hair on his body, and since he’d gotten taller there was increasingly more of it. So he started there. 

After two weeks his beard was coming in nicely, and that earned him his first positive reaction from Draco. His husband started absently reaching for Harry’s cheek, worming his fingertips through soft, thick bristles to scratch lightly at his skin—as though it still itched, and Draco was helping him out, moving his beard hairs around… playing with them. One day Draco’s finger traveled to his lip, pressing. That finger snuck inside Harry’s mouth to be sucked. They snogged for the first time since coming home, falling asleep with their mouths connected, breathing into each other. 

Dr. Beasley encouraged him to find a way to share sexual fantasies—the key word being _share_ , not hitting Draco with _Legilimens_ and seeing what random randy details shook out of his head. “Don’t bombard him with your own wants. Offer one or two things you already enjoy, then let him talk. Or let him show you. Or let him think on it and come back when he’s ready.” 

Draco wasn’t ready to talk yet. Harry kept doing chores around the house wearing only his shorts, sometimes still sweaty from his morning run. He could feel when Draco’s eyes were on him, like a spotlight against his bare skin. 

After Harry told Akilah the story of how Draco gave him a massage after finding him shut up in a cupboard on his birthday—one of their earliest forms of flirtation, Harry realized with a jolt—she informed him it was time to start consciously reciprocating that brand of affection; a physical, comforting touch which Draco had started, and Harry somehow forgot about along the way. That was how Draco broke through Harry’s own barriers. It would probably work just as well on him. 

Harry had to make it clear that the purpose of the massage was _not_ sex. The point was Draco’s pleasure, and Harry’s interest and willingness to care for him with no need for anything in return. Draco’s mind might be working against him, so it was important to help ground his body in reality.

Harry started by offering his hand; it was something he’d done countless times before, asking Draco to hold his hand across the dinner table or while walking somewhere. Now when Draco accepted, Harry would gently massage his hard knuckles, or rub his thumb against the palm of Draco’s hand, giving a pleasant, constant sort of pressure. He wouldn’t speak. He didn’t want to distract Draco from the sensation. While he did this he practiced the Huna principle of Makia—focusing his energy to a single point, which was Draco. He wanted the man to experience his thoughts outside of Legilimency. Touching him, Harry thought about the strength and talent in Draco’s hands. He thought about all the times Draco had used touch to reach out to others, caring for their physical bodies because sometimes that was how he preferred to communicate. He envisioned Draco being able to open himself up again using that touch which had reached Harry in his own darkness. 

Draco started voluntarily holding his hand more; walking down the street, in the underground… kissing in the shower. Because Draco had started following the sight of his naked ass, following him into the steam and the hot water, lured by the look of him stripped and available. 

Number three was socialization and support. Draco’s social circle was tiny. Pathetic, really; with only a handful of people he knew or liked, and during a depressive episode his mind would be working to erode those bonds with anxiety and self-doubt. That explained why Draco wasn’t responding to letters. He got plenty from Kieran, Blaise, even Snape. His post sat on the desk for a few days, unanswered, before Draco stuffed the letters in a desk drawer to be ignored out of sight. He never responded. 

It was up to Harry to take initiative and arrange social opportunities for Draco. Harry’s initial idea of taking him to see his mom was the opposite of a good plan—that would depress and drain him, so Harry let Draco know he was going alone, making sure Narcissa had everything she needed and catching up with her team of Healers. He reported anything important back to Draco. Harry dashed a quick owl to Blaise, claiming Draco was under the weather after a bout with Wizard’s Fever. Harry responded to Kieran’s letters next, comforting the kid whose gran was basically keeping him locked up for the summer, dissatisfied with his marks. That struck Harry as harsh, considering the lad had lost his mum and survived multiple attacks on his school at the tender age of eleven. Harry’s own marks had been abysmal when he started magic school, and they’d never risen to more than satisfactory. School wasn’t everything. Harry tried to give Kieran the best advice he could, and said that Draco would write him soon. 

Harry wrote to Snape that Draco was in no shape to work on research regarding their horcrux magic and to try again later. That didn’t go over well. Harry told Snape to bite him, and the letters stopped abruptly thereafter. 

Socializing Draco with the Weasleys wasn’t enough, since he didn’t trust them yet. Harry suggested they have lunch with Viktor and Charlie instead; they’d talk quidditch and generally have more in common. And they need to go visit Dmitry and Nebojsa in Romania. Harry had let himself get sucked into the heavy grind of working for Leon—absorbed in his work, he hadn’t heard from his Durmstrang mates since the ceremony at Hogwarts. They were overdue for a vacation, anyway, and he’d only been to Eastern Europe once—he spent less than a day in the Ukraine before getting set upon by Death Eaters, nearly killed, and thrown in prison. Harry could use a re-do on the Slavic nations, starting with Romania. He dashed off a note and sent Hedwig, wondering if they might get a second owl rather than continuing to share. 

There was an unspoken fourth rule to Harry’s mission. To never give up, and to never take “no” personally. If Draco turned down an idea, that was fine. It was “no” to the idea at that time, not a judgment against Harry. His job was to stay positive and offer something else from another category. He couldn’t lose his temper. He couldn’t guilt himself or think he was doing something wrong. This wasn’t about him. It was about Draco. He needed to put his ego aside and fucking focus on his marriage like his life depended on it. Because his life wasn’t in the balance, but maybe Draco’s was. 

He didn’t want Draco to end up like that muggle woman who took off with no warning and drowned herself. Draco was giving him every warning sign he knew how to throw. This was Harry’s turn to respond. He needed to be in a constant, peaceful, demonstrative state of action. 

Just in case, Harry asked Leon Harper to keep Sirius’ old motorcycle for a while. He didn’t want Draco to have access to something it would be so easy to kill himself with. It ripped Harry’s heart in half that he was suicide-proofing Grimmauld Place. But it was what he needed to do, to protect Draco. Even from himself. 

Godric Gryffindor’s sword went to Harry’s vault at Gringotts. His Glock, Beretta, and ammo he sent back to Leon; Harry wasn’t planning to work at all in the next few weeks, so he wouldn’t need them. Anyone who asked, Harry informed he was taking time off to focus on his marriage, and no one could fault him for that. Meanwhile he tested the sharpness of knives in the kitchen, got rid of bleach in the laundry, and threw out most of the liquid cleaning products. He would learn to cook and scour the house with magic instead. Whatever kept Draco safe was worth it.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Once in a while Harry stopped to pick up a newspaper at the corner shop after finishing his morning run. Without a television in the house, it was a good way to keep up on details in London and the wider non-magical world while Draco used the radio to listen to music rather than the news. 

With the Fidelus Charm down, their neighbors could at long last see the house, and see him and occasionally Draco coming and going from it. Thinking on his feet, Harry claimed he was the adopted son of the previous owner, who passed away. The neighbors seemed to only vaguely remember the Blacks as a quiet family who dealt in antiques. The neighbors offered their condolences on the loss of his father. 

Muggles always asked each other what they did for a living—Vernon Dursley had made a point of asking any new acquaintance what their work was, and then judging them for it. It was one of the first questions Harry encountered when meeting anyone outside the magical world. Everyone with a wand knew what The Boy Who Lived did, so there was no need to ask. To the muggles, Harry explained that he was a private military and security consultant specializing in anti-terrorism; his husband was a French-born musician. This seemed acceptable. 

He did get a few raised eyebrows at the combination of “military consultant” and “husband” in the same sentence, but the fact that he worked in proximity to combat forcefully put down any niggling need someone might feel to make a comment about his sexuality. He shot at people for a living: no sensible muggle was going to make fun of him for being queer. Not on the off-chance he might be armed, unhinged, and fully capable of disposing of a body. 

Regent’s Park was rather an upscale London neighborhood; the occupants of the line of terrace houses ringing the park were influential and affluent people. Harry observed a bossy barrister instructing a crew who were washing the windows of his house, but not to his satisfaction; he also met a female CEO, an art dealer, the director of a museum, and an MP. 

He was told the large house on the corner overlooking the park had recently been purchased by a Saudi in the oil business who used the property when in town. The price tag had been a cool twenty million pounds. That house was a grand structure once owned by a lord of some kind. Harry lived in the terrace row with the plebes, though he was made to understand his property was one of the larger in the row, occupying one and a half footprints. His neighbor the CEO had a mirror floor plan to number twelve. She bragged to him one morning that she’d purchased the house in disrepair in 1990 and renovated it to her taste over the last eleven years. She offered Harry and Draco a peek inside her home anytime, to help them with ideas on updating their own space—a polite muggle way of calling their house shabby. 

Harry conducted these conversations sweaty; often bare-chested, wearing running shorts and trainers, bumping into his neighbors as they prepared to leave for work in the mornings. His explanation of his and Draco’s occupations allowed for them to keep very different schedules than normal muggles. They wouldn’t be seen coming and going like those who worked in offices. Harry thought it was a fair way to cover up how often they Apparated in and out of the house, and explain the under-usage of their front door. 

Draco’s eyes always went wide and startled when one of their neighbors waved to them or called a “hello” from down the street. Malfoy Manor was a vey grand property, a proper English country house. Draco never had close neighbors, and Lucius Malfoy would sooner have died than be sociable with muggles. Draco rarely uttered a word when this happened: the neighbors either assumed he was shy, or that his English was bad. They acknowledged Draco with smiles, welcoming him to the neighborhood, before directing any further conversation at Harry, who was more equipped to keep up with non-magical small talk whilst Draco zoned out. 

With his newfound height, his neat black beard, and the help of his blue suit which Draco had painstakingly spelled to fit him again, Harry could make a convincing picture of a man in his mid-twenties. 

Draco looked younger. There wasn’t much to be done about it. Draco always had a youthful look about him. He wasn’t getting taller. When he put on muscle it was lean, compact and sinewy, keeping his frame narrow. He barely looked his age, even with a few days worth of stubble on his cheeks. He kept his scars and tattoo covered up unless they were at home together. Darkening his hair to brunet helped; it was a disguise he’d used last summer, the darker hair color bringing out some of his freckles, showing the scruff on his chin and around his lips, proving he was older than he appeared. 

When viewed from behind, Draco looked more like a young teen than a young man close to twenty. Harry could tell it irked Draco, to be perceived as less than he was. 

Harry was for the first time grateful for Draco’s lavishly posh sartorial taste. If Draco wore less sophisticated clothes, Harry might look like a creep holding his hand. So long as they dressed smartly, theirs was mistaken as a socially acceptable but _notable_ age gap. 

They still got a few looks in the underground. It might’ve been the fact they were two young, fit, good-looking guys in high-end suits, taking the train at half-nine on a Friday night. It might’ve been the fact that, when the train jerked suddenly, Harry wrapped his arm protectively over Draco, catching him around the waist, and left it there, enjoying the physical contact—wedding rings plain on their fingers. Muggles typically didn’t marry young like wizards did. He hoped the looks he got weren’t from people thinking he was a pervert for banging a bloke who _looked_ six or seven years younger… never mind that Draco was actually a few weeks older than him. 

Tonight Draco looked stunning in all black, wearing his slender Dior suit and embroidered black dress shirt open at the collar. Dressing all in black made Draco look svelte, somewhat severe but also creating the optical illusion he was smaller, especially in the bright lights of the train car. 

Harry took Draco’s hand, leading him by it when they reached their stop. 

He hadn’t told Draco where they were going that night, wanting to surprise him. 

Planning activities and surprises for Draco felt good; he’d done it when they first started dating, wanting to impress the pureblood. He’d done it when they were apart, wanting Draco to feel they were connected even when distance separated them. Something had fallen off after the war—he’d forgotten this part of himself that was outgoing, physically expressive, romantic. Now he wanted Draco to feel him again: to feel comfort, happiness, joy, curiosity for their new world and life together. Those were mostly foreign emotions for Draco. Harry could tell. There was an edge of nervous confusion to his slender body as Harry guided him through the center of muggle London, past sky scrapers and buskers, taxis honking and drunk people shouting into the warm night. 

Harry wanted to celebrate. 

Leon Harper had pulled some strings, getting genuine French identity papers made for Draco. Finally, for the first time in his nearly eighteen years, Draco Malfoy existed on paper… as Draco Potter. He had a plastic ID card written in French along with proof of British citizenship to carry in his wallet next to the credit card Harry gave him. They were also legally married in France, having signed the paperwork earlier that week. Called _pacsé_ , it wasn’t quite the same as the type of marriage offered to straight couples—but it was the closest they could get, with England still refusing to legally recognize gay couples. 

Draco brushed the whole thing off. To Harry it was significant. Monumental. Eternal. He wanted their relationship recognized in every way they could be. And being married in the eyes of muggle law as well as magical made him feel like he could fly without a broom.

He’d considered taking Draco back to the formal French restaurant where they’d eaten last summer. He knew Draco enjoyed the food there, and the scenery bordered on magical. He stored the thought in the back of his mind—perhaps an anniversary dinner there. He wanted to go somewhere new, somewhere exciting. The muggle newspaper provided; Harry read an article about the opening of a new upscale sushi restaurant. Knowing Draco liked seafood, he’d called for a reservation. 

The restaurant was at the top of one of the tallest downtown towers, with commanding views of the city. Harry chose to go later at night so they could enjoy the lights of London as far as the eye could see. It would be a bit like flying, hopefully putting thoughts of quidditch in Draco’s head. 

Draco tried so hard to school his features, to hide his emotions, tamping everything down deep in his gut. Seventeen years of being a Malfoy told him never to express anything more than passing acceptance or distain. But the corners of his grey eyes crinkled. His cheekbones lifted. And there, the tiniest ghost of a smile turned his lips as the elevator doors opened, revealing the restaurant at the top of the tallest tower, waiting for them.

 

 

 

 

Their waitress looked _so close_ to carding Draco. The woman glanced between the temporary brunet and Harry—noting Harry’s beard, the way they dressed, Draco’s prim manners, and the dead give-away of matching wedding rings on their fingers—at last deciding they were probably old enough for the martinis they’d ordered. 

Draco watched plates of food go by. He squinted at the fare a few tables away, puzzling. 

“It’s raw,” he whispered. “The fish is raw. Is it _supposed_ to be raw, Scar Head?” 

Harry nodded, and ordered some. 

They ended up with a huge platter of sashimi, because Draco wouldn’t stop moaning every time he popped a piece into his mouth. And Harry was a sucker for seeing his husband happy. 

“So,” Harry announced, meeting Draco’s eyes. “I haven’t forgotten that your birthday is coming up.” 

The Ice Prince of Slytherin raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t say,” he drawled. 

Harry hooked Draco’s foot with his own under the table, being cozy—knowing that being a ponce was how Draco flirted sometimes, and choosing to flirt back in his own way. “We haven’t been on holiday in a while. What do you say we go to Romania?” 

Draco regarded Harry over the rim of his martini. He sipped, set it down, and licked a trace of sour liquor from his bottom lip, considering. “Dima and Misha invited us?” 

Harry confirmed. “Nebojsa says they’re getting stir-crazy. They haven’t had anyone come visit. I thought…” He didn’t want to be coy. He wanted to speak his mind, and so he did; he was honest. “I miss them. I thought you might miss them too.”

Draco looked at him, the wheels behind his eyes spinning. 

“We can celebrate your birthday in your style,” Harry said. He dropped his voice a bit—a deeper tone made it harder for people to eaves drop when he said something magical, or something private. He intended to speak both. “We might go to the beach, play quidditch, drink… get high.” 

Still regarding him critically, Draco raised a single eyebrow. He’d darkened them to match his hair. But Harry still knew the precise location of a particular freckle hiding at the apex of Draco’s eyebrow. It was a spot he liked to kiss before moving up to put some love to the scar at his hairline. Harry couldn’t see the freckle in the low light of the restaurant, but he knew it was there. 

Draco’s chin shifted, his jaw sliding sideways as he thought about it. “How long would we be there?” 

“At least two weeks?” That’s what he’d proposed in his first owl. Nebojsa asked if they might stay longer—perhaps the whole summer, even. He told Draco, “It’s an open invitation.” 

Very straight white teeth made an appearance as Draco bit his lip. Harry liked the earnest eye contact that came with it. 

“Summering on the continent, Potter?” he teased. “Rather elevated of you.” 

Harry stared right back. “You raise the bar, Malfoy. Just trying to keep up.” 

It was sexual—seemingly offhand words commoly used to describe a boner. He hadn’t meant it, but after the words left his lips he realized their subtext. He let his statement stand, his expression secure behind it. He wasn’t sure how his face was supposed to look when he flirted with his husband, but he assumed “confident and slightly arrogant” was a good place to start. 

Draco picked up a slice of raw white fish, dipping it in a splash of sauce. He popped it into his mouth, reveling. It had a texture like salted butter against the tongue, melting on contact. The same could be said for how Draco’s skin felt under his mouth.  

Harry watched Draco as he chewed. It was his turn in the conversation. Harry didn’t need to fill the void. He waited, giving Draco time, enjoying being near him, their feet hooked together beneath the table. 

Draco smiled, thinking about it. His eyes lifted, looking up, imagining it. “A summer holiday…” he mused. “The beach. Swimming. We might hire a boat and go out on the Black Sea.” 

“Have you been?” 

Draco shook his head. His eyes stayed lifted, his face light. He liked the idea. “Chern and Vuk invited me out but… well, that never happened.” Because Durmstrang fell to the Death Eaters, Vukasin was murdered by his father, and suddenly Chern and the boys were running for their lives while Draco came under increasing pressure to become a Death Eater leading up to his father’s incarceration. It was a miracle he could manage a pleasant expression when he said, “I’ve always wanted to see Eastern Europe.” 

Compared to Draco, Harry didn’t feel like the more widely traveled partner. But he realized that, in the last year, he might’ve seen more of the world than Draco. He’d gone as far east as Moldova, west to the United States, north to Canada and Finland, and as far south as Columbia. The tropics had been a real treat, something he’d never expected to experience. 

For a moment, he tried picturing Draco somewhere tropical—sunglasses, a linen shirt mostly open, a hint of sunburn on his cheeks. His pureblood would be pounding rum and running down the beach in flashy swim trunks. That fantasy needed to come true. Harry promised himself he’d make it happen. 

This summer trip to Romania was a good idea. Harry was excited about it, and the whole thing was meant to be for Draco! Harry wanted to see his husband on another holiday, because Draco knew how to let loose when given the chance, and right now London and Grimmauld weren’t working for him. Rather than try to force it, Harry offered a different option. Draco seemed to fancy a change as much as he did. 

Harry did miss Dmitry, Nebojsa, and Misha too. It would be a relief to catch up with them. At the back of his mind, Harry considered how much he wanted to be around Dima and Sia; to have another couple so similar to them as a kind of healthy relationship model, part mates and part positive influence. He definitely looked to them as mentors. Although he wasn’t quite sure when their birthdays were, he knew the pair were about a year older than him and Draco. Dima had turned nineteen, and Sia was probably close. 

Like Harry, their life experiences often made them seem much older, or at least more mature. He hoped some of their better qualities might rub off on him and Draco over the next few weeks. 

“Then let’s go.” Grinning, Harry picked up his drink, offering to make a toast of it. 

Draco lifted his glass too, clinking it delicately with Harry’s before bringing it to his lips. “Let’s.”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Not wanting to make a total berk of himself, Harry picked up a book about Romania. 

He learned that the Ionescue brothers’ homeland was a predominantly Catholic country, conservative both politically and socially. The country had many monasteries and churches, especially in the Transylvanian mountains to the west. Romanians had a strong artistic history, cultivating musicians, painters, and artisans. It was considered rude to swear in public, but drinking and smoking in the streets was the norm, and some rowdiness generally ensued amongst young people. 

Being gay in public was illegal. Punishable by up to five years in prison. Harry made a mental note not to be physical with Draco unless they were alone, or unless he saw Dima and Nebojsa kiss first, just to be safe. He could understand why Dmitry was entertaining serious thoughts of leaving; Romania might be his home, but it wasn’t a place where he and Nebojsa were completely safe—because of their love for each other—which was sincerely twisted. 

Romanian drinking age was eighteen, and while consumption was loosely enforced, driving with any amount of alcohol in your body was against the law, too. Romania was largely a cash economy—only major hotels accepted credit cards for the sake of tourists. He would need to stop by Gringotts for a bag of galleons, have those exchanged for GBP, and when they arrived in Romania he could exchange them again for the local currency, lei. They would Apparate to an airport, just as he and Draco had done in France, so he could exchange money there. 

Harry had never been out of the UK before last year. His first trip across the channel had been with Draco, attending Bill and Fleur’s wedding. After that he’d gone to Spain and America alone, to fight; he’d visited Moldova, too, involuntarily. This summer he’d brought Draco back to Spain, to celebrate, and they’d be spending the American Thanksgiving holiday with Leon and Charlene, meaning that Harry was quite literally retracing his war steps, practically in order, this time with Draco at his side. It was a kind of victory tour. In his own way, he was showing Draco what he’d been up to, the places he’d been, the experiences he’d lived through. 

He appreciated the closed loop, the symmetry. It was a good balance, to see these places again with Draco at his side. He wanted to replace his war experiences with memories they made together.

 

 

 

 

Harry laid in bed that night—in his underwear, a Cooling Charm circling the room, nursing a cigarette as he read the last few pages of his book about Romania.

Draco sat at the foot of their bed, flicking his wand. The blond commanded their clothes to fly into a new suitcase: muggle in appearance, but with a complex Expanding Charm allowing it to hold four times what it should. Draco was testing that limit, stuffing more things in. He’d packed more than half their shared closet, all but the winter clothes and their dress robes. 

Most of the clothes in the suitcase didn’t fit Harry anymore. They would work fine for Draco. The blond was probably thinking more of himself as he packed their bag. The only time he’d ever packed Harry’s things had been their honeymoon, and he wasn’t practiced at it. Draco wasn’t used to having Harry around for good; he was used to Harry always leaving, always having something more important to do. Harry regretted that. His actions hadn’t matched up to his values. Now he was correcting his mistake, restoring the balance. Draco was forever the most important person in his life. Harry was committed to acting based on how he felt. 

Harry could see the faintest tremor of anxiety in his husband’s pale hand as he flicked his wand again, packing all of their shared neckties. They probably wouldn’t need those. While his book informed him that Romanian customs could be formal, he knew their hosts well enough to say that an armload of denims and tshirts along with some clean pants would likely suffice. Yes, technically their friends were descended from royalty. But Harry had never seen Dima voluntarily wear a shirt with buttons, let alone a suit, and he didn’t think their friends would plan anything formal without telling them ahead of time. 

Harry stubbed out his cigarette, set his book aside, and looked benevolently at Draco. 

“If we need something while we’re there,” Harry told him, “we can just buy it. No big deal.” 

Draco searched for a problem in that statement. Finding none, he flung a few older garments out of the suitcase—mostly cast-offs from Dudley which Harry frankly couldn’t believe he still owned, let alone the fact he wore them. 

The more he looked back at his life, the more he realized how much he’d been influenced by the decisions or declarations of others. Now, without anyone hovering over him—no Dumbledore, no Dursleys, no Snape, no Voldemort—he could finally do exactly as he wanted. He still wasn’t crystal clear what that was. But he had a better understanding of who he was, and who he might be with a little practice.

 

 

 


	5. Song of Myself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Potters take a summer holiday in Romania, where being gay is illegal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** financial distress, lies  & withholding, a Gibbs slap, La Douleur Exquise & Mamihlapinatapei (lusting after people you can’t have, and subsequent psycho-emotional pedantry), Dominant/submissive relationship dynamic, alcohol, recreational/street drugs, hallucinogenics, underground club circuits, PTSD, panic attacks, anxiety, mentions of past rape, criminal activity, guns, sex work, nudity, & sexual content (consensual BDSM, negotiated consensual non-consent play, public sex, oral sex, gay sex, voyeurism, group sex, and rounded out with a dash of other people fucking)
> 
>  **AUTHOR’S RANT:** It’s adventure time! My Chautauqua Tent is pitched. Gather round and attend.
> 
> This chapter explores both sex work and sex trafficking.  
> Sex work and sex trafficking are NOT the same thing. They both have to do with sex, and that’s where the similarities end.
> 
> For the cheap seats in the back:  
> \- sex work is when two or more consenting adults exchange money for sexual acts, sexual communication, or sexual media  
> \- sex trafficking is when an unwilling person is put under duress, coerced, or subjected to violence, forcing them to engage in sexual acts/communication/media for survival; or when a person who is unable to give consent is induced to engage in sex acts/etc by a person with influence or authority over them
> 
> Sex trafficking is horrible and should be outlawed everywhere. Sex outside of consent is always wrong. Agreement given under duress is not consent. Underage people cannot consent to sex with adults; underage people can consent to sex with others reasonably within their age range under what are called Romeo & Juliet laws, protecting underage consensual romantic couples who as they grow up may temporarily straddle the age of consent. Every country has their own interpretation of what constitutes an acceptable age gap, but it’s generally two to three years.
> 
> Sex trafficking takes advantage of vulnerable people—those who are young, those who are broke and desperate, or those who are not able to give consent. Sex trafficking often involves a larger network of criminal manipulators taking advantage of victims. There is also the vomit-inducing arena of domestic sex trafficking, whereby one or two individuals with power (typically a parent, guardian, or other authority) take advantage of a vulnerable person. Parents selling/loaning/pimping their kids out for sex.
> 
> Sex trafficking is universally bad, and has nothing—zero—to do with sex work.
> 
> Sex work is consensual work performed by adults who freely choose their occupation for whatever reason. Sex work is chosen under normal circumstances, like wanting to earn a living; not under duress, coercion, threat of violence, or fear for safety. See above.
> 
> Sex work is real work.  
> Sex work is necessary work.  
> Sex work is not going away. So deal with it.
> 
> No matter what your personal relationship is with sex work, it is a human right to have a safe and dignified mode of procuring income. People work in the sex industry for many reasons. Some enjoy it, some don’t. Everyone has to pretend to like their job, otherwise they risk not having said job. Sex work impacts not only workers’ lives, but the lives of their family and loved ones as well, mostly because of social stigmas and issues of legality.
> 
> Sex workers are people. Sex workers do not deserve harm. Sex workers should not be the recycling bin for sexual behaviors unwanted by the rest of society: do not say that rapists or pedophiles should be catered to by sex workers. This places sex workers directly in harm’s way, and only encourages criminal behavior as society turns a blind eye. If you don’t like pedophilia or rape, legislate against it, enforce punishments for the crime, and reduce recidivism. Pawning off those with violent criminal urges onto sex workers only ensures that the behavior continues unchecked, undocumented, and without enforceable consequences. You don’t want to fuck a pedophile: neither does a sex worker.
> 
> Sex workers in countries where their work is illegal encounter a high incidence of violence because they lack the same legal channels as any other worker. Assault someone, they can press charges against you. Assaulted or harassed by someone, _you_ can press charges. When sex workers cannot defend themselves through legal channels, they become prey to criminals and subjected to violence at a far higher rate than can be reliably recorded.
> 
> Sex work is real work.  
> Sex workers are people.  
> We’re gonna meet some sex workers (fictitiously, allegorically) in this story. We’ve already met them. You just didn’t know it.  
> Don’t wanna read a compassionate, compelling, and humanist narrative about sex workers? Close your browser now, cause that’s where we’re going.
> 
> Wanna come at me about sex work? BRING IT. My queer ass will educate you for days. The Chautauqua Tent is open.

 

****

_I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,_

_I am mad for it to be in contact with me._

_The smoke of my own breath,_

_Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,_

_My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart,_

_the passing of blood and air through my lungs,_

_The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-colored sea-rocks,_

_and of hay in the barn,_

_The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of the wind._

_A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,_

_The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,_

_The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides,_

_The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun._

****

\- Walt Whitman

 

 

Harry and Draco stepped through the muggle revolving door, out into skin-warming sunshine. 

They’d used the Public Apparition Point at an airport Harry could never pronounce. It wasn’t the Romanian capital of Bucharest, but a smaller city on the coast—an hour away from where their friends were living. There wasn’t a significant magical population near them to have an Apparition Point established, and the Ionescue brothers kept their property shielded under a constant Anti-Apparition Jinx; worried that people who rightfully hated their father might think of dropping in to fuck with the dead duke’s kids.

Outside the regional airport, a line of taxis waited for passengers. There were a few cars with people awaiting their family and loved ones on arriving flights. Standing in the sunshine with Draco shielding his eyes, Harry scanned down the line of idling cars, looking for a familiar face. 

Harry started. It took a second for him to recognize Nebojsa... it had been so long since he’d seen the man in the muggle world—casual, completely non-magical, blending in. Sia had grown up in the muggle world, too. It was through his knowledge and experience that their group of friends had hidden themselves so effectively after Durmstrang fell and they went on the lam. 

Nebojsa knew what he was doing when it came to looking muggle. Maybe he was showing off? Or perhaps this was his true self, when he wasn’t in hiding, trying to blend in, fearing for his life. 

He drove a 1970’s convertible; red, sporty and sleek, with the top down. That probably belonged to Dima’s family, as the license plates were Romanian and not from neighboring Serbia. Sia’s black hair was long and loose, flowing past his shoulders in the breeze. He tucked it behind his ear, silver rings and a large silver-face watch glinting in the sunlight. He wore a pair of sunglasses as black as his hair. 

He was leaning against the car, smoking a cigarette. His trousers were black and tight. A white singlet with a low neck showed the tattoos on his chest as well as the cross creeping up his neck. He wore a light zip up jacket in navy satin, white and navy stripes on the elastic cuffs which were drawn up over his forearms. The jacket had a raucous pattern of pink and white cherry blossoms. Together with his long hair, the flowers leant an element of whimsy to his look—a balance to the hardness of his sinewy muscles, facial piercings, and heavy combat boots. 

He had a new tattoo—a series of patterned bands, like iron scroll work, starting at his wrist and twirling halfway up his arm. It dripped down onto his hand, forming a protective rune over his knuckles which Harry recognized because he’d used similar magic containing horcruxes prior to blowing them up. The design was a defence inked into his skin, likely imbued with magic like the rest of his tattoos. It might not peel off into a weapon like the cross on his neck, but it was designed to save his skin. 

Sure, Sia looked like a muggle. But not an ordinary muggle. He looked like a fucking model on a billboard, advertising cigarettes or something. 

Draco had that same quality. Even a year ago in Harry’s shitty old muggle clothes, he’d looked like sex personified. 

Between the two of them, Harry felt like a gangly, warty toad. They were grown. They dressed like sexual beings. Harry was still a child clad in Dudley’s cast-offs. Or at least that was how he saw himself in his head. 

Nebojsa and Draco had defined styles: Harry was just... there, not naked. They were art: he was laundry. 

“Draco! Harry!” Nebojsa spotted them. His accent caused him to roll slightly on the letter R, made obvious with both their names. Sia dropped his cigarette, smashing it into the ground with the heel of his boot, waving to them. 

The grin on his face… he’d missed them. Both of them.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The Ionescue ancestral home was outside a small town called Cernavodǎ, which translated to English as “Black Waters,” about an hour inland. It was a rural area with some industry and a nearby nuclear power plant. The area was known for a large dam in the Danube River with a long metal bridge suspended over the water. Nebojsa provided this information as they drove away from the coastline, up into the white stone hills covered in dense green trees. They wound slowly higher in altitude, leaving the ocean behind. Harry could still smell salt on the wind. 

The air was hot and humid near the ocean. It thinned mercifully as they drove, the sun beating on them with the convertible’s top down. Harry wasn’t sure how Nebojsa could stand to be wearing a jacket when it was so bloody warm out. He supposed the man got sunburns, being so pale. Harry never had a sunburn his entire life. Even Draco wore a long-sleeve shirt—mostly to hide his Dark Mark and his scars, being self-conscious even amongst friends. In a few days Draco would be running around in a tshirt; he just needed time to adjust and feel comfortable showing his skin. 

Harry had taken the back seat, letting Draco sit up front with Nebojsa. Before starting the engine, the Serb had used a muggle elastic hair tie from his wrist to pull his hair back into a loose knot on top of his head, not wanting his hair to fly around in his face as he drove. Harry had to believe Sia used magic to grow his hair out, since he’d shaved his head back in November. No one’s hair grew that quickly without help. His hair was an extended sheet of pure black satin, reaching almost to his shoulder blades when he let it out. 

Long hair suited him. It also softened the angularity of his features. Compared to Draco’s sharp lines and pointed nose beside him, Nebojsa was a much softer beauty—more mature, but also decidedly feminine. Long hair made Harry notice different things about his friend—the whiteness of his skin, how willowy his neck was, how he didn’t have a single scar or blemish on his face, the way he threw his head back when Draco made him laugh, sunlight glinting off the piercings in his lip, ears, and nose. 

Harry hadn’t realized how easy it was for Draco to make normally stoic Sia laugh. 

The two had spent a lot of time together while Nebojsa was using Polyjuice to impersonate Harry at Hogwarts last year. Sometimes Harry forgot that his war buddy had also pretended to be Draco’s boyfriend, every single day, for the better part of a month. They were close. Parts of their personalities were frightfully similar: their dark dry humor, obsession with calling people out for being wrong, and a near-encyclopedia knowledge of the Dark Arts. Nebojsa clung to Orthodox Christianity the same way Draco clawed himself into pureblood culture, refusing to let go; believing a social relic could provide moral answers, could save them. Harry didn’t believe in something the way either of them held so tightly to their dying dogmas. 

From the main road they entered a series of switch-backs tracking up to the top of a limestone cliff. They were high above the Danube. Nebojsa navigated the sharp turns like Harry handled his Firebolt; he knew his way around, drove a car often, drove these roads often. 

They idled a moment outside a wrought iron gate set between two pale stone structures like tiny fortifications; they were gate houses, making Harry think that two hundred years ago there had been guards in fancy livery standing watch over the house, waiting with oil lamps to greet guests or turn away begging villagers. Dima and Misha could trace their birthline back to Russian Empress Katherine The Great. Their father had been a duke, supposedly a protector of the people in the town below. These days the title was gratuitous. It held no political power, and was merely a designation of owning certain lands and certain buildings which other people lived in or worked. 

Harry didn’t believe in hereditary pre-ordination. Being someone’s child didn’t make you inherently better. He tried to assign his opinions of others based on their actions, how they treated others, and how they conducted themselves in a tight scrape. So in his opinion the Ionescue brothers, and Nebojsa with them, really were princes in a spiritual sense. They regularly and without fail put their lives on the line for others. 

Sia waved his wand in an intricate pattern, opening the gate so they might drive through. 

A long tree-lined gravel drive was in desperate need of care. Several of the centuries old trees had been split by spells—Harry recognized the unique char-like damage of dark magic on their trunks. Branches spilled out at odd angles. It was a good thing they drove a sports car; an SUV would have its hood scratched by hanging boughs. They had a ways to drive, passing overgrown flower gardens, sweeping lawns needing mowing, and various garden outbuildings. There was a large greenhouse in the distance, looking more like an ornamental pavilion for a World’s Fair than a simple place for growing fruit trees—or more likely potion ingredients, given that their father had once been Potions Master of Durmstrang. 

Harry made out a massive structure rising from the overgrown trees; it was a heavenly vision of wheat-blonde paint and white stone balustrades, oversize windows with pediments unto themselves, soaring Grecian columns supporting detailed archways, all under a grey-blue slate roof which seemed to stretch for miles. The palace extended three times the length of a quidditch pitch. Harry couldn’t see how far back it went, with formal gardens overlooking the woods behind the palace, reaching to the white cliffs of the Danube. 

It was an ostentatious palace in the style of Imperial Russia; imposing, unapologetically ornate, patterns of windows and arches repeating in stoic order. The massive structure larger than Hogwarts rose before them, tree cover falling away to reveal a summer dream befitting emperors and kings. 

He’d felt slovenly at the airport. Now, Harry’s tee and gym shorts felt positively egregious. He ought to be wearing a suit, to visit a place like this. Luckily Draco had packed a few. 

A happy shout from above drew his notice. Misha Ionescue circled above them on a Nimbus 2001, pulling an excited loop with a scream before barreling towards the drive. 

Misha had one of the most aggressive dismounting styles Harry had ever seen—something like a hanging side-press off the front edge of his broomstick as it still flew two meters in the air, his muddy boots crashing down on the gravel, kicking up a cloud of dust as momentum propelled him closer, sliding, his body carrying the broom as much as the decelerating broom moved him.

Misha dropped his Nimbus without a care, launching with speed right at Harry as he jumped out of the parked convertible. 

He and Misha would be splitting hairs for who was taller now. He and the sixteen year old were likely both still growing. Harry couldn’t be sure who was heavier. Misha had naturally thick arms. They were equal from broad shoulders to narrow waists, but Harry probably had an extra stone of muscle in his legs from being a distance runner, whereas Misha kept his lower half lean with flying. 

Misha did his best to tackle Harry, almost getting him off his feet. As a military-trained martial artist, Harry won, bouncing Misha off the car a little bit before wrapping him in a happy hug, settling him down by thumping him soundly on the back. 

“I wasn’t aware you lived in heaven,” Harry teased the guy. Their house was a fantasy come to life. Harry had never seen anything like it, even in text books. Seeing the real thing left him with a tight feeling like awe in his chest. Like Hogwarts, he could feel the history of this place. 

Separating from Misha, Harry didn’t see Dmitry anywhere. 

Nebojsa barked at Misha in Romanian—reminding him not to leave his racing broom where it might get run over, to stop goofing off, and to grab their guests’ luggage. Harry couldn’t speak the language, but he didn’t need a Translation Charm to read the expression of his mate’s face, or the way Misha jumped to do as he was told when it was Nebojsa doing the ordering and not his big brother. 

Sia tossed the keys, expecting Misha would put the car away when he stored his broom. There must have been a garage somewhere. The car didn’t look like it had ever spent a night outside, and it was probably close to thirty years old, a stylish antique. Harry tried to help Misha retrieve their cases but was waved off—not before Harry noted the make of the car. Sure enough, the yellow emblem on the boot said _Ferrari_.  

Luxury didn’t make Harry uncomfortable, _per se_. He’d never grown up with it, except for the Dursleys lusting after other more-well-off middle class muggles. Before his life with Draco, Harry only saw expensive things in magazines and commercials, billboards, and ads in the underground. The first truly nice thing he’d owned was his Nimbus 2000: then he found himself owner of Grimmauld Place, an entire creepy old London house he hadn’t the foggiest what to do with. His first personal luxury acquisition had been the suit he’d purchased for himself after he and Draco started dating. Before last year, Harry had never before experienced being able to reach out and touch a single object which might cost more than Number Four Privet Drive and all the crap in it. 

He’d seen more of wizarding affluence in the last year than he’d imagined existed. A critical part of him wondered how many innocent muggles had been Obliviated, swindled, or otherwise mistreated in order for pureblood ancestors of Draco’s and Dmitry’s to have acquired such asinine resources to their disposal. 

He watched as Draco comfortably one-arm-hugged Misha hello, kissing both his cheeks before following after Nebojsa. The Serbian wizard threw open the two-story stained glass-emblazoned front doors, welcoming them while shouting to his boyfriend the ducal Prince that he was home. 

Harry parted from Misha, following where Draco and Sia had disappeared into the palace. 

He stepped into a reception hall which made him feel like an ant. Four oversized stories towered above him in neglected splendor. Sweeping marble staircases with red runner carpets—singed in places, with what Harry suspected were scrubbed-out blood stains. Death Eaters and Aurors had died in this ostentatious hall. High archways leading off to other corridors were decorated with fine plaster work in the scrolling shapes of vines and flowers. Fluted columns of gold-veined marble reached high above, supporting a gothic, cathedral-like ceiling. Six golden chandeliers, each larger than a motorcycle, dripped with crystals, dried candle wax, and cob webs. Set in the walls at intervals were mirrors made to look like windows, reflecting the daylight further into the palace—a neat trick for transferring both daylight and candlelight in an architectural time predating electricity. 

Everywhere around him were carved faces looming out from the walls—human faces, animal faces, cherubic and seraphim angels, devils with horns—all intricately carved and covered with a dusty layer of gold leafing Harry knew in his gut had to be real. 

Harry was acutely aware of the sound of his footsteps. It was a hushed hall, muted by a layer of derelict dust the guys hadn’t gotten around to spelling away. 

He followed a muffled warbling sound… music from one of the formal rooms on the ground floor. Harry walked down what he guessed to be the main corridor, lined in mirrors, trimmed in shiny gold against white walls. Here and there Harry spotted the shadow of blood spatter or a dying handprint in the plaster wall which magic hadn’t quite scrubbed away. It had been a brutal effort ousting the Death Eaters from this stronghold. At last it had been returned to the righteous sons of the terrible man who’d made it such a bastion of evil. 

Harry liked that Sia and the Ionescues basically left him to explore on his own, getting to know the place, not feeling the need to guide or escort him like so many people did with The Chosen One. Their house wasn’t a museum, and he wouldn’t be given a guided tour. They almost ignored Harry, which was refreshing. He was left alone to gather his own impressions of the palace, to appreciate its beauty and trail his fingers through a layer of dust separating his skin from gold paint and dried blood. 

Ambling about, idly looking for his husband and friends, the rooms he poked his head into were all equally breath-taking. He saw formal parlors and sitting rooms, furniture covered in white sheets like ghosts. Tall windows looked out over the gardens and lawns gone to seed. 

There were fireplaces everywhere, necessary for heating the massive structure during the age it was constructed; and a mode of travel for witches and wizards, who might throw floo powder and yell into the fire, looking for one another in the massive structure. Harry noted every fireplace had some kind of ornate floo powder receptacle, whether attached to the wall or placed on the mantle. It would have been a bitch figuring out which of the dozens of fireplaces a guest might arrive through, assuming they might all be hooked up to the floo network at once. 

Each room seemed to have a theme or expression to it: shades of green, shades of blue, floral, pastoral… all magical. Just when he thought he knew what to expect, some detail of the wizarding world would jump out at him—like a unicorn painted into landscape, or a house elf head rendered in gold amongst the carved shapes of deer and rabbits. He considered the magical people who created this art lived in another time, one where they might’ve hunted house elves like game. Or perhaps the Ionescue ancestors had simply been cruel people, products of their culture and the morals of their era. 

Harry followed the rising sound of music—a woman’s voice, chanting—leading him deeper into the maze of oversized rooms. Each space left him feeling as though he hadn’t grown so tall as he’d thought. 

At last he stumbled into a majestic ballroom, larger than the gymnasium at Stonewall High where he could have gone to school. Dominating the room was a structure of scaffolding climbing up to the ceiling more than eight meters up. The topmost tier had canvases hanging over the sides like sails, blowing in a breeze. Every window and door leading out to the lawns were thrown open. He realized that was for the smell—on the scaffolding were open paint cans in a rainbow of colors. 

At the very top of the scaffold was Dmitry, wearing only a pair of dirty cargo shorts, lying on his back with a paint brush in one hand, wand in the other, working to restore a divine fresco painting on the ceiling. 

The paint was cracked and chipping away. Harry still made out a pattern of winged horses and brightly colored birds chasing one another through a maze of fluffy white clouds. Dima’s impressive chest and arms were splattered with paint. It would drip down on him as he worked, like DaVinci painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. 

Dima was leaning off the side of the scaffold, using the corner of a canvas to wipe fresh paint drops off his face, hollering down to Draco and Sia over the music. Harry recognized the orchestral arrangements and alien lyrics of Björk vibrating through huge muggle speakers—the kind he would expect to see at a rock concert, looking wholly out of place in an imperial ballroom. 

The blaring speakers rested on a two-tone herringbone wooden floor. They were hooked up to a small generator, which produced a good amount of noise—part of why Dima had the music cranked so loud. Also attached to the generator were a pair of man-high fans, blowing the paint fumes out of the room and adding to the noise. Harry realized the house probably had limited electricity; he had yet to see a plug or light switch anywhere. He did see plenty of candles in sconces, decorated with spindly white spider webs. 

Expecting Dmitry to climb down the series of scaffold ladders like a normal human being, Harry felt his eyes go wide when Dima appeared to climb off the side, ready to throw himself down three stories. The paint-speckled Romanian Prince closed his eyes, licking his lips in concentration. Tan wings burst from his back, a shudder taking his big body. And he jumped, gliding down, feathers flapping. 

Fucking show-off. 

Dima grinned broadly at Draco, holding his arms out for a hug. He said something, but Harry couldn’t hear over the music. Draco brushed his hand against the top of his thigh—making contact with his wand to spell the wet paint off of his friend before giving him a hug, kissing both his cheeks. Draco didn’t seem to have the confusion Harry still suffered over which cheek was supposed to be kissed first. Dima wrapped his coffee-and-cream colored wings around Draco, engulfing the blond in feathers. 

Harry jogged his way over. The room was bloody huge. 

It was Sia who got sick of screaming to be heard over Björk and the fans. A flip of his wand turned off the generator, killing Dima’s music with it. 

Dmitry fluttered his feathers at seeing Harry—like his wings wanted to give The Chosen One a hug, too. He held his arms wide. His happy voice boomed, “Velcome to our shit hole!”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Their first evening in Romania was spent relaxing on a veranda, watching the sun set, jewel-like color glittering off the Danube in the distance. They smoked cigars, drank bourbon, and caught up on innocuous shit. The cigars Harry and Draco brought as a gift; Harry knew from his guide book that it was customary to bring a host gift when someone had you over to their house, and that the best gifts were consumables such as smokes and liquor. 

They talked of quidditch, what bands they wanted to see, whether there would ever be another Tri-Wizard Tournament. Harry guessed not, since people died during the last one. That didn’t seem as much of a deterrent to Dima and Misha, who started rattling off all the _other_ magical contests where participants regularly didn’t survive. 

They snacked on some dumplings which Nebojsa had picked up in town; spongy two-bite delights stuffed with potatoes and cheese, and fried in butter until slightly crisp. 

The veranda looked out over lawn and gardens with woods and the river beyond. They had the doors to the palace flung wide. As it got later and the bugs came out they retreated into the house to sit more formally and eat. 

Their dining room was smaller than the ballroom Dima was restoring, but no less grand. It was two-thirds the size of Hogwarts’ Great Hall. He understood it was only _one_ of the palace’s formal dining rooms. The table was U shaped, stretching over half of the room, and would easily seat eighty people if they only sat around the outsides. The five of them were huddled around the bend in the U, sitting close, sharing plates of food, mostly eating with their fingers. 

Fancy wooden chairs were covered in gold paint to match the intricate carvings on almost every surface. Floral plaster painted gold curled up to the ceiling, twirling shapes of branches and vines. Marching down the interior walls were mirrors and paintings set in more gold. The paintings showed nature scenes depicting the different seasons, with moving magical creatures gambooling through them. The ceiling was painted like the sky. Enchanted, it shifted to match the outdoors, and was currently a network of clouds and brilliant stars.

They had smoked fish, cheese, stuffed grape leaves and roasted vegetables. They drank vodka, and more bourbon. 

The food was simple, but very tasty. 

Harry looked his friends over; looked at their surroundings, their manners and fond smiles, their expressions in the wavering candlelight… and he realized something terrifying. 

They had no money.

They were repairing the place with their own hands and magic because there was no gold to pay real contractors. They dined by candlelight—which was beautiful and stupidly romantic, and magical in its own right—because they couldn’t pay the massive bills demanded in upkeeping electricity for a place like this.

His friends were flat broke. They might’ve spent their last leu on this meal, a thought which made it hard for Harry to swallow another bite. They might be forced to sell Misha’s broomstick or the convertible parked in the garage if the roof over their heads started leaking. They had nothing but each other, and this hauntingly empty palace. 

The only money they had would’ve come from working operations jobs for Leon, or the one time Harry had encouraged them to sell photos of themselves partying with the Potters to gossip rags. They’d used that money to live on during the war, camping mostly at Grimmauld Place—at Harry’s insistence, minding the house for him while he was elsewhere. Arty Lachlan’s Sanctuary had disbanded now that the war was over, and Leon’s team was fully staffed. That had been their income, how they survived. What had replaced it? Nothing which Harry could see. 

After drinking and smoking late into the evening, Harry brought it up.

Dmitry flatly refused to look at him. He was too fucking proud, a growl caught in his thick throat. Misha turned red and looked up at the ceiling. Nebojsa and Draco locked eyes. 

“Harry,” Draco admonished, trying to explain. “Amongst purebloods, we... don’t talk about someone’s ledgers. Their income, their bills, tha’s... simply not mentioned.” He gave a look like he’d rather make himself vomit than keep talking about it. 

“ _Fuck_ pureblood traditions,” Harry announced, candid heat to his voice. And perhaps a hint of alcohol raised his words by a few decibels. He poured himself a shot of vodka and took it down in one gulp. “If my friends are a galleon away from starving, I wanna know about it, God damn it!” 

“Ve are not _starving!_ ” Dima countered hotly. “I provide for my family.” He practically pounded his already intimidating chest. As though Harry questioning whether he needed money, needed help, somehow made him less of a man.

Nebojsa gave his partner a very complicated look—like he was flattered by the offer of protection, but it was archaic and not necessary. Because Nebojsa was more than capable of fending for himself, and didn’t need some destitute duke to take care of him. He’d survived growing up in crime-infested Belgrade. He’d survived almost a year in a Death Eater prison camp. He’d walked into _another_ Death Eater prison with Harry and made it out alive. Nebojsa was the opposite of a man in need of a rescue. No way in hell would he ever need a big strong guy like Dima to solve his problems for him. If anything, Dima was the one who needed to listen to Nebojsa for a change. 

Harry understood both sides. Like Dmitry, he felt a deep desire to provide for Draco. Not because Draco was incapable... more that bringing home the bacon made Harry feel good about himself. It was how he’d always pictured his adult life: working, earning, providing. He imagined, especially for a guy like Dima—who up until two years ago always had the world at his fingertips—the fact that there was no money in his pockets to feed and house his family made him feel like a failure. 

Harry’s own income did give him a sense of accomplishment, that he and Draco had a financial safety net at their backs; ready and waiting should they encounter a string of bad luck. Between his parents’ vault at Gringotts and his work in America, he’d saved a fair amount of gold. He owned Grimmauld Place outright—there was no mortgage or loan to be paid each month, just the upkeep and utilities. Not to mention his investment with Fred and George was paying returns with the joke shop back up and running. He’d built this security for his own family, and he wanted to share it with his friends if they were struggling. That was why he worked hard—so he could take care of the people he loved when it mattered.  

“Ve have creatures now,” Misha defended their situation, explaining that the heards of magical creatures which had once populated the property were slowly returning. Managing and maintaining their numbers produced some valuable cast-offs now and then—hairs which could be sold for wand-making, shed horns and skins for potion ingredients, that sort of thing. “And truffles,” Misha shrugged. “Psychedelic mushrooms are gold.” 

Dmitry rounded on his baby brother—a soundless, booming roar.

Through the comfortable haze of good food and a few extra shots, it took a moment for Harry to realize exactly what that meant. 

Misha, a sixteen year old, knew that hallucinogenic mushrooms fetched a decent price. And had mentioned it in the context of their solvency. 

Ergo, his friends were drug dealers. 

Fuck. 

Misha was drunk. He wasn’t meant to have let that secret slip. Dima turned on him, hissing in Romanian while Sia punctuated their argument with thoughts of his own. Dima and Misha got in each other’s faces, spitting hot words like two dragons fighting over a dead deer carcass. The candles cast wavering shadows over their faces, all speaking at once, yelling at each other in low but fiery voices Harry couldn’t understand.

As their hosts argued, Draco cupped hand over his mouth, shielding his lips to whisper privately in Harry’s ear. 

“The Ionescue family assets—which are substantial—are probably still frozen by Gringotts so soon after their father’s death. It might take a few weeks or a few months before the Ministry finishes their investigation and releases the vaults. They’re not destitute,” the pureblood defended his own. “They’re... temporarily cut off. Like a bank holiday gone on far too long.” 

His mates had this stunning enchanted palace to live in... but they were more or less still roughing it. They fished their meals from the streams and river. They foraged in the woods, selling what they could find. They filled bathtubs with their wands and ate by candlelight. Harry didn’t want to think about what would happen if there was a freak storm or some other disaster. His friends were a lightning-strike away from true peril, whether Dima could see it or not. 

Harry got the feeling Dmitry hadn’t exactly invited the Potters in the way Nebojsa’s letters made it seem. Dima wouldn’t elect to expose to a guest something so sensitive as the fact that their house didn’t have hot water—a detail which even a drunk Harry noticed when washing his hands after taking a piss—though Harry suspected Dima was doing everything in his power to fix that. Harry doubted Dima spent all day painting murals and _hoping_ their financial situation would resolve itself. Dima would be taking some action of his own to remedy their current position. Apparently that course of action involved peddling psycho-reactive plants, presumably to the muggle populace.

Tonight, this argument was Nebojsa forcing his lover’s hand—bringing in reinforcements to bear witness to how they were living; holding a mirror up to their world, forcing the Ionescues to confront how bad, how dire things had gotten. Because of their stupid fucking pride. Harry’s purpose here was to bludgeon Dmitry into acknowledging that this situation was not acceptable. 

Dima wasn’t listening to Nebojsa anymore. He wouldn’t hear reason. But he _would_ hear Harry Potter.

Over their arguing, Harry made a thunderous declaration. 

“I’m here to help.” It was an active statement, a pronouncement of his intent. It wasn’t an option. He wouldn’t accept a word of debate. He prodded a finger against the table, leaning forward, expressing his mind. “We’ll fix this. _Until_ it’s fixed, I’m covering groceries and petrol so long as we’re here. Booze, too. And entertainment. No arguments.” He answered Dima’s glare with a hard one of his own, unblinking even under intense scrutiny from a God damned prince in disgrace. “We’ll keep putting our heads together until we find a solution. We’re going to make it through this. Together.”

Dmitry still looked audaciously mad—like he wanted to punch Harry. Mostly to shut him up but also because Dima felt… if Harry had to guess by the death glare he was getting, Dima felt emasculated. 

 _It’s not my fault that he buys into all that obnoxious macho crap_ , Harry thought. This was about friendship—when your mates were in trouble, you did whatever it took to help them up.  

He’d gotten that look from Ron a few times— _Harry, you’re cutting my balls off here. Let me do this on my own_. That pleading, angry, wounded look didn’t deter him from doing what he knew was the right thing. 

“We need to find a way for the estate to generate an income,” Harry said practically, “with less time and effort invested from you guys. Foraging in the woods is fine if you have infinite time.” He left the drug-selling argument for tomorrow, when they were sober. “But I’m sure you’d rather spend your days drinking and fucking and being together than tromping around the woods, right? You deserve that. It’s not out of reach. We’re gonna find a way.” 

The more he talked, the more furious Dima looked. 

Nebojsa caught Harry’s eyes in the candlelight. Behind Dmitry’s back, the Serb pressed his thin hands together like a prayer. “Thank you,” he mouthed. 

Harry bowed his head. “Anything,” his lips returned. 

He was The Chosen One, and saving people was what he did. Especially when that meant saving them from themselves.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

It took several cigarettes to bring Dima down. There was no use filling himself with liquor—he’d just spell it away in an hour, needing to be sober. 

Their guests were tucked safely into bed for the night. For the crime of bringing the Potters to witness his fall from fortune, Dmitry was giving his lover the silent treatment. Nebojsa tutted and sighed, watching Dima put on his contacts, change his clothes, and pack their kit. 

The silence ended when Dima asked for help with his makeup. He had an artist’s hand, yet he still couldn’t draw a straight line across his own eyelid.

The eyeliner was held out, an olive branch. “ _You’re better, Domn_.” 

They never used honorifics. _Domn_. Sir. It was a bleeding, wounded cry for touch. Dima wanted cool hands on his cheeks, wanted to have his eyes closed, to be in darkness while his hair was played with. So Nebojsa took his time; tracing with a kohl pencil, smudging black around his weary eyes, mussing Dima’s hair, spelling thick strands a true black to match his own. 

When they were dressed and ready, Mishenka walked with them to the garage. They’d sold all but one of the cars, using the money to have the debris cleared away and every surface scoured, making the place livable. The convertible they’d kept was the opposite of practical, but there would be more money before winter to buy something suitable. For now, the luxury car kept up the image that everything was fine. They needed to look alright to the muggles in town, and beyond. Looking like they were hard for money made them a target. This had to seem like a hobby, something they did for kicks. They couldn’t let on. 

Tonight they would drive down to the coastal city of Constanţa. There were a lot of parties this time of year, populated by locals and tourists off of cruise ships in the harbor. This was pique vacation season. There was money to be made, and not just from mushrooms. 

“Harry’s going to come up with something,” Misha said confidently. “You won’t have to—” 

Dima growled at him to shut up. 

Nebojsa sighed, pressing his fingers against his lips. He would have buried his whole face in his hands if it weren’t for the makeup he was wearing—mascara, powder and grease paint. 

This was a matter of pride for Dima. But maybe just a little bit, doing this made him feel tough, made him feel like a man. There was a certain kind of power in it. 

But Harry Potter was right. What they were doing was exhausting. It took time and effort. It wasn’t how they wanted to be living. It was keeping them afloat, but it was by no stretch of the imagination permanent. Or sustainable. Or even legal. 

Eventually the Ministry would unlock the Ionescue fortune, or a spot would open up with one of the American Field Operations. As a back-up, Nebojsa was paying particular attention to the election for Minister of Magic in England. Dima wanted to live in the UK, anyway. If Minister Scrimgeour was voted out of office, Nebojsa planned to submit his application to work as a Hit Wizard. It paid better than an Auror’s badge, and the hours—though intense—were ultimately shorter. Nebojsa kept his eyes on England.

Good things were coming their way. They had only to be patient, not to lose their faith or their nerve. This was not permanent. It did not define them. 

But to Dima… it did define a part of him. 

His lover needed pain. He needed degradation, humiliation, to be broken over and over again. He got off to it. Each crack he suffered made him stronger. Perhaps these last few years had made him _too_ strong.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Dmitry liked dark and dirty things. If it scared people, if others didn’t understand it, Dima was there. It was a subversive trait. And it got him into a hell of a lot of trouble. 

For many years, Dima’s social position or his family’s wealth could bail him out of any scrape. His father would bribe officials, intimidate Karkaroff, and lean on muggle law enforcement to make Dima’s arrest records go away. There was a kind of satisfaction for Dima in getting caught: it meant forcing his father to participate, to notice him, to have a hand in his life. As the heir, Vuk got all of their father’s attention—his lectures, his rages, his high expectations. Misha the baby had been spoiled. And Dima, the middle child, was roundly ignored. Turning up in the back of a muggle police car was about the only way their father would notice him come home. 

Funny enough, Tihomir Ionescue always said he liked Nebojsa. From his far-removed perspective, Nebojsa calmed Dima, kept him in line. In his arrogance and disinterest, the duke simply didn’t notice when the friendship tipped from platonic to romantic, and then sexual. And prior to the Dark Lord’s return, Tihomir might’ve been willing to turn a blind eye to Dima’s homosexuality… had he _noticed_ his son was gay. He had Vuk, who went both ways but could be leaned on to marry a witch of his father’s choosing when the time came: and he had Misha as a fall-back. Misha who was bright and sweet and loved everyone—but especially loved women. Dmitry was superfluous. 

The middle son made a home for himself amongst the shadows. Mostly ignored, he got away with ten times as many schemes as he was caught for. He once enchanted Headmaster Karkaroff’s office to fill with water like a giant fish tank, and stuffed it full of baby dolphins and octopi. No one could _prove_ it was Dima; but everyone knew. He painted Botticelli-style coquettish nudes of some of the professors and hung them around the castle amongst the other paintings. Sometimes it was weeks before someone noticed and, red-in-the-face, took the art down. 

Vuk had been tremendously brave at the end of his life. Misha remained kind, never closing off his heart. And Dima… Dmitry Casimir Ionescue was pure trouble. 

He was good at being bad, too. He had it down to an art. Drop Dima in a foreign city—even one where he didn’t speak the language—and within a day or two he’d have found you a bathhouse, a brothel, and a handful of sex clubs. In a blink, he managed to make contact with the new underground gay circuits which had sprung up in Constanţa in his absence. And he was welcomed back with open arms.

They’d both learned a few tricks in the last two years. Chief among them was the art of subtly arming themselves. Yuri made them a pair of long knives which they Transfigured into wedding rings. The silver bands could be released at any time with a wandless mutter of _Finite Incantatum_ , becoming a blade in the palm in the blink of an eye. They’d fought their way out a few more times than Nebojsa cared to admit. Not enough to convince Dima to quit. 

Tonight’s adventure was an underground BDSM-themed sex club. Dima enjoyed it—the money was good, and they’d yet to have any serious disturbance.   

Irritating Nebojsa was Dima’s inability to conceal a wand; firstly because his was a foot-long switch of a thing barely contained by his own pockets, and secondly because he wouldn’t be wearing much of anything inside the club. They needed the knives. Nebojsa didn’t like _needing_ anything. Usually his own wandless magic was enough to cover them both. And he had a back-up weapon in his cross. They were fair fighters—born out of necessity. But he didn’t care for walking into a den of vipers, no matter their armaments. He didn’t share Dima’s penchant for walking into the mouth of trouble and daring fate to close her jaw. 

Still. They’d survived worse.

 

 

 

 

He drove to a warehouse on the edge of town, the windows blacked out with paint. 

No one asked for IDs. Just cash at the door. The club has only been in this abandoned space for two weeks. Soon the club would move again, evading the police. This location was impermanent, and it showed. 

The interior was a labyrinth of makeshift spaces. The bar made from cinderblocks with ply board nailed together for the top. There were no fire extinguishers, no emergency exit signs. A death trap. Dima was almost giddy beside him. 

Dmitry wore black cargo pants, a black shirt, and military boots. Nebojsa had boots as well, a sleeveless leather vest worn open to show his tattoos, and a heavy black kilt. He wore his hair down, with black eyeliner and mascara to make his eyes look otherworldly. Dima wore dark contact lenses to hide the distinctive golden color of his eyes, plus a Glamour spell over his moving Thestral tattoo so the muggles wouldn’t see. 

He’d sat still in the candlelight of their bedroom, allowing Nebojsa to trace his eyes with black kohl and grease paint. 

Nebojsa missed the candles. He missed magic, and the quiet sanctuary of their bed.  

He and Dima were waved in at the door—they were known, part of the show, their appearances looked forward to since their return to Romania. They tended to bring in a crowd.

In the largest section of the warehouse was a dance floor with colored lights and a stage occupied by various performers throughout the night. The music was Dima’s style—industrial, angry. It was a gay sex club, leather and BDSM themed—the most illegal kind of gathering there was. Every patron was male, and mostly naked. Leather, harnesses, metal, jock straps, combat boots. Guys getting blown along the sides of the room, not having to hide what they were doing, wanting others to stop and watch. 

This was one of the better operations. The organizers placed punchbowls full of condoms and individual lube packages in every room, included with the price of entrance. The bartenders didn’t over-serve, and the door was good about keeping out those who didn’t belong—cops, lookers (people who wanted to watch but never tipped), the drunk and curious. What remained was a warehouse full of sex-crazed men with hard cocks and deep pockets; a kind of impromptu gay brothel, wrapped in a thin disguise of a house of dominance and submission, sex and pain. 

Private rooms had been built into the warren of upper floors; dirty curtains separating fucking spaces for rent. Those little rooms were where the real money was made. The stage was a preview, advertising—how johns made their decision about who to buy for the night. If you wanted to make bank, you had to put on a good show first. 

Every bartender recognized them. Dima waved, Nebojsa inclining his head. A bartender passed them two glass bottles of mineral water. Dima thanked the man, sliding a few lei across the bar. The glass bottles were for safety—they could charm the lids, making sure no unscrupulous muggles tried to put drugs in their drinks… and if shit went down they could always break a bottle and use it as a weapon. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

Dima carried their bag. He carried their refreshments, too. He cleared a path, Nebojsa strolling at a stately pace behind him. All of this was conscious. Dima was _his_ —attendant, slave, property. 

One of the bouncers waved them into the dressing area. The man was new, raising his eyebrows, blatantly checking out Dima as they passed. The guard’s eyes stayed a fraction too long on Dima’s collar—desire and envy hidden in that lingering look. The man wanted that collar to disappear. The collar meant hands off. Unequivocally. Owned. 

Still. Everyone wanted to fuck Dima. Nothing new. They could wait their turn… and pay the tribute. 

In Nebojsa’s toy bag was a bike chain with a heavy padlock. After another performer had tried to make off with his kit, it became a necessity—tying their bag down when it wasn’t in use. They couldn’t afford new gear. Good tools were pricey, even when Yuri made most of it. Nebojsa wasn’t going to risk using anything made from inferior materials; toys which might fall apart, or be hard to clean. Sanitation was especially important. An improperly cleaned tool could get Dima sick, and then they’d be without their primary income. And Dima would be without sex. 

These days, half of his identity was wrapped up in how he fucked. It was exhausting… and required bringing in Harry Potter to get through his thick skull that this was by no means sustainable.

BDSM and group sex had been hobbies once. Turning them into a source of income sucked all the joy out of it.

 

 

 

 

Dima bowed his head as men shouted, screamed, urged them on.

The show of humility was false. When Dima meant it… well, that had to be earned. It was a view of his soul, offered up. Now, on this stage, wasn’t the time. These fuckers didn’t deserve to see that. 

Dmitry nodded. He was ready. 

Nebojsa stripped him roughly to whistles and cheers—down to nothing but a jock strap and his collar. The lock to Nebojsa’s toy bag hung from his collar, because they came together, left together. They were a package deal. Buy Dima for the night and you got Nebojsa looking over your shoulder, minding you treated his property right.

If there was a sultry process by which to strap a man to a St Andrew’s cross, Nebojsa hadn’t found it yet. He did take Dima by the throat and walk him backwards, stumbling, into the sideways X of sex furniture. Thin fingers forced his chin up for a moment of eye contact. Dima’s jock bulged, his eyes black. He was more than fine. He loved this. 

Nebojsa took a kiss. It wasn’t for the crowd, or even for Dima. It was selfish—to steel himself, because tying Dima up and standing several meters away didn’t feel sexy. It was too impersonal, not nearly close enough. Nebojsa preferred to use his hands. And his magic. Dima preferred it that way, too. The spark of it was there, in that firm meeting of lips; something sharp and biting, crackling, a sting of power from their world. 

He wasn’t aware of biting Dima’s lip. But as he pulled away, sure enough it was bloody. Dima sucked at it, not letting the blood show—but his pleasure did, threatening to burst out of his jock. 

Nebojsa backed away a step, twirling his finger, silently ordering Dima to turn around and offer himself to be bound to the cross—offer his ass to be beaten. 

Hands outstretched, showing off the thick roll of muscles across his back and shoulders, Dmitry knew the precise angle and flex of his spine which would best display himself. Conceited creature. 

Men called out, reaching for the stage as though they stood a chance at touching him without tribute. Dima’s ass was a thing of beauty. He was especially vain about it, too. He worked out, lifting heavy weights and doing special moves to make sure his backside grew in every direction. He had two deliciously round bubbles. They called to you, to wrap your hands around, to sink your teeth into. You could bounce a galleon off his ass. And he loved being beaten, especially on his big ass. 

Nebojsa bit his lip, his tongue wiggling the ring in his lip as he too considered that fine ass. No spell would be necessary to fake his arousal. Dima knew too well what he was doing—arching his back like that, sticking it out, ready and waiting. 

Nebojsa inserted a boot between Dima’s feet, urging his legs apart. 

Magic allowed for bonds to be secured with a flick of the wand. The muggle way, the top had to stretch up to secure the wrist cuffs, then squat down inelegantly to latch the ankles. His kilt billowed as he bent down, a strangely hot blast of air against his balls. He had to remember to keep his knees together or he might flash the crowd too early. 

It was so much more convenient to hold out his arm and summon the implement he desired. Muggle necessity meant he had to walk over to the toy bag, squat down yet again, and dig through for his weapons of choice. He flipped a bullwhip over his shoulder for later, taking out a pair of doe-hide floggers, and a thick twenty-tail bull hide.

Chereshko had hunted the does which his balanced pairs were made from. Yuri had wanted to die the leather black but Nebojsa protested. The fawn color was beautiful on its own and needed no alteration. They were a blending of his and Dima’s skins, a shade between them which would flash through the air, connecting them. 

The softness of their strike was a lie. They whispered against Dima’s skin, seeming barely to touch him. But through his tan came the first blush. Nebojsa worked his way down Dima’s back, never quite reaching his backside no matter how much he stuck it out, asking for it. He had other plans. This was the warm-up. 

He switched to a Florentine style—relentless, one strike after the other, a barrage of quick nips and bites like being chased. Only there was nowhere Dima could go to get away. He threw his head back, hands in fists, forgetting to breathe his way through it.

Nebojsa’s fingers itched. With magic, he’d have enchanted the heavy bull flogger to join, three sources all guided by him, working together. But he only had two hands, forced to set the pair of floggers aside, to stop the rhythm and pick up the heavy implement.

It only took one. Bull hide impacted with a thud, like getting hit with a sandbag or a padded fist. It resonated through the skin, through the muscle, reaching in to poke at your bones. Sometimes he let it rip back, following through on his strike to catch his own thigh or shoulder—sharing the sensation. 

Dima knew it was coming. His ass was out, waiting for it. 

The metal handle rolled in his palm—up over his shoulder for momentum, gathering speed, before laying a back-handed blow to the top of Dima’s juicy backside. He bucked against the cross, jumping. His spine straightened, crawling up the cross, once again his full height as his body attempted retreat. That first hit of bull hide made anyone skitter away. 

Nebojsa took the backswing, his aim true, cracking against the side of Dima’s other cheek. The pain was lopsided, which would drive Dmitry spare. He tugged at the restraints, cuffs holding his wrists, the chain in his hand. 

Nebojsa gave the impact a moment to settle, switching the flogger to the opposite hand. He trained both sides equally, naturally ambidextrous. Whether as a dominant or in a fight, there were benefits to having equal skill in both hands. If only when one was injured, being able to cast spells and eat with either hand was a God-send. The fact he could beat Dima with either hand was a happy bi-product. 

He repeated the process in reverse: an open-handed strike to the side meat, then back-hand over the top of his ass. The crack of leather against flesh rang through the air. To him, it drowned out the music and the sounds of people. Focused, it was all he wanted to hear as he worked. 

Dima was moaning with every strike, his hands in fists, gripping his bonds, rutting himself against the cross. His eyes were closed, loving every second of it. Much more and he might come just from getting beaten. 

There was a temptation to keep going—to find the point where Dima fell into his mind, losing contact with the world around him, lost to the pleasure inside himself. It was beautiful: to hit him so hard the meat would fall from his bones, coming apart. They were close. 

Instead he went to the bull whip. A solid eight feet of wound leather. He snapped it out over the heads of the crowd—showmanship, but also letting Dima know what was coming. This one could break the skin. Some used plastic or metal barbs to insure it did. 

He flicked his wrist, shooting. His whip cracked directly behind Dima’s head, the rush of air fluttering his hair. An excited shiver made Dima flex, his body once again on display but unconsciously, his real desire peeking through. 

He wanted to be hurt. Not because anyone was watching. 

His backside could take the most abuse, being the only spot on his body with any fat to speak of. The whip cracked, a sharp red welt in its wake. Nebojsa painted a series of perfectly straight lines down Dima’s butt, like the lines of rank on an officer’s uniform. These were Dima’s badges of honor. Sometimes he didn’t want them healed for days; he preferred to limp around, barely able to sit, feeling it. 

Against his shoulders, the whip drew blood. That was absolutely necessary. They had to put on a spectacle, to draw interest, to show what Dima could take. Men cheered, throwing money at the stage, encouraging. 

Nebojsa took careful aim. He practiced to be able to do this. He would knock individual leaves off of trees, or line up pebbles on the palace railings and tap them off one by one. He could hit the tiniest target with accuracy. With a steady hand he took aim, knowing his objective intimately… the guiche piercing between Dima’s legs. The one spot which could take him down. 

 _SNAP_. 

Dmitry dropped, sagging into the restraints with a scream. The cross shook under his weight but held. His head bowed… he was under. 

Oops. 

It was hard to know, one day to another, what would put Dima into sub-space. Some days he could get beaten bloody, and nothing. Other times a hand over his throat was enough to make his conscious mind fall away. Recently, it was pain—blinding, scorching pain. The sort of torture which made normal people pray or pass out. Today it was a bullwhip’s slap against the ring pierced through his taint. 

He was limp on the cross, dark head lolled to one side, his eyes closed. He wasn’t in his body any longer. Nebojsa approached swiftly, pressing his leathers against the marks he’d made. Blood could be spelled and scrubbed away later. Bringing Dima back the right way was all that mattered. 

Nebojsa pressed his face to the curve of Dima’s neck, breathing him. Sweat. Cologne. Magic. In the last year he’d discovered the ability to sense the power of others through their smell. Dima was sharp—wintergreen, anise, and something metallic, almost like blood. Draco was tart—lemons, apples, dried leaves and quidditch lawn. Harry was heat—cardamom seed, spiced rum, caramel sugar burnt and still bubbling. The taste on his tongue permeated, infecting him. He licked at Dima, holding him, taking some of the weight off of his wrists. 

“Come on, baby,” he cooed in the prince’s ear. “You started this. Gotta finish it.” 

Dima groaned loudly, his head back, begging those lips not to stop working magic against his neck. He rutted against the cross, wanting to fuck. 

There was little satisfaction in sight. For either of them. 

Nebojsa wormed his hand between Dmitry’s legs, ignoring his cock, searching out that tender abused place further back. He applied pressure where his whip had struck—soothing. If they were alone it would be the opposite. His fingers would hurt, cementing the pain, repeating it, a blaze of magic slipping from his fingertips to make it a thousand times worse, throwing Dima forcibly into an orgasm that would last for minutes, his whole body convulsing. 

Not tonight. Nebojsa blew out a long breath against his lover’s skin. 

“Come on now,” he repeated. “Time you suck me off for these animals.” 

That was the order they’d devised. Flagellation, then fellatio. 

Nebojsa began unhooking the wrist cuffs. He inspected the shallow cuts along Dima’s shoulders before squatting down—remembering to keep his fucking knees together—and releasing the restraints at Dima’s hairy ankles. They would all see his cock in a minute. 

He slipped an arm around Dima’s throat, locking him in, dragging him back. There were some appreciative hoots and the sound of applause, surprised that he was able to bear Dima’s weight and move him around. He was used to manhandling Dima, and they didn’t have far to go. 

Releasing Dima meant he dropped to his knees, head bowed. 

Nebojsa’s breath caught. Fuck. Fuck, that was real. Dima was still under—his slave, his play-thing, willing and ready to let his master do anything. 

They didn’t show this to other people. 

Dima bowed, his head on the floor. He was submitting.     

The show could wait—the world. He didn’t care. Nebojsa took that moment to stand over him… to feel the power and trust Dima laid at his feet, when every ritual and artifice was stripped away. Dmitry was on his knees because that was where he wanted to be. 

“ _Look at me_.” 

He couldn’t help but hiss. Over the music and the noise of the club, only Dmitry could hear him. 

Dima moved slowly, peeling his forehead and hands off the floor. He rested back, his haunches on his heels, getting his foggy head upright. Slow eyes blinked, gazing up. 

That look. Jesus, that look. Bare wanting, trust, giving over his soul. 

If Dima needed pain, Nebojsa needed heart, passion, this feeling tripping through his veins. 

His cock made a ludicrous tent of his kilt. Dima noticed. 

Nebojsa raised an eyebrow. This was too easy, too normal. “Want it?” 

His manners almost drunk, Dima nodded. He licked his lips, watching closely as Nebojsa began the complicated process of unfastening his kilt. 

Skirt off, vest on. Taking off leather wasn’t the done-thing. Leathers were a symbol, like a king’s crown or a police officer’s badge and gun. Removing it was too much like being naked. Leather was a culture, and needn’t be removed in order to fuck. 

Heavy black canvas fell to the floor, pooling around his boots. Dima licked his lips again, inching forward on his knees, at the ready, his mouth already open as his breathing picked up. 

Nebojsa considered his equipment on par with his proportions, neither too small nor too large for his height; Dima begged otherwise. Nebojsa didn’t care—it was a cock and it was his. Dima made something of a game out of peeking around bathhouses and showers, trying to spot a prick in the wild larger than his boyfriend’s. He got absurdly excited whenever he found one. His love just about fainted the night they happened to lay eyes on Draco’s cock. _Disproportionate_ did not begin to describe. The skinny blond had an extra arm to contend with, making Nebojsa seem perfectly average by comparison. 

He ran his fingers through Dima’s hair, getting a grip on the top of his head. 

“It’s not a dragon’s cock,” he teased. “Think you can manage?” 

He rammed himself home. It looked forced, but really wasn’t—Dima could deep-throat an Erumpant’s cock if he had to. He’d been sucking Nebojsa’s dick for a quarter of his life. Dima had no gag reflex. But he could fake it so beautifully. Actual tears traced down his cheeks, and to even the most well-versed observer it would look like he was choking. 

Nebojsa nearly doubled over. It was a challenge to stay on his feet once Dima got going, swallowing him to the hilt. He needed a wall or something to lean against. The world spun, his breath short. Bracing his hands on Dima’s broad shoulders wasn’t nearly enough. 

He shoved his love off with a boot to his chest, knocking him down. He needed that moment to get his wits back. Seeing Dmitry sprawled out on the floor, his mouth open and red, legs spread, cock hard… good thing they were supposed to fuck for the finale. When they’d discussed it, fucking seemed like overkill. 

“Get your belt.” 

Dima scrambled, trying to remember where his trousers had ended up. The sight of his plump red ass in the air was really something. He brought the belt like a page delivering a sword. 

This was going in one of two directions, and the audience knew it. Men held their breath, some with hands down their fronts, fondling themselves, waiting to see how it might go. Either Dima was getting beaten, or…. 

Nebojsa made an efficient loop, dropping it around Dmitry’s thick neck. His jock stayed on—meaning he wouldn’t be coming. Their audience expected that Nebojsa would. 

Dima knew his part, returning to his knees. He kissed the head of Nebojsa’s cock, then sucked the head. As far as their audience was concerned, that was all the lube he would get. 

Nebojsa pointed to the floor, snapping his fingers. The universal order to get down on all fours and prepare to get fucked. He stroked his length a few times, coating himself in Dima’s spit. 

He wasn’t that cruel. Taking a knee behind Dima’s raised ass, he passed his hand over himself once more, conjuring the right amount of lubrication. Dima had used a spell of his own before leaving the house, prepared and ready. Muggles had an awful time of it without magic—messy and time-consuming. There was no such thing as impromptu anal sex for muggles. Magic was good for a _lot_ of things. 

He tugged on the belt around Dima’s neck, showing that long line of the man’s heavy body, the way he flexed, the light glinting off of every muscle, every bead of sweat. He was a specimen. There was truly no wizard quite like him. 

Looking out at the audience, Nebojsa found himself fucking the love of his life for a warehouse full of strangers. 

It was so... elaborate, and contrived. It wasn’t how they fucked day-to-day. This was to get attention, to make money.

They improvised towards the wild side, mostly with magic. But tonight, this all had to be done with implements, visible, muggle. It felt contrived, inauthentic, compared to what truly got them both off. 

If they were fucking at home right now, Nebojsa might still have a belt around Dima’s neck. But they’d be out in the woods. Dima would be totally naked, free to come whenever he felt like it. Nebojsa would have his wand, giving him a good crack to the side of his ass, using it like a riding crop, shooting off sparks, cutting sharp lines against his skin. And Dima would be shifting. That was his absolute favorite—hovering on the cusp of ecstasy and supreme pain, his body trapped between man and creature; wings bursting from his back, hooves instead of toes, auburn coat springing up along his legs and arms. He would hold himself there, half man and half beast, screaming in agony until he came. 

He said the pain was exquisite. That it hurt from the inside—from his bones, his muscles and tendons simultaneously ripping and repairing. No whip or flogger could ever compare. It was like breaking every bone in his body, he said, one at a time, resetting them, and doing it all over again. With every breath. 

This show was nothing. Dmitry could take a thousand times this agony, and still beg for more. _Pain Slut_. _Power Bottom._ The terms for what he was did not begin to describe the magnitude of his deprivation. 

Nebojsa couldn’t force himself to come. Not like this. Not when he didn’t feel it from his heart, in his guts, reaching down and ripping the life out of him through his balls. So he faked it—a quick wandless, wordless spell conjuring a flash of sticky white. Pulling tight on the belt around Dima’s neck, distracting their audience with how amazing Dima looked, the way his back arched and stretched, the vibrant red strain of his neck. So they wouldn’t see that the top throwing his head back with a shout wasn’t quite sincere. 

He let himself go soft; looking out at the rapt faces usually made him lose his hard-on in record time. He pulled out, allowing their audience a full view of the smear on him, the fake mess he’d conjured running down Dima’s thigh. 

Money was tossed onto the stage. Men hooted, cheered. If it wouldn’t have ruined the image they needed to portray, Dima would’ve smiled. His desire for pain not only validated, but lucrative. 

Nebojsa stood, shoving Dima with his boot. “ _Bring me a towel, you animal_.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

It was a gift, to be trusted to give someone pain. It came with responsibilities; care and compassion, level-headedness, study of the craft, wisdom and discernment. To love someone and hurt them to further their own pleasure took a lifetime of practice. It was spiritual. 

Tonight was not spiritual. Tonight was greedy men wanting to play out rape and humiliation fantasies using his boyfriend as a doll. 

Nebojsa’s job was part babysitter, part law enforcement, with a splash of emergency services. He negotiated rates. He set boundaries and limits. He enforced those rules. He took the money. He sat in the corner with his boots up, cleaning his nails, looking like he was in charge. And if anyone did what they knew they weren’t supposed to, or set their cocks out of line, Nebojsa would be at their backs with his knife faster than they could scream. No one would hear them anyway—not with the spells he put over their private room. 

They made just over 1,000 lei from the floor show—enough for two nights in a decent hotel, or a week worth of groceries, because their currency was quite weak. 1,000 lei was a good night on stage. 

There were no showers, but at least the facility had clean running water so Dima could wash up after their scene. Nebojsa would’ve preferred to heal the cuts on his back, but that would arouse suspicion from the muggles. Dima washed and cleaned his cuts, and in their private room Nebojsa wandlessly cast a Sealing Charm over the open wounds. Now if some muggle with a disease or virus spat on his cut, Dima wouldn’t absorb any of it. They did the best they could. It had taken years of improvisation and close-calls to get to the level of knowledge they had now. 

A monk and a prince in a sex club, turning tricks. 

Everyone had to eat. 

At least now they had a roof over their heads, a place to call their own. They could make it whatever they wanted to. And in a few months they could go wherever they wanted, be whomever they wanted. Dima wouldn’t have to get fucked unless he actually wanted to. Nebojsa would have far less to pray about. 

Forgiveness wasn’t going to happen for him. He’d resigned himself to damnation the first time he shoved his cock in Dmitry’s mouth at fourteen. Hell was the afterlife awaiting him for his sins. Heaven was here on earth.

 

 

 

 

Tonight’s meal ticket was a group of three men, visiting Germans, wanting a free-for-all on Dima’s ass and mouth. They offered 3,000 lei. Nebojsa got them up to 4,200 by agreeing to Dima, after getting used in every orifice, servicing Nebojsa’s boots for their enjoyment. 4,000 was what they needed to get the power turned back on. Fixing the roof would be closer to 20,000. He didn’t know how many Germans with a bootlicking fetish that might take. He hoped that Gringotts released the Ionescue accounts before they had to find out. 

Nebojsa wasn’t a vain person. But he knew what must have been going through Dmitry’s mind: that he used to drop 4,000 lei on a single gift for his friends. He used to walk out of Gucci or Dior with whatever he wanted. Dima once flew on a dozen racing brooms, had a dozen cars at his disposal, spoiled his brothers and his friends with whatever their whims desired. Money had been no object when his father was alive, and Dmitry had remained in the tyrant’s good graces. 

Now they were scavenging and trading for survival. They’d sold most of their designer possessions—anything which wasn’t monogrammed or would fetch a decent price, no matter how sentimental. Dima had squirreled some money away, of course. They’d burned through most of it running, using their last few muggle money papers to buy a bottle of whisky to drown themselves in. That was the night which fate delivered them into the arms of Harry Potter. 

Dima hated that he’d needed rescuing, saving. He’d never learned to accept help, whereas Nebojsa saw it as angels and spirits of those who’d passed on guiding the hands of those on earth. Help was a precious gift. He tried to accept it with grace. Dmitry took help with a scowl. Even with Harry’s offer of financial assistance, Dmitry still insisted they go out and work tonight. Nebojsa had been looking forward to a good night’s sleep. But here he was.

Dmitry threatened to go solo tonight—but it wasn’t safe to work alone. Especially as a submissive for sale. Even when the sub was built like Dmitry. It didn’t matter how strong he was, or how magical. All it took was a hit to the temple or a concealed weapon, and Dmitry would be as dead as a muggle. 

He walked Dima through the planned activities and stated limits. 

Dima agreed. He’d rather pretend to be gang-raped for a thousand dollars than accept help from their best friends. 

“Safeword?” Nebojsa asked. They always used a code word rather than the traditional, easily identifiable safewords; so that johns wouldn’t realize Nebojsa was being signaled to cut things off until his knife was at their throats, or under their balls. 

“Harry Potter.” 

Nebojsa snorted. “Seriously?” Dimka wanted to use The Boy Who Lived as a safeword. 

Dima gave him a dark look, made more menacing by the contact lenses turning his eyes black. “Right now, even his name pisses me off.” 

“He’s not judging us,” Nebojsa reminded him. “He wants to help.” 

“We’re fine. We don’t need help.” 

Nebojsa blew out a breath, resigning himself. Machismo was definitely Dima’s worst quality. 

“Okay baby,” he simpered, pointing to the waiting Germans. “Go play rape for your supper, then. If it gets out of hand, just yell for Harry Potter to save you.” Because Harry Potter _would_ Apparate into an illegal underground sex club at four in the morning to help a friend. That was the sort of wizard he was. Nebojsa wished Dima could put aside his own conceit long enough to see that.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry opened his eyes to a ceiling painted like the sky. Naked baby cherubs with feathered wings cavorted amongst the painted clouds, but the sunlight striking their wings was real. It poured in from the windows, shining against the gold paint which covered half the room. The door frame, covered in gold. The moulding, covered in gold. The window casings, covered in gold. The bed, ornately carved and also covered in gold. 

Their room was pure opulence, like stepping into a time machine back to the era of corsets, powdered wigs and tsars. Harry bet that this bedroom alone had more square footage than an average flat in Surrey. 

The light in Romania was pure. It came through the windows with a kind of angelic brilliance. The sun in England never looked like this. Outside their windows Harry saw the green tops of trees, a wide expanse of lawn in desperate need of mowing, and a flash of water—an ornamental lake in the distance, artfully surrounded by flowering bushes, with an arched bridge crossing the water, leading to a chapel on the other side. 

It was the most beautiful place he had ever had the honor of sleeping. And he woke up next to Draco—naked but for Harry’s boxers, his white-blond head on Harry’s chest, softly snoring... drooling a bit, smelling like cigar smoke and booze. Harry kissed his hair. Draco was still his fallen angel, glowing in the morning light. 

Harry heard a soft tap on the door. After a few more taps, it creaked open. 

Nebojsa’s face peeked in, not wanting to disturb them. Harry waved the man in. He didn’t sit up, not wanting to disturb Draco asleep on his chest. 

Their friend had a breakfast tray floating with him; fruit, some buttered toast, and espresso. They had nothing and still they tried to feed him, spoil him, bringing breakfast in bed. Silent, Nebojsa settled the tray at the foot of the Potters’ mattress. 

“ _Spatsieba_ ,” Harry mouthed his thanks.

Nebojsa licked his lips, grinning back. “ _Puzhalsta_.”

Sia’s bony, tattooed hand tapped at his chest before making a cross gesture—up, down, right, left—like a priest blessing a congregation. It was a signal, miming to Harry that he was going to morning vespers, or perhaps mass. He pressed his hands together like praying, but tilted them to the side and rested his cheek—telling Harry and Draco to feel free to sleep in. His last gesture puzzled Harry a moment. He tucked his elbows against his body, then flapped his hands like a humming bird... flying! He was saying Misha and Dima were in their animal forms, flying around the palace grounds. 

Harry tried so hard to keep his laughter silent. He didn’t want to jostle Draco and wake him up. But playing charades with Nebojsa while he was naked with morning wood was several levels of ridiculousness, and he couldn’t help but laugh. A soft chuckle escaped him. 

Harry held up a hand. Draco was using his other arm as a pillow. Harry gave a thumbs up of comprehension before making the same cross gesture to Nebojsa—up, down, his left, his right—giving the man The Chosen One’s blessing to go to church. The guests were fine. They had this gorgeous bed. They had caffeine and food. They had each other. And this thrilling morning sun. Soon enough, they would rise from bed to meet it.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Draco declared that he wanted to know where Nebojsa got his clothes. The Serb smiled. “I vill take yoo.” 

Draco and Nebojsa decided they were going back down to the coast—to sell the Ionescue brothers’ finds from the forest that morning, and to go shopping. Clothes shopping. Draco wanted new clothes. 

Harry was glad Draco felt comfortable stating what he wanted—breaking from the group to go somewhere muggle with Nebojsa. It was good to see Draco flexing his independence. For weeks, he hadn’t asked to leave Grimmauld Place. This was a step in the right direction. 

He called after his husband, “Get some stuff for me, yeah?” 

“Like wha’?” 

Harry scrunched up his face. He never claimed to know anything about fashion. “I dunno... shirts, trousers? Anything my size so we don’t have to keep spelling clothes back and forth.”

Nebojsa laughed. Apparently that was a problem he and Dima had for years. Nebojsa was taller with long arms, and Dima was broadly built, with a barrel chest and bulky, muscular limbs. There was no way Dima could squeeze into Sia’s skin-tight trousers. 

Now free of the war, Nebojsa dressed like a long-lost member of Skid Row. He had the body for it, and the look—his cascade of long black hair, lean proportions, and saintly, androgynously gorgeous features. Meanwhile Dima was built like a wrestler; he probably played Beater in school and lifted weights six days a week for the last five years. Dima looked capable of uprooting a tree with his bare hands. 

It would be a stretch for the couple to share more than a sweatshirt or the occasional loose robe without magical re-sizing. They probably couldn’t even share a belt without magic. But they’d found a way to make things work, despite their differences in style and size. Harry held out hope for himself and Draco, too. Differences could be complimentary. They just had to find their new fit.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Draco had never driven a muggle car. Growing up, his father hired cars and drivers on the rare occasions they needed to travel in muggle fashion. He wondered if either Dima or Misha knew how to drive. It was likely that of the five of them, only Nebojsa and Harry knew how to operate a muggle vehicle. Draco wasn’t the odd man out, yet he still felt it. 

“Zo....” the Serb began, leading, as though he thought Draco had something on his mind. He watched the road over his knuckles on the steering wheel, but was obviously speaking to Draco in the passenger’s seat. “Vot did yoo vant to talk about?” 

“What?” Draco put his hand to his heart, pretending to be affronted. “This was in no way a pretense to get you alone. I genuinely like your style.” 

He truly did admire the man’s taste—his sense of proportion, the flattering way he accented his already long lines... and yeah, the bollocks to wear skin-tight pants with a half-open, mostly see-through shirt that was a bit gender amorphous, sporting yet another floral pattern. Yes, Draco greatly admired the man’s fashion; he didn’t think he could pull it off himself, but he admired it just the same. “And... you’re similar build to Harry. I thought you might help me pick some things for him. That’s all. I swear.” 

He considered Nebojsa, who was only slightly taller than Harry, with shoulders the same width, and a narrow waist. Nebojsa lacked Harry’s incredibly muscled, curvy arse, but Draco thought he could make due using Nebojsa to try on a few things for fit. 

Draco found a lot to admire in Nebojsa. The man was casually elegant, with a touch of dramatic. Maybe his husband wouldn’t dress _quite_ so flashy but... a little push in that direction wouldn’t hurt. The checkered shirts, loose denims and endless tshirts were less than inspired. 

The Serb seemed ready to accept Draco’s plea of innocence, his gaze returning to the road ahead. 

Draco chewed his lip. They were going to have to discuss it eventually… the damn snorting Graphorn of their little foursome which couldn’t be ignored forever. 

He knew that Harry had… some type of feelings for Nebojsa—maybe a crush, maybe more. Feelings born of respect and mutual experiences. Draco could absolutely appreciate why: Nebojsa was astonishing. The face of an angel and a body like the devil, with far more power in his blood than he let on. 

Draco wasn’t worried. He’d never experienced sexual jealousy, though in his youth he’d lusted and turned green over the possessions of others, wanting _things_ for himself. He’d wanted people, too. But he wasn’t controlling when it came to his lovers desiring other people. So watching Harry’s eyes stay long on Nebojsa’s body didn’t bother him—nothing like the way Harry flipped a gasket if Draco _ever_ checked someone out, even for a second. Harry made it exceedingly clear that Draco was his, exclusively, and was not to so much as look at an attractive person whilst Harry was around. 

Harry was loyal, and jealous, and monogamous to a fault. Harry would never cheat. And he would never set his sights on someone who was in a happy relationship. That just wasn’t Harry. So Draco had nothing to fear from whatever might be brewing under Harry’s dark hair when it came to the sex appeal of a certain Serbian. 

Draco sensed that Nebojsa fancied his husband on some level, too. They’d kissed the night they’d met, which was hot as fuck. Draco could still remember it with perfect clarity. Sure he’d been high at the time, but he’d never forget the sight. He was a visual person, and that image had stuck with him. Harry had looked amazing kissing another guy—another Parselmouth, another powerful sorcerer. It still turned Draco on just thinking about it. Harry, like himself, felt a kinship to power. It wasn’t uncommon for commanding wizards to feel drawn to other beings and persons of power. Likeminded people often moved in the same circles. It wasn’t unheard of to find another couple so similar to themselves after all this mess. 

Draco looked at Nebojsa—sunglasses covering his eyes, his flowing black hair tied back in a ponytail whipped by the wind as they drove with the top down. The blatant femininity of his features was striking. A tempered, clean-shaven jaw. Eyelashes like mink. Little pink lips, pouty, accented by a black ring pierced through the side—begging you to pull on it with your teeth. That face belonged with a set of tits and long, smooth legs. Little wonder Harry looked too long. Whether one preferred men or women, or both, there was something to enjoy in Nebojsa Radič’s erotically androgynous beauty. 

Harry could have chosen far worse specimens to develop a crush on. Besides Draco himself, Nebojsa was about the best a lightly-bent wizard could hope for. 

Draco thought, not for the first time, that had either he or Harry not survived their clash with Voldemort, whichever one of them who lived through the ordeal might have—after a grief-stricken period—fallen into bed between Dmitry and Nebojsa. 

There were no more worthy arms to fall into. Harry would have been in good hands, looked after by the older, more experienced couple. And Draco… he cut himself off; they had nearly an hour’s drive to the coast, and he didn’t want to spend it hiding the monster in his pants he’d inevitably arouse by entertaining fantasies of fucking his and Harry’s friends. 

Lately, Draco was trying not to “what-if” himself into a binge-drunk stupor. There were so many things which could have gone wrong—with the war, with his marriage—but didn’t. 

It wouldn’t do him any good to ruminate on doomsday scenarios. He was here. The sun was bright, the wind was in his hair, and the sea waited beyond the horizon. He wanted to be happy. He was about to have a pleasant afternoon getting to know Nebojsa better, and spending Harry’s money. Draco had every reason to be happy. He tried so fucking hard to find it in himself. 

He forced a smile, throwing his head back, breathing in air which smelled like the sea. _I can do this_ , he told himself. He could be normal again. All he needed was time.

 

 

 

 

They parked the car near the beach, walking to an open air bazaar market where vendors sold used clothing from tents and booths in the salty breeze. It was almost like a carnival. Teenagers and twenty-something sifted through piles of textiles, trying on clothes, laughing, having fun. Two men on the corner played guitars, their cases open at their feet asking for money, just as they did in London. The sun was hot, reflecting off the pale sandy beach as waves crashed. People swam, played, ate, lived. 

Draco and Nebojsa stopped by the water, looking out at the beach and the sea. 

“Look,” Draco said plainly. He’d had time enough to consider his words on the drive, arriving upon what he wanted to say. Nebojsa was a damn perceptive cunt. “Harry fancies you. I know it—you know it. Everyone knows it... except Harry.” Draco swallowed, hard. “He’s daft. He’s an absolute troll when it comes to things like this—anything beyond blatant hetero-normativity floors him. He’s too thick. I’m sure he can barely admit it to himself.” 

Sia said nothing, looking out at the water, watching tanned muggle bodies splash about in it. His silence encouraged Draco to go on. 

“I don't want you to get the wrong impression, and think we came out here... to hook-up,” Draco admitted in plain language. Because, if Harry weren’t in the picture, that’s exactly what this holiday would turn into. He saw it. Nebojsa saw it. It was Harry who had no bloody clue. “Harry’s mind doesn't work that way. He loves you guys, he wanted to come and check on you, see how you’re doing with the house and everything. He’s quite mother-hen-like. He wants all his mates to be well. It probably never even occurred to him that his actions could be interpreted as anything other than that. He doesn’t see it as... sexual.” 

Sometimes Draco wondered if the only thing Harry saw through a sexual filter was himself, their relationship. Fit strangers, flirting, sex scenes in films… none of it seemed to move Harry. Just Draco. Only, ever, Draco. 

Nebojsa nodded. “I understand. For a married man, Harry iz... innocent, in some vays.” 

Draco nodded fervently. That was a good word for Harry’s motives. Where others in the magical community might assume the Ionescue palace was one big orgy right now, Harry only saw mates hanging out, catching up, engaging in good clean Gryffindor-like fun. Harry didn’t assume sexual connotations to every little thing—like Draco did, because he was an over-sexualized dog. Or, he had been. 

Draco wasn’t sure what he was now. He was married—he was Draco Potter—but he didn’t know what that meant. He and Harry hadn’t fucked in weeks, which was entirely his fault. He kept pushing Harry away. He didn’t feel like sex. There was something deeply wrong with that. 

Noting his silence, Nebojsa made to reassure Draco of his intentions. “Harry iz married to yoo. He iz monogamous, and loyal. Nothing haz happened, or vill happen, betveen us. Yoo have my vord, Draco.” 

Those simple words actually put Draco much more at ease. 

The wind caught Draco’s hair. He brushed it out of his eyes, the sun lighting the tattoo on his arm. He was still getting used to it, the Mark of the Dark Lord on his skin: transmuted,  transformed into Harry’s mark. He had to figure out that that meant, too. 

Draco pushed a tight smile through his lips. “Thanks. I really appreciate that. Harry might not realize but… best we square things now, ahead of him.” He gestured down the boardwalk and they began to stroll, heading for the open air market.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry stayed behind with the brothers. Misha was in his Granian form and running around, having spent the morning checking on the local creatures. He was goofing off in the sky, amusing himself, stretching his massive wings; he pulled aerial stunts over the scummy pool that ran the length of the formal gardens on the south side of the palace. 

Harry and Dima occupied the main lanai at the side of the house, enjoying the sunshine. There was some outdoor wicker furniture—chairs, a sofa and a chaise lounge arranged around a table. Dima had a few beers under a Cooling Charm. He had a large pad of paper over his knee, sketching Misha as he flew overhead, doing tricks. Harry watched as a few Thestrals came from the woods, joining Misha in the air, mimicking the way he moved. 

Harry liked this. It was good to see Misha enjoying his gift of flight, not having to use it as an advantage in battle. He was amazing—feathery silver-grey wings beating against the clouds and the sunshine, his movements effortless as he dipped and swerved across the sky. No wonder he was a natural on a broomstick. He’d been flying with his own body for years. 

Harry could hardly believe he’d soared on this young man’s back over a burning battle field. The Battle of Ravenwood was barely seven months ago. Already the war was becoming a part of his memories, no longer etched into the insides of his eyelids every time he tried to sleep. He could see Misha fly and not think of explosions, fireballs, dead bodies and screams. 

Feeling sunny heat on his skin, Harry pulled off his shirt, laying himself down on the chaise to work on his tan. He tossed his glasses on the table, his eyes closed, truly relaxing. It felt amazing to lay in the sun and not do anything. 

Dima had music playing from a battery-powered CD player. His mood today ran decidedly towards death metal—lots of dark industrial sounds, epic guitar riffs, and screaming vocals. Harry caught him head-banging more than a few times to his favorite parts, his fist straight up in the air, rocking out. 

The only words Harry could think of to describe Dmitry’s style were “athletic” and “lazy.” He wore loose trousers, usually jeans or cargo shorts, topped with a hoodie, track jacket, or ashirt depending on the conditions. Dima often had a band logo across his chest—Rammstein, Alice Cooper, Mötley Crüe. Designs with flames and skulls. He dressed more like a roadie on tour with a band than a member of royalty. 

The day was already hot, and Dima wore a black sleeveless shirt which displayed his massive arms, his Thestral tattoo glinting in the sunshine. He made himself comfortable on the lanai paving stones, his bum on the ground. He was devoted to his sketch book, ignoring the world, lost with a charcoal in his hand. 

Dima was a warm guy; he hugged a lot more than any Slavic person Harry knew, and generally wore his heart on his sleeve. Harry rarely witnessed the hardness within Dmitry, or his fascination with black, scary things. But it kinda made sense. Being into dark and creepy shit was probably part of what attracted him to Nebojsa. Harry figured the Serb had probably been otherworldly-looking, bordering on goth, even as a kid. 

Harry nursed a beer, listening to the water, Misha whickering above them, his wings flapping. 

Eventually Harry cracked his eyes open to see that Dmitry was sketching _him_. He started, physically jumping. 

Dima glanced up—for visual reference on his sketch—and realized that Harry had caught him. 

“Zorry,” Dima mumbled around his beer; he looked more sorry that he’d gotten caught. Between his brother and his boyfriend, he likely didn’t have to ask for permission before he started drawing someone. Wandless, Dima physically tossed the sketchpad over to Harry, who sat up to catch it before it hit him in the face. 

Harry squinted without his glasses. Then stared. His whole life, he’d never known anyone who could draw. 

Dmitry’s sketches were amazing—lifelike quality, on a level with the master works Harry saw in textbooks as a kid in muggle school. Dima’s work was immaculate, detailed, and… shockingly true to life. 

Harry saw the lines of his new, fuller, adult body expressed in a variety of positions on the page—him looking out at the grounds, him on his back with his tattooed arm over his eyes, him looking passed out with a hand hanging off the lounger brushing at the ground. Harry couldn’t believe that was what he really looked like. It still felt new, strange. But he spared a glance down at himself, and the abs in the picture matched his own. The cut crease of muscle disappearing under the waistband of his boxers was real, too. And his chest... shit, he looked pretty damn decent. Hot, even. Harry never thought of himself as being attractive. 

But Dima was gay, and Dima’s well-trained eye was sketching him like this. Harry forced himself to admit: _Okay, maybe I'm not awful to look at_. He had to see himself through someone else’s gaze to realize that his own self-perception might be somewhat warped.

Squinting disoriented and disbelieving at that sketch, Harry added “body image issues” to his mental list of topics for future therapy sessions.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

For the first time in his life, Draco rummaged. 

The muggles had a few decent things if one had the time to sift through piles of shit. And that morning he and Nebojsa certainly had the time. 

Still. This method of scrapping through other people’s leftovers struck him. Some of Dima and Sia’s clothes were high-end designer stuff. But they scavenged through this as well? Hard times, indeed. 

Nebojsa’s posture changed. One minute he was looking at a shirt, holding it up, considering—the next moment he dropped it, glaring cold murder across the market, his hand slipping down to his wand in his trouser pocket. 

Draco reached for his own wand, his eyes following the taller wizard’s. 

There were two muggle blokes looking at them. Their consideration was… soulless. 

Draco wanted to crawl out of his skin and run. 

He knew the look of a man who wanted to rape him for fun. He hadn’t seen that look in a long time, but it still haunted the worst of his dreams. In some of those dreams he was raped again… next to Harry’s dead body… while his father and aunt watched, laughing. He’d been powerless to stop it, just as he couldn’t stop the images now as they rolled through his mind. 

Coming back to himself, Draco realized Nebojsa had run the fuckers off. He had no idea how. But the Serb was dragging Draco away by his wrist, muttering that he needed a drink. 

“It’s barely noon,” Draco pointed out. It was a weak excuse, especially for him. He let Sia drag him. His hand was trembling, his voice less than steady. 

Nebojsa squeezed his shaky fingers, holding Draco’s hand, pulling him on. “Zo? You could use a drink, too.”

 

 

 

 

They went into a café. There was a pretty garden in the back, with a trellis overhead. The garden structure was overgrown with ivy, blocking out most of the sun. Under this shady area were tables and chairs. Nebojsa chose for them a table in the far corner, wedging himself onto the bench beside Draco, so close their knees touched. 

On the way through the restaurant, Nebojsa had called to the man behind the bar for some stuffed figs and a bottle of Moldovan wine—if Draco’s Romanian was correct. The barkeep nodded. It looked like Dima and Nebojsa were regulars here, their typical orders known. 

Sitting close, with patches of sunlight dappling their bodies, Draco noticed something he hadn’t seen in the sun. Nebojsa had his sunglasses on before. They were hanging from his open shirt now as the man carded fingers through his hair. 

“You're wearing eyeliner.” 

Nebojsa nodded distractedly. He ran a hand through his hair again, fingernails against his scalp—a self-soothing gesture which reminded Draco painfully of Harry—before leaning back against the bench. Nebojsa fanned himself a bit with his shirt. 

“Last night’s eyeliner,” Draco observed, his tone less forgiving this time around. The blackness was smudged beneath the Serb’s eyes as though he’d washed most of it off before collapsing into bed, not caring if the rest got on his pillow. 

Nebojsa nodded again. He swept his long hair off of his shoulders, using a hair binder from his wrist to secure it in a ponytail high on top of his head. Long strands still spilled down to tickle his neck, but this way he could feel some of the breeze against his skin. The feminine hairstyle called Draco’s attention to the man’s enviably high cheekbones, making his face appear even longer, wearier. 

He was a manifestation of androgyny: masculine and feminine meeting in a raucous blend of brawn and slender curves, artistry and roughness. _Fuck_ , Sia was beautiful to look at. 

“Did you and Dima go out?” 

He kept nodding. Soft hair blew around his neck in the breeze, lifting Draco’s blond strands from his forehead. 

“To… a club or something?” 

The waiter brought them pickled vegetables, figs stuffed with goat cheese, some bread and olives. Along with an oversized 900ml bottle of wine, and two glasses. 

“ _Spatzieba_.” Draco and Nebojsa thanked him in unison. 

Alone once more, Draco considered the lines on Nebojsa’s face. He didn’t look hungover, like he’d been out partying. He looked exhausted, bone-weary, deeply upset. And those men in the market. They’d seen him with Nebojsa and their gazes turned more than hungry. They weren’t just horny blokes looking for a toss. They were dangerous. Draco could tell the difference. They’d looked like men who wanted to eat what they killed, and bury the body afterwards. 

“What's wrong?” Draco asked. He laid his hand on Nebojsa’s arm. The waiter had poured the wine for them, and Draco pressed a glass into Nebojsa’s hand. 

It took a full minute before the Serbian wizard answered his question. 

“Dima is turning tricks on muggles for cash.” The fact that he knew the English slang for it spoke volumes. They were experienced at this. Across multiple continents. Draco knew the lexicon as well but didn’t interrupt, letting Sia speak. “Dima is zuch a glutton—three, four, five guys every night, no problem. I am hiz....” He stopped here, searching for the right word. 

“Backup?” Draco supplied. “Bodyguard?” 

Nebojsa chugged the entire glass of wine in one gulp. “ _Pimp_ ,” he hissed angrily, falling into snake tongue. “ _I am the one who sssssells him_.” 

A cold wave of understanding washed over Draco. “So those blokes back there... they thought I was for sale, too.” 

They’d only had a glimpse of Draco across the crowded market. If anything, that scared him more.

It was one thing to want Dmitry—to lust after a buff, fully-developed adult man; to want to buy him for the night. Showing that brand of interest in Draco demonstrated something sinister. He knew he didn’t look his age. He’d spent most of his life compensating for it, trying to be seen as older, more mature, not a child. Even now, he might be mistaken for someone far younger from behind. 

Those men in the market… it turned them on, that he might be underage. Or at least looked it. They’d wanted to molest a kid. And they thought Nebojsa—because he collected payment for Dima—might be able to facilitate. 

Shaken, Sia refilled his wine only to drink it all again. Draco drank about half his own glass. It was actually fairly good. He could have sat here for an hour or so and drained the whole bottle by himself. If only his stupid hands weren’t shaking, he could have passed for a man having a very pleasant afternoon. 

With his head tilted back, eyes closed, Nebojsa whispered. “I’m zorry. Pleaze, do not tell Harry.”

“Oh!” Draco shook his head violently, putting his glass down. “No. Absolutely not. He’d lose his ruddy mind.” Draco thought about exactly what Harry might do if he knew Dmitry was selling himself, with Nebojsa as his pimp. “Saint Potter would pack all three of your bags, drag you back to London, and insist you live with us until the accounts are ironed out and you’re flush again. Even if it takes years.” 

Yes, that would be Harry’s precise reaction. Along with a fair amount of shouting, and throwing of a few nearby objects. 

Harry didn’t understand. He hadn't grown up with pureblood wizarding culture. Sex trade was weirdly ingrained with wizardkind. It was less than two hundred years ago that wizards had owned slaves. Most families still owned house elves. Their laws considered underage children to be little more than property. Wives had it slightly better. That was the legal side of things. Socially, wizarding views on sex, companionship, and bodily autonomy were still living somewhere in the eighteenth century. To Harry—a modern muggle man—their practices were ghastly, bordering on inhumane. 

Harry didn’t live in a world where arranged marriages and sex for money was the norm. Sex meant love to Harry. Sexual encounters had nothing to do with power in his mind. Which was beautiful, a perspective of which Draco was obscenely jealous. He wished that all he knew of sex was Harry: respect, admiration, passion. They worshiped one another’s bodies. It was spiritual when they were together. Of course Harry would think it was barbaric to sell something like that. 

Harry had more confidence than Draco could fathom. Harry always thought there would be a noble way out, no matter how deep of a hole he fell into. Harry would never imagine having to sell his prick, his mouth, or his ass to survive. It never occurred to him; because to Harry, a person could never be a commodity. Harry had far too much respect for people to imagine selling their parts. 

Draco drank the rest of his wine, then refilled both their glasses. He picked up an olive, popping it in his mouth. It was stuffed with pickled garlic. The liquid like dry vermouth exploded over his tongue, the garlic squeaking against his teeth as he chewed. 

An anxious Nebojsa toyed with the stem of his glass, not ready or deeming it too prying to make eye contact. Looking down he instead saw Draco’s hands, their slight tremble, and the way his leg jittered beneath the table. 

Nebojsa knew. He knew Draco was seeing shit in his head. Draco had immediately recognized the looks they’d gotten in the market; and those violent glances had been enough to tip him over, send him reeling, like falling off his broomstick in a storm. That said enough. 

Nebojsa was trying to decide how to ask when Draco had been molested. Raped. There was no right way to ask. 

“Have yoo...?” Told Harry? Recovered? Hunted down the bastards and gutted them? 

Yes. No. And half-way there. 

Draco found his voice in the bottom of his wine glass. “My father… he sold my virginity when I turned fourteen.” It was something he’d only ever talked about with Harry. He didn’t like to think about it. “To Arnett Didier. I was for his son, Philippe, the Death Eater. He had a thing for me. I fancied him, too. He wasn’t quite seventeen at the time. I was clueless about the gold changing hands. My father knew I was hot for this bloke and handed me over once he got his galleons. I was fourteen and randy, and Philippe is gorgeous: everyone knew I’d put out, so my not knowing about the deal was considered superfluous.” 

Nebojsa offered him a cigarette. Draco accepted it from his fingers. The Serb cupped his tattooed hand around the black-papered cigarette, checking around for muggles before he held up his finger, wandlessly conjuring a flame. Draco pulled, catching the black cigarette paper against the fire, inhaling, nodding his thanks. Nebojsa leaned back against the bench, watching Draco smoke. 

The Serb picked up a piece of bread, dipped it in olive oil, and tore into it. He looked like he’d gotten perhaps two or three hours of sleep by the darkness surrounding his washed eyes. 

Draco held out his cigarette.

Swallowing, Nebojsa took a drag from Draco’s hand. The metal from his lip ring was warm, his lips coated cloyingly with oil as they pressed against Draco’s fingers, inviting smoke into his lungs from Draco’s hand. 

It was a soft connection—lips and fingertips, not quite a kiss. The presence of another body close by, there for him; sharing food, sharing a cigarette, sharing his story. These touches of their bodies was enough—slow and steady comfort without overwhelming his already strained senses. 

Draco could absolutely understand why Dmitry loved this man. And why Harry spent so much time with him. Nebojsa somehow wasn’t afraid of his own brokenness. He could cut himself open and show it to you. He made vulnerability and emotion into gifts, rather than burdens to be bourn. He wore his cracks like armor. Maybe it made him stronger because he knew precisely where his weaknesses were. He invited you to hold yourself open, too; to bleed a little, to suffer with him, to learn something. 

Perhaps this was how Harry had started to fall in love with Draco in the first place—when he’d angrily bared his own soul, barfing and telling his horrible stories in a bathroom, too knackered to care what Harry might think of him. He’d needed to get everything out of himself. Emptied, Harry had refilled him. As Nebojsa was doing now, with silent support, and something like hope in the smoky breath they shared. 

Draco pulled the cigarette back to his own lips. Olive oil and yeast mingled with cloves and chalk.  

“Three years later I was raped again. A Death Eater named Ciaran Mulciber was assigned to torture me. It happened in the cellar, at the Manor.” He blew smoke out of his nose, leaning back against the bench. He pressed his shoulder to the warmth of Nebojsa’s side, balancing the burning cigarette on his finger. The marks on his neck were from a cigarette just like this one. He breathed a sigh of relief when that didn’t start up another nightmare in his head. “That’s how I knew. Those men in the market. I’ve seen the look in a man’s eye when he means to dig your grave after he’s had his way.” 

“I’m zorry you had to see zhat.” Cold blue eyes met his. Nebojsa’s gaze was the color of a pale sky, or winter ice on the surface of a lake. Both easy and unnerving in the same breath. “Zhe choice of vork iz ours, yet it effects you.” 

Draco sighed. “Sex, like magic, always has a ripple effect.” 

He knew the truth of that. One kiss from The Boy Who Lived had changed his entire life. 

Draco looked over the food, the wine, the cigarette in his hand... the way Nebojsa was carefully looking at him. Tending to him. He knew what this was. 

The muggles called it _a_ _ftercare_. After heavy sadism or punishment, the dominant saw to the immediate needs of the submissive—food, water, warmth, cleanliness and comfort. Sometimes it was the sub taking care of the dominant partner, depending on the activities and the toll they’d taken. 

Draco never told Harry about aftercare because... well, he didn’t want to ask to be cared for. He never learned how to ask for it, or much believed he deserved it. And Harry sort of did it naturally, anyway. Harry never let him go after sex, and would practically read his mind to learn what he needed and see it done. Harry’s possessiveness and huge bleeding heart translated to his own kind of aftercare. Harry’s was a sort of tenderness Draco had never known—searing, burned into his heart. 

Draco hadn’t been the recipient of formal, deliberate, knowledgeable aftercare since Jack. A year ago. But that was what Nebojsa was doing. Like Harry, Nebojsa made it feel seamless.

“Aftercare...” he muttered, accusatory, pulling on the cigarette again. “You….”

Nebojsa made a non-committal sound in his throat. “Dima haz anxiety. He and Misha uzed to get panic attacks. After Vuk died.” That was how he’d learned to recognize the earliest warning signs. 

The three of them had been there—Nebojsa, Dima and Misha—trapped on the other side of a collapsed wall and unable to Apparate, when it happened. When Vuk was murdered. Draco imagined that if he’d had to listen to his big brother being slaughtered by their father, he’d be pretty fucked up, too. No wonder Nebojsa could spot a panic attack. He knew what it looked like when memories were about to swallow a man whole. Nebojsa learned by necessity how to take control of the situation before it got out of hand. 

Mastering a man like Dima was no easy task, either. Draco imagined sometimes Dima bucked… hard. Worse then him, even, if such a thing was possible. 

Dima was fighting now. Rejecting what was good for him, refusing balm to his wounds. Nebojsa had owled Harry, calling in the cavalry… forcing Dima to bow, to admit defeat. 

Thin fingers reached out, touching Draco’s wrist—taking his pulse in muggle fashion. Nebojsa had done it earlier, grabbing his hand on the street before bringing him to this tranquil garden café. Sia was such a practiced, fluid dominant that he recognized the signs before Draco had, his knowledge and experience informing him precisely what Draco needed before he himself was even aware; getting him isolated, getting food, putting some nicotine in his system, sitting close by in case he needed the warmth and comfort of another body, even having a private bathroom nearby on the off chance he needed to be sick. 

Draco couldn’t help but wonder... Nebojsa was only a year older. Would Harry be this good by nineteen? Or might it take longer? Nebojsa had both Dima and Misha to practice on, and they’d been a surrogate family for years. Maybe, if Harry kept spending time with Nebojsa, some of that skill set would start to rub off? Or rather _keep_ rubbing off. Because Harry was figuring it out faster than Draco would have thought possible for a man who was a bloody virgin this time last year.

He certainly provided no guidance for Harry, forcing The Chosen One to figure it out on his own. That certainly hadn’t helped. 

Draco could only conclude that Harry was a natural caregiver, surrounding himself with people who fostered that ability. They’d all gotten so angry when he turned his skills on Draco last year. Draco the Death Eater, the undeserving. Only Harry had seen Draco as worthy of his care, his time, his love. Now Nebojsa was echoing that sentiment through the earnest connection of fingers at wrist—feeling his pulse, the magic in his blood, stabilizing at last, returning to normal. 

“You should ask Harry to get you a gun,” Draco offered. “You know… just in case. Muggles respond to them.” But Nebojsa would know that. He felt a bit dim for telling the man what he would already know. 

“Rumanian gun laws are too strict,” Nebojsa explained. “Zhey regulate knives, even. Being zeen vith a gun is more attention zhan….” He didn’t finish the thought. Because he didn’t want a way for their trade to be permanent. He almost… needed something bad to happen, to prove his point, to get Dima to agree to stop. Draco getting ogled by a couple of pedophiles in the market might not be enough. 

Draco understood. He was the same way. If he believed in something, he’d keep plowing at it until it broke him in two. Harry usually had to drag him away kicking and screaming.  

“Harry would want to know what it was for,” Draco shot down his own idea. 

“Iz not permanent,” Nebojsa told him. He was as much reminding himself. 

“I know Dima told Harry off pretty hard,” Draco took a quick pull, speaking smoke. “But Harry won’t stop. He’s still gonna try to save you guys.” 

Tight-lipped, Nebojsa agreed. “Zhat is vot he does. I vos counting on him.” 

There was a phrase about the right man for the right job. Perhaps this was a case of the right dominant for the right submissive. The one thing which Nebojsa couldn’t talk Dmitry out of… Harry could. And the one thing Draco still struggled with, he’d just accomplished so easily with Nebojsa. 

He was very glad it was illegal to be gay in the streets of Romania. That knowledge kept him from doing something stupid—like moving nearer to Nebojsa. They were already close enough. He was also very glad to be married to Harry, who brought them here to be with Dima and Sia, even if nothing more than friendship would ever come of it. 

Nebojsa took the cigarette stub before it burned Draco’s fingers. His thin hand pushed the plate of food closer to Draco instead, silently encouraging him to eat. 

Maybe… he didn’t want Harry to be this good. Not yet, anyway.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Draco and Sia returned from the market, walking across the lawn with their purchases. Normally seeing that many shopping bags meant a major dent in Harry’s credit card. He did see a few emblems of fancy stores, but by and large the bags were plain. Nebojsa had said they were going to the flea market, which had a steady supply of the vintage clothes he liked. 

The Serb had a new pair of combat boots, the laces tied together, flung over his shoulder. 

What caught Harry’s attention was a large black case in Draco’s hand, bumping against his knee. As they came closer, Harry saw it was distinctly guitar-shaped. 

Draco’s hair was windswept from the car, his cheeks pink from the sea air and the sun. Harry was reminded of how Draco came alive on the quidditch pitch—exercise and a bit of camaraderie always sat well with him. Draco looked more himself than he had in months. Years, maybe. Harry couldn’t remember seeing Draco this easy since before his father was arrested. 

Harry sat up, waving to them. Draco and Nebojsa started up the steps of the lanai. 

“New instrument?” asked Harry, pointing to the guitar. 

Draco stuck out his tongue. “Empty case,” he snarked. “New hobby—contortionism.” 

That got a laugh out of Dmitry. Harry chuckled a bit, too. 

“I’m going to teach him,” offered Nebojsa. 

Draco hitched up the case, adjusting it so it wouldn’t hit the stairs as he climbed. The way he handled it, it clearly wasn’t empty. He’d actually bought himself a guitar but wasn’t ready to show it off quite yet. 

“Guitar isn’t so different from the pipa,” Draco shrugged. Harry knew that was a Chinese instrument Draco learned from his mother. The blond set his bags down on the landing, but kept his guitar firmly in hand. He lifted the case, talking about the instrument inside. “Shouldn’t be too hard to pick it up.” 

Since their arrival in Romania, Draco and Nebojsa had started reflexively dressing alike. Both wore very tight trousers with black leather belts around their bony hips. Their shirts were half-buttoned with the sleeves rolled to their elbows, showing off the black ink on their lean, pale bodies. Draco’s shirt was a light lavender linen, while Nebojsa wore an obnoxious gold geometric pattern on black. But the influence was there: Draco the aristocrat, and Nebojsa the punk. 

Looking between the pair of them, Harry laughed. “Hell, you guys already look like a rock band.”

Dima perked up. “That’s actually a good idea. We _should_ start a band.” 

“Not a reliable way to earn money, sweetheart,” Nebojsa chided. 

“Not for money,” Dima scoffed. He threw his arm around Draco’s shoulder, the guitar case swaying lightly, bouncing against Draco’s leg. “For fun.” His eyes turned to Harry, excited. “Potter, you play the drums, yes?” 

Harry spluttered. “What? No!” He’d never played an instrument in his life. Sometimes Draco would teach him a bit of piano, but he was still more or less awful at it. 

Draco threw his head back and laughed, knowing whatever musicality Harry had in his blood came directly from himself. 

Dmitry just seemed disappointed. “No? You seem like the type…” he mumbled. 

Nebojsa was smiling, glad to see everyone in a good mood and not wanting to dampen that with particulars. 

“What are we gonna do with three guitar players?” asked Draco, being practical. 

“We don’t all have to play,” Dima pointed out. “You and Nebojsa can sing.” 

Draco sidestepped out from under Dima’s arm. “Hold on a minute.” His voice was playfully cautious. “I’m not a singer.” 

Dima chased him, getting that big arm around him, holding the blond with the crook of his big tattooed arm like he was about to give Draco a nuggie. He spoke forcefully to the top of Draco’s shiny white head. “Bullshit, Dragon. You sing just fine.”

Nebojsa carried their bags inside, shouting for Misha—asking who they might know who played the drums. Whether Draco liked it or not, this was happening.

 

 

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry asked Misha to owl the best magical construction companies in Romania. There were only three of them in total. The first company wanted nothing to do with the Ionescue name, sending their letter back unopened. The second agreed to come out, have a look over the estate, and give them an estimate. 

Harry stood between Dima and Sia. Dmitry was fuming all over again—his beefy arms folded over his chest, flexing menacingly. His normally bright eyes narrowed to slits, glowering. 

Nebojsa looked relieved: that the house was going to be taken care of quickly, and done right, not on a shoestring budget. That Harry was putting his fucking foot down and making it happen. A nervous smile turned his thin lips. He didn’t have his piercings in that day and he looked so much younger, almost naked without them. Harry was used to seeing him with those flecks of black and silver metal wound through his skin. Without them, he was mortal, vulnerable, young. 

Misha and Draco were off flying in the woods. Harry, Dima and Sia all had the same inclination—that they didn’t want Draco and Misha to feel this strain, that it was better those two go off and have some fun, and leave this business for the “adults” to handle. Harry got a fluttery feeling in his stomach at being one of the grown ups. After all, it was what he’d wanted for a long time. He wasn’t always good at it, and he didn’t always make the right decisions, but he needed opportunities to try harder and be better. 

Helping his friends get their house patched up was absolutely the grown-up thing to do. 

Under the aid of a Translation Charm, Harry was able to discuss with the visiting contractor what absolutely needed to be done to keep the palace upright. They had to update some of the wiring or risk a fire when they restored the old electrical system. The pipes were fine, though in need of cleaning, and a new water heater was necessary for the showers, sinks and tubs to be hot again. The contractor recommended a few upgrades to the septic system as well.

One of the terraced patios had a retaining wall which was failing; if it rained much that summer, they’d have a collapse and subsequent mudslide on their hands which could threaten the structural integrity of the north wing. They had until the fall to replace nearly a third of the roof tiles which were either cracked or degraded; otherwise they wouldn’t survive the winter without ice dams and leaks. They should also re-grade the drainage away from the house to prevent flooding of the lower floors. The gas line into the kitchen was faulty, and would need to be replaced to make the stove work. And the chimneys needed be cleaned prior to winter as well: forty-eight individual fireplaces all counted. Some of the ballrooms had multiple hearths, not to mention every bedroom had one for heating. 

When the builder tallied up the work, showing them the final number, Dmitry walked away. 

Harry couldn’t blame him for not being ready for that number. It was a lot. Over a hundred thousand pounds. That was what it cost to have a home like this and maintain it. Obviously during the war the house hadn’t been properly kept up. The damage from ousting the Death Eaters who’d occupied it just made the situation worse. 

If Harry worked sixty hour weeks as a Field Officer in America, he could make that much money in about fourteen months—sixteen if work was slow and he couldn’t manage to get hours. He had a lot more than that sitting in his Gringotts vault right now—because of his parents and grandparents. Plus Sirius had left Harry the Black family accounts, which weren’t exactly to be sniffed at, though not as much as the Potters left behind.

Harry essentially had the inheritance of at minimum four generations of purebloods sitting in his vault. It was the kind of wealth most people wouldn’t amass until they were much older and many of their loved ones had passed away after working hard and saving all their lives.  

Other people got to have their families alive and with them, guiding them; whereas Harry had a big pile of gold but no biological family to lean on in times of confusion or sorrow. He thought it was more important to have good people in your life than to be wealthy... but he recognized how lucky he was to have some money to throw around. Especially right now. 

Dima walked away because he didn’t have the funds. 

Harry did. He told the men to start work as soon as they could, and gave them five thousand lei as a deposit—most of what he’d brought in pocket money, minus the small amount Draco had spent on clothes. He would Apparate back to Gringotts and have the goblin bankers send payments promptly as the work was completed; for convenience, but also so Dima didn’t have to physically watch Harry Potter pay his bills going forward. No matter what the crew might think of the Ionescue name, they all knew Harry Potter was good for it. 

Leaving the contractor with Nebojsa to discuss details, Harry went after Dima. 

From ten paces he recognized a breathing exercise. Harry used the exact same technique when weightlifting—specifically for pushing his one-rep-max on deadlifts. He thought Dima was shouldering quite a bit of weight of his own. Dima was either trying not to have an emotional breakdown or trying to stop himself from murdering Harry.

He stepped up beside Dima, ready, even if the answer was murder. After listening to two more deep, rattling breaths, he figured it out—putting a warm hand between Dmitry’s shoulders, rubbing small circles, encouraging him to just keep breathing against the soothing contact of his palm. 

“It’s a loan,” Harry said. “You can pay me back when things are set right. I don’t care how long that takes.” 

Dmitry gave a twitch beneath Harry’s hand—rage, self-loathing, shame, trying not to scream, biting back on tears. 

Harry kept his hand moving gently, kept talking. “I know... you’re not used to someone wanting to help you. That can be hard to accept. People were always trying to get close to me because I'm The Boy Who Lived, or whatever, and I'm sure people treated you the same because of your dad and your family. I just need you to trust me. Let me help. Let me be here for you, and Misha, and Nebojsa. You guys are basically my family, okay? So consider this a loan from your brother."

His eyebrows pinched, waiting for Dima to say something. 

He didn’t get an answer. But he did get a very tight hug.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

It was the little things Harry enjoyed most about staying with his friends—the way they left each other alone, carving out their own personal spaces within the big old house, free to seek out company when it was wanted or to be solo when it suited. They didn’t all have to participate in the same activities, but were free to decide how their individual time was spent. They unconsciously stuck together or splintered off, doing as they wished, coming back together for meal times or the occasional planned activity. Common meeting points were the kitchen for food or coffee, and the lanai at sunset, gathering for cigars and drinks to share stories about their day or discuss the restoration work on the house. 

Harry caught Dima and Nebojsa hitting a weight set in the garage one morning and joined them; he hadn’t worked out earnestly since his time in America, and it turned out he missed everything about it, from having a spotter to exchanging notes on supersets. Sometimes Misha joined them, rattling off the scientific names for every single muscle in the body. Their father had insisted that Misha study to become a Healer: and though quidditch was his passion, his exacting knowledge of human anatomy gave him a leg-up in bodybuilding. 

Dima’s obsession was lifting big heavy things. He’d stomp off into the woods and find boulders to throw around, growling and shouting his victories like an ancient Greek Olympian. Misha trained agility, aiming to stay light and fast for the quidditch career he wanted. He used magic and leftover building supplies to construct obstacle courses for himself, making alterations each day to keep himself sharp. Harry flew Misha’s course a few times. He was rusty, and nearly caved his head in a few times, but it was exhilarating. 

Draco slept in. Sometimes he wandered out with a cup of tea and observed whomever was grunting through a set, a critical blond brow raised. Draco had to appreciate the sweating and the shirtlessness because he stopped out rather often just to make faces at them as they worked. 

Nebojsa was the most dedicated. He’d lost the most to the war. Sia hadn’t always been slender like Draco, and was working twice as hard to bring himself back.

Harry did a bit of everything—shadowboxing, free weights, a few powerlifts when Dima challenged him. He also climbed trees or laid in the grass and listened to the bugs. He didn’t feel the need to push himself like he had in the war. It just felt good to move around, and he let himself enjoy movement to no other purpose than his own enjoyment. 

Harry introduced himself to the grounds by jogging most mornings. The habit ran deep; running set the tone for his day, gave him time in his mind to go over his goals for therapy and for Draco… and to monitor his connection with Taylor. It was so faint sometimes he could barely catch it. Twice he sent off owls to Fred, just to make sure everything was fine while he was out of the country.   

Time in the Ionescue household was naturally devoted to creative endeavors like learning guitar or Dima’s painting projects. There was always music of some kind—speakers hooked up to a generator, a battery-powered CD player, or someone singing. Even the workmen joined in sometimes, when Dima or Misha struck up a popular tune they knew. 

Draco and Misha often flew together, on broomsticks or with Misha in his Granian form, disappearing into the woods for hours at a time, exploring. Occasionally they came back with a claw, horn, or tusk they’d discovered. Harry would sometimes spot the pair of them sprinting off to the greenhouse where the potion master Ionescue had grown his ingredients. Knowing Draco’s skill at potions, he figured they were working on setting the plants to rights. He let them have their project: for the first time not needing to supervise Draco or intervene when the blond took off to do something in secret.

And there was no shame in doing nothing. Sometimes they lay in the sun getting bronzed and drinking beer before noon. 

Free will and freedom of choice were given the highest regard in the Ionescue palace—consent and permission observed as a kind of religion, present in every interaction. Every action belied an attitude of respect. The guys always knocked on the Potters’ door whether it was open or closed. They asked before borrowing things, and agreed on when and how they’d be returned. They followed through on their word. If you promised to work out together, you showed up on time and ready to sweat. If you bent the twigs on someone’s broomstick, you fixed them. If you drank the last of the coffee, you started a fresh pot. 

Harry was disheartened when he realized he’d accepted far less courtesy in his life. Mostly because he was afraid of telling others how he expected to be treated. During his years at Hogwarts Harry had allowed all kinds of breaches to his privacy and physical boundaries because he’d been afraid of losing out, or missing out on things he was told were important. He let others eat his food, even when he was hungry, and didn’t say a word. He let people touch him when he didn’t want to be touched. He let women kiss him when he hadn’t been ready to be kissed, hadn’t known how to say “no thank you.” He let friends borrow his things without limits or consequence. He let his fears rule every interaction. He’d wanted everyone to love him... and in his attention-starved, fucked up brain, that sometimes meant letting the people he cared for walk all over him. 

The war taught him to say “no.” To fight back. To advocate for himself. He was still far from perfect. But between his therapy sessions and the daily practices of his friends, combined with his own conscious choice, Harry was at last learning to express some reasonable expectations. 

In a prison cell, bloodied and broken, unsure whether they’d survive… Harry and Nebojsa had made a promise. When the war was over they would try to figure out what “home” meant. They would try to have normal lives. Nebojsa had found it. He figured it out. This was home: the endless sunlight, a few drinks, giggling and dancing in the kitchen, their friends having a good time together. It was everything they’d wanted for themselves, brought to life. 

Harry realized the habits of the Ionescue’s household came from a history of abuse… from violence, from having their boundaries broken and their wishes violated most of their lives. They knew how much it hurt—and so they refused to cause that pain to another person. Their personal consideration was infectious. Harry wasn’t sure he’d ever smiled and nodded and whispered “ _da_ ” so much in the course of his life as he did in the Ionescue palace. 

It felt good to say yes. Or to say no. To have options, and for his choices to be honored.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Three days later the construction crew had restored not only the power but hot water as well. Harry’s money sufficiently lubricated the magical contractors, and their work was ahead of schedule. 

“If anyone needs me,” Nebojsa chirped happily, “I'll be in the shower. For the next ninety minutes.” 

Harry and Draco started using Translation Charms daily. It was easier than making the guys speak English all the time. Harry didn’t mind. It was nice to hear Dima and Misha in their native language. Nebojsa spoke Romanian as well, though his first language was Serbian. Translation Charms made it easier to talk to the workmen on the property, too, especially if they were trying to warn the visiting Englishmen not to step somewhere. 

With the refrigerator confirmed as functioning, Harry offered to drive into town for groceries. It turned out that besides Nebojsa, Harry was the only one who could _reliably_ drive a stick shift. 

The Ferrari had belonged to their uncle, who died under suspicious circumstances in his early thirties. The rumor was that he got involved in some shady business deals. But a drunk Misha confided in Harry one night that their uncle overdosed on a narcotic and ultimately poisonous plant called Angel’s Trumpet, taking his own life because he couldn’t handle the pressure from his family to become a Death Eater. Misha had been very young at the time. It was shortly after his mum was murdered, and her death was made to look like an accident as well. Tihomir Ionescue had covered up a trail of bodies, his own kin, during his rise to power. 

Harry was so impressed with Dima and Misha. For all the terrible, toxic people in their lives, they managed to turn out so well-adjusted, so kind... so normal. Not unlike himself miraculously surviving the Dursleys. Seeing them gave him hope for Draco. It was possible to come from a screwed up family and be okay. They were quite possibly the best environment for Draco, all things considered. 

Misha offered to go with Harry on his grocery run, to show him the way and keep him company. Harry suspected the guy also wanted a lesson on driving a stick. It made sense to have more than two drivers, and Harry understood the compulsion to be able to do things for yourself. Misha was practically an adult wizard, and he needed regular doses of independence to stay chipper. The harder Dima squeezed on him, the more the sixteen year old retreated into his shell. Harry sensed a fresh argument brewing and thought it best to get Misha out of the house for a while. Dima could throw some rocks around and maybe find himself a more accommodating mindset in the mud. 

Harry ducked upstairs to change his clothes. If he was going to town, he wanted to represent the Ionescue family better than a plain tshirt and shorts. He had his own clothes now thanks to Draco. 

He stopped in the upstairs hall of the south wing where they all slept. He could hear the sound of a shower running… and over the rushing water, he heard Nebojsa singing. 

Harry didn’t know the song, even though it was English. It was hauntingly happy. Nebojsa had an amazing voice. Below his pure church soprano was an entire second voice—from his chest, loud and clear, belting out the rock song—singing to himself in the shower. Harry heard Dima’s voice join Nebojsa a second later. He could picture the two of them singing to each other, enjoying the hot water. 

Nebojsa’s song said “ _there's time to change_.” 

Their voices sang playful riffs around each other. 

It put a smile on Harry’s face that he was able to do this for his friends, to be there, to help them when they needed it. It was amazing how much having your basics covered—food, hot water, a roof over your head—could change your whole outlook on life. For almost two years his mates had been homeless: they’d slept rough, lived out of backpacks, fought endless battles, ran for their lives, counted the coins in their pockets on one hand, and relied on the kindness of strangers. He didn’t want to see his friends suffer a day longer. They deserved so much better, so much more than what life had dealt them. Harry liked to think he was evening the scales of fate. That was what he lived for.  

Dima and Sia sang together, “ _that heaven is overrated_.” 

Draco was coming out of their bedroom, a change of clothes in hand, about to have a long steamy wash-up of his own. Silver eyes landed on Harry, smiling when he heard their hosts belting a tune from the shower. 

Harry held his hand out to Draco—asking him to dance, right there in the hall. Draco folded into his arms, swaying with him, his bundle of clothes smashed between them. The blond started to hum along, his trained ear able to predict the melody. 

“I like this song,” Draco commented, his cheek to Harry’s chest. 

Harry grinned. “I like it too. Ask Nebojsa to teach it to you?” 

Draco nodded. 

“ _And tell me!_ ” Nebojsa sang so brightly, a rasp of happiness to his voice, like he couldn’t remember what it was like to live without a heart full of worry. “ _Did you fall from a shooting star? One without a permanent scar? And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?_ ”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry was confused when he heard the electronic ring of a mobile phone within the Ionescue palace. He’d left his cell at home, unsure if he would have signal. 

It didn’t surprise him when Nebojsa was the one to answer it. The Serb barked a few short words, listened, agreed, and hung up. 

Speaking Serbian, he said something to Dima and Misha which Harry desperately wanted to understand. He needed to know why Nebojsa looked uneasy—his shoulders hitching up by a sliver, the bare toes of one foot wiggling against the wooden floor. Harry read these signs, and he didn’t like them one bit. 

Harry didn’t have to wait long. Within a few minutes Misha was smirking, his upturned lips decidedly rogue. “Hey, Draco!” he called loudly. “Vant to go to a rave?”

Dima muttered under his breath, and Harry didn’t need a Translation Charm to know what was.

That clandestine call meant one thing. It was time to go sell drugs.

 

 

 

 

Harry caught Nebojsa in the hallway—probably taking off to inspect their stash, wherever it was hidden. 

“Okay, Radič.” With a hand to the man’s chest, Harry walked him back a step, until his shoulders made contact with the wall. Harry’s voice was patiently deep, understanding, but also tinged with insistence. He would have his answer. “Level with me. Do you want to do this?” 

His eyes, blue with white flecks—like a Divination orb with lightning flickering inside—stared

back at him. Nebojsa didn’t say a word. 

So Harry pressed, coming up with a fresh way of phrasing the same question. “If it started raining galleons tonight, would you still go to this party and sell? Or would you be out there on a broomstick holding a bucket?” 

That made the Serb snort. He consciously answered in English.  “Of courze. It iz a matter of necessity. We only have zo many resources available. Ve must trade vot ve can.” Black brows, normally quite straight, arched. The expression showed some of his internal exhaustion padded thickly with courage and conviction. “I don’t 'fancy' it,” he mocked the British slang word. “I vould not choose it. But ve are not damsels vaiting for Harry Potter to come and save us. Ve make due on our own.” 

 _We made it work long before you showed up_ , he implied. _You’re important, Potter. But you’re not irreplaceable. We appreciate you, but we don’t need you to survive._  

Harry ran his tongue over his molars, considering Nebojsa’s response… what he said with his mouth and what those eyes trimmed in bold black lashes seemed to say in Harry’s head. Nebojsa had his pride—not as bad as Dima, who was so obviously the ringleader in this nonsense. Dima’s masculine ego refused to admit when he’d been kicked in the teeth. He’d bleed out before admitting he was wounded. Just like Draco. 

It was up to them—Harry and Nebojsa—to stop the fight before Dima got himself killed. They just had to make Dima believe it was his own idea before he’d go along. 

Harry cocked his head. “You know... I’ve been seeing a therapist. I’m trying to learn how not to be an overbearing dick in situations that don’t sit right with me. I’m doing really well. But this,” he glared, meaning their current situation with the drugs, but also the family’s state in general—their house, their prospects, their finances… everything adding up against them. Harry iterated plainly, “ _This_ is not helping. I feel the rising urge to tell you idiots a thing or two.” 

Harry wanted to help. He genuinely did. But he recognized the difference now, between intervening where his assistance was wanted and appreciated, versus imposing his will on others. People had forced their wishes on him for most of his life and it felt like shit. He loved the first one—it was the right way to help. The second was a hair too close to Lucius Malfoy or Vernon Dursley. Harry needed to be sure that his assistance was genuinely desired. Otherwise he was just a Chosen cock throwing his weight around. 

“Therapy?” Sia’s eyes expanded, his head jutting forward in disbelief. Their foreheads practically touched. He rolled his R’s a little, even in Romanian. “That’s...” he found the right word after licking his teeth. “A miracle.” 

“Fuck you,” Harry chortled, shoving away from his mate as though his feelings were hurt. He gave Sia a nebulous punch to the chest, his knuckles connecting with sternum through the thin material of the Serb’s floral shirt. “But yeah. I’m in therapy. Found a Squib with a practice in the states. Going twice a week. I think it might actually be working.” 

“And the Dragon? He’s in therapy too?” 

Harry threw his head back. “Hecate’s bloody minge! No!” As much as he’d love to have Draco come with him to see Dr. Beasley, he understood that was a long ways from happening. Draco had to admit there was a problem: Harry wasn’t about to hold his breath for that!

Nebojsa’s shoulders lifted in a shrug, as though he too hadn’t expected Draco would go to therapy, but held out hope enough to ask. Sia was an optimist in spite of everything. 

The weight of the war was finally off Nebojsa’s body. He was recovered from a series of life-threatening injuries, getting regular meals, and exercising like a fiend; he wasn’t nearly as bony as the night they’d met, rope-like muscles starting to fill back in, up and down his frame. They shifted and squirmed under his skin, making black tattoos slide as though they were still wet ink. He looked less like a skeleton and more like his own man again. 

“Give him time. The Dragon may yet change his mind.” 

Harry spoke from the side of his mouth, glancing away. “Draco... doesn’t know."” 

SMACK. Nebojsa slapped him, a sharply-stinging swat right to the back of his head. 

“Yoo are an eediot, Potter.” 

Sia chastised Harry in his mothertongue. So there wouldn’t be a chance of his being misunderstood. 

Harry sucked at his cheeks—a burst of anger snicking between his teeth, begging to be let out... preferably as crackling blue light from his palms. He was Harry Potter: nobody fucking slapped him upside the head. 

There were perhaps a handful of people Harry might expect that violent gesture from—Snape, Draco, maybe Tonks if he did something really dumb. But he hadn’t expected it from Nebojsa, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about the vague bruising sensation on the back of his skull. Nebojsa wore a couple of silver rings on his fingers which had clipped him. Usually he and Nebojsa had each other’s backs while a horde of Death Eaters tried to kill them. Now, apparently, they smacked each other. 

Harry realized he’d started it. He’d punched Sia—playfully, not hard, just joking. It shouldn’t have surprised him when the Serbian wizard fired back in kind. But it did surprise him. It shocked him. 

Which got him thinking. Maybe a shock to the system was what Dima needed to give up this mad fucking idea of selling drugs to survive. Maybe Dima needed a smack upside the head from Harry, because Nebojsa’s sharp hand had stopped working. 

Harry understood that, in the pressure and stress of their current financial situation, there was no way he could convince Dima _not_ to go out and sell drugs tonight. To Dima’s panicked and protective mind, this was a matter of survival. He was providing for his family. They had the mushrooms, they didn’t want them, someone else did, and they could get valuable currency in exchange. For Dima, it was nauseatingly simple. 

Harry knew Nebojsa had to be weighing the moral consequences heavily. Dima wasn’t. Dima didn’t see anything past putting food on the table. He didn’t see the risk to his family, or the fact that what he was selling was potentially dangerous to the people who ingested it if they took too much or combined it with the wrong thing. 

There was a way to make Dima see—to slap him upside his fucking head and wake him up. Harry didn’t much like it but… he knew how to be effective. He could do it. For his friends, he would. 

“Yeah, I am an idiot,” Harry agreed pensively. He rubbed at the back of his head. “Thanks for that.” Because sometimes he needed a whap to the back of the head to set his own thinking right. 

Thin hands pressed together like prayer, clasped over the center of Sia’s chest. Nebojsa bowed, like a monk acknowledging an alter. “Always.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

While everyone else was picking through their wardrobes and washing up, Harry walked to the edge of the property, Apparating from the gate to Grimmauld Place in order to stick his head in a fireplace… or rather, a fireplace connected to the Floo Network. The Ionescues hadn’t hooked the palace up yet, and Harry couldn’t blame them. They wanted to keep the property locked down. 

He floo-called Leon Harper, his touchstone of vigilant paranoia. 

After pleasantries, Harry spit out a discomforting sentence. “I’m going somewhere less secure than I’d like tonight. I’m thinking—” 

“Ya oughta be armed,” Leon grumbled, finishing Harry’s sentence more succinctly than he might have managed himself. 

“Yeah,” agreed Harry. “Pistol, I guess. I need to be able to conceal it. Muggle is fine. I’ll have my wand on me and I won’t be alone.” 

“Good,” Leon approved. “How many are ya?” 

“Five. They’re purebloods, though, so not sure if anyone else shoots worth a damn.” He still needed to get a pistol in Draco’s hand one of these days. 

Leon held up a finger. “I've got somethin'. Gimme half an hour an' I’ll Apparate over. Yer at Grimmauld?”

“Yup,” Harry confirmed. “Cheers, Leo.” 

It felt good to have people who were automatically in his corner. His mission was to appreciate them without taking advantage. 

In this case, his objective was safety. Even though guns were illegal in Romania, they were damn effective. If something bad happened, Harry wanted to be on par with the lethal power of any muggle criminal he might encounter—wands and guns together, like the war. 

Carrying a weapon didn’t mean he had to use it. Having the option put him in a more prepared mental space.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Walking up the long drive, Harry spotted Nebojsa fussing over the poison-apple-red Ferrari. The tall wizard had the hood open. He was checking the fluid levels, his fingers dirty from the old engine. 

Harry called from a distance, not wanting to sneak up on the guy. Despite being larger, Harry still had a soft gait, even on gravel. Easier for sneaking up on people—but he didn’t need to scare the crap out of Sia and make him hit his head on the hood. 

Without preamble or explanation, Harry produced a revolver. It was a tight and clean model out of Spain, the Astra 680, with a short blue steel nose and lightly textured faux-wooden grip. The Astra was one of the first guns Harry had ever shot, back when he was learning—very little recoil, simple to operate. It was also incredibly light at just half a kilogram fully loaded, and the tiny snub nose made it one of the easiest weapons to conceal. 

“Any chance you know how to use this?” 

He held it out, muzzle down, offering the grip. Nebojsa cleaned his fingers on the rag over his shoulder before taking the revolver. 

Seeing Sia with a gun in his hand was only slightly jarring—more because he was a religious man than because he was a wizard. It was no more strange than seeing him refill windshield wiper fluid. Harry recalled a frozen night in the woods of Ohio: Nebojsa had loaded a pistol in the dark while Harry bled against the snow, in and out of consciousness, dying of poison from Nagini’s fatal bite. Nebojsa was a lot more than he let on. 

Pale fingers checked that the hammer wasn’t cocked before unlatching the cylinder, popping it all the way out to confirm it wasn’t loaded. His thumb spun the empty cylinder, the gun looking small against his long fingers. He tapped it back with his palm, waiting for the _click_ which insured the latch had caught. 

The deft movement of his hands betrayed him. Definitely not the first time he’d handled a revolver. 

Sia’s thin lips pressed—smashing the black lip ring between his teeth, cushioned by his lips. He met Harry’s eyes, reading his surprise. 

“Belgrade,” Nebojsa reminded him flatly. He’d grown up in one of the most crime-riddled cities in all of Europe thanks to the presence of the mafia and organized criminal enterprises. That exposure was likely why selling drugs to make ends meet it didn’t eat so hard at his soul. It still bothered him—Harry saw as much in the constant frown turning his mouth, and the purplish skin around his eyes, like he wasn’t sleeping so well at night. Nebojsa was praying they wouldn’t have to do this for long. But he didn’t believe they were going to hell if they did. 

If Harry had his way, tonight would be the last time they did this. And Nebojsa would be sleeping better, his conscience cleared… of this, at least. 

Harry handed over a box of .38 specials and an ankle strap. 

He gave instructions regarding the weapon. “Disillusion and Concealment Charms. Muggle-Repelling, too, if they tend to pat people down at the door.” 

Nebojsa snorted. Guns were illegal in Romania, but so was the type of party they were going to. No one would be checking them for weapons. Or perhaps because he was a known entity, they wouldn’t be checking _him_. 

Sia was wiggling his lip ring with his tongue from the inside of his mouth. The piece of metal moved from side to side, the only outward expression he’d allow of his inner agitation. 

“I vish it vould rain galleons tonight,” he muttered. 

“Yeah,” Harry grumbled right back. “Tell me about it.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

They all seemed to gather in an upstairs parlor adjoining Dima and Sia’s bedroom. Long ago it would have been some type of morning room for visiting ladies of the Russian imperial court. The walls had wallpaper of pink and red roses which looked almost hand-painted they were so delicate and detailed. 

Now the space held what looked like DJ equipment—speakers, a soundboard propped against the wall—and instrument paraphernalia. Harry spotted three acoustic guitars, a few electric, and a large black bass which he knew in his gut had to be Nebojsa’s. 

Music must’ve run in the Ionescue family. Harry got the sense the equipment had been cobbled from the collections of multiple brothers, multiple styles represented. Nebojsa’s bass was the only simple, sleek one of the bunch. 

Draco’s guitar was there, too, propped up on a stand in the corner. His was an acoustic, blended white-blond wood with dark cherry along the curves. Harry didn’t have to ask, he just knew it was Draco’s. He hadn’t heard his husband play yet. His anticipation grew, seeing the instrument Draco had picked for himself. It was elegant and a little unexpected—like Draco. 

Harry didn’t know what their normal strategy session was like before going out to deal drugs. He assumed they might review some notes to stay safe, what to look for… maybe goals of how much they needed to move in order to fix up various parts of the house. That was no longer a concern. He had to stop himself from shooting Dima an exasperated look. 

They didn’t have to do this. If Misha needed pocket money, Harry would take care of it. If there was something to buy, again, Harry would take care of it. 

It was pride. Otherwise they’d have flushed the mushrooms down the freshly working toilets already and gone to the rave as participants rather than working it. 

Harry stood, waving his open hand like he was about to introduce himself at an AA meeting, confessing his name and something he didn’t necessarily like about himself.

“Alright. Captain Buzz-Kill here. Listen up,” he met each pair of eyes—two golden honey color, one shock of palest blue, and one pewter silver in the soft light of feminine pink lampshades. “If something goes down tonight—there’s a fight, the police show up, you hear gunfire, spot Death Eaters, anything—we need a coordinated exit strategy.” 

He held up a finger. “One. Disillusion. If they can’t see you, they're less likely to hit you with bullets or spells, or come after you. This makes muggles into targets, but you’ll live, so that’s the way we’re rolling. If you're near-enough to grab someone, do it. But don’t risk yourself to get save any one of us. We all have wands, so conceal yourself at all costs.” 

Two fingers. “Two. _Muffliato_. It’s a tailored Silencing Charm which still allows you to talk without being heard beyond about a meter. I’ll teach you all before we leave. You’ll be able to use incantations and speak, but anyone near you will only hear garbage,” Harry waved his fingers near his ears, suggesting auditory static like an improperly tuned radio. “Makes it easier to defend yourself and escape.” 

Three fingers. “Three. Apparate and regroup. Our rally point is wherever we park the car. Stand with your hand on the hood and hum now and then so we can all find each other but stay invisible and undetected by others. There may be a bit of a panic depending on what, if anything, goes wrong. If it’s a magical ambush there may be Anti-Apparition Jinxes to get past. If you can’t Apparate to the car, fall back to Grimmauld. Meet in my office.” He’d left three extra guns from Leon and an excessive amount of ammunition. Just in case. 

He didn’t want to use any of this. But having a plan in case something went wrong kept everyone on the same page. 

“Now repeat it back to me.” He held up one finger, asking for the first action of his plan. 

“Disillusion,” four voices groaned, four pairs of eyes rolling in their heads like Harry Potter was the most paranoid fuck ever to walk the earth. They knew it was necessary. They also wanted to mock him because he made himself an easy target sometimes. That was his job as Captain Buzz-Kill, and he did it well. 

He raised a second finger. “Muffliato,” Draco said. The others repeated it, flicking their wands to get the hang of the spell. When they spoke next it was static to Harry’s ears. He nodded his approval. They’d all gotten it on the first go. 

He held up three fingers. “Apparate,” he heard from Draco. A moment later the Slavs did _Finite Incantatum_ and Harry heard their accented voices again, echoing Draco. 

“Spiffing.” Harry stuffed his hands in his pockets, giving them all one last look with a smile he didn’t feel. He tugged up on the leg of his jeans, showing them the Smith & Wesson Model 52 target-shooting pistol strapped to his ankle. He didn’t mention the Coonan .357 Magnum he intended to carry on his back. “I’ll be armed and dealing, so send the customers my way.” 

“NOOOOOO!” Dima howled, shaking his head, his shaggy hair lifting like feathers around his forehead and neck. His jaw opened to a long O shape, thoroughly disliking the concept. 

“ _Da_ , _Dimka_ ,” Harry insisted over that angry animal sound. If this was happening, it was happening with him squarely in the heat. He knew Dima would hate the idea—that was exactly why he was pushing for it. Dima needed to see his own stupidity mirrored in another person. If he saw Harry Potter doing what he did, he would realize it had to stop.

“Yoo are a foreigner,” Misha pointed out. 

That was easily remedied. “Translation Charm.” 

“Zhey may not trust you," Nebojsa cautioned. 

Harry scoffed, his forehead wrinkling. “You guys use disguises, right? We’ll switch.”

Dima and Nebojsa looked at each other. Harry _did not_ like that look. Not at all. 

“Disguises,” he repeated, louder, deadpan. “Please fucking tell me you’re not selling shit looking like yourselves?!” 

Nebojsa held up a hand, begging for patience. He wanted to explain. 

Harry tipped his head, silently telling the Serb to make it quick. He was getting better at holding back his temper, but he wasn’t perfect, and this was fucking pushing every fucking button he had, plus a few which were brand new. 

“I vos approached,” Sia admitted. A slim finger pointed to the shape of a sunburst inked into his upper arm. “Zhis resembles a mark uzed by a few local… _gangs. Dealers_.” He had to finish as a Parselmouth, not knowing the English word. Everyone in the room save for Misha could understand him, so it was fair. “Ve fell into zhis by accident. Luck.” 

Harry folded his arms across his chest. “Not that lucky. They know your stupid face.” 

Chewing his lip ring, Nebojsa nodded. 

Harry’s fingers were in his hair—flabbergasted, frustrated, and pulling—when a solution came to him. “Charm my eyes blue. Dress me up, ink me up, and tell them I’m your brother. Serbian accent oughtta do the trick.” 

With the right accent and the right clothes, he could absolutely pass. Especially with a pair of contact lenses instead of his trademark glasses. They could probably Glamour away the scar on his forehead, too. 

The only issue Harry could see was his tan—he was toffee-colored from the sun, while Nebojsa somehow maintained his goth white skin. Harry suspected some magic was involved there. If Sia could keep himself lily pale, then it was just as likely he could charm Harry much the same. 

Having countered their petty arguments, there was only one remaining. 

“Harry....” Draco was the one to voice it. “Are ya sure ya wanna do this?” He said it like even he, who knew Harry’s dark side and history of epic schoolboy missteps, couldn’t picture the Golden Boy of Gryffindor slinging mushrooms at a rave. But that was the plan. Perhaps because it was so unexpected, it had a good shot at working. 

He didn’t _want_ to do it. No more than Nebojsa or Misha did. But he _would_ do it, to prove a point.

“It’s our best strategy. Make me look like Sia’s brother. Keep your eyes open while I handle our business. If something goes wrong and I’m caught... well,” he gave a smirk; not as smooth as Dima or as charming as Misha, but he held his own. “I’m the only one of us with the clout and the resources to get out of it unscathed. Any of you would go straight to Azkaban. No offense. I don’t want you guys landing in muggle prison, either.” 

He’d found himself in a Moldovan one a few hours north. He didn’t care to repeat the experience, nor did he want any of his friends or his husband to go through that. 

“I take the heat. Personal feelings aside, it’s our best option.” 

Harry thought, if Dima saw The Boy Who Lived doing as he did, he’d realize how fucked up it was. He might even take his boot off of Misha’s throat and let the kid try out for quidditch. He might admit that Nebojsa was more than qualified to do something other than be his partner. It wouldn’t take more than two of them working to keep the place up. And only until the accounts unlocked, anyway. 

They didn’t have to work as drug dealers to survive. Harry wanted them all to see that—Draco too, that there were options that didn’t involve hurting other people or degrading someone to earn a living. Harry needed to make them understand the consequences of their actions. To do that, he was stepping into their shoes, hoping that seeing a representation of themselves would knock some fucking sense into them. Because this was ridiculous, and crazy, and so so stupid. 

He was about to dismiss the team—he thought he might have a shower before they disguised him—when Draco cleared his throat. 

“What are _your_ disguises?” he asked the Ionescues. So blandly. That git _knew_ there was something hidden and he was poking at it. He couldn’t leave well enough alone. That was Draco—too sharp for his own good sometimes. 

Harry thought about it. Since Sia had to go as himself, what did Misha and Dima do? It was illegal to be gay publically. Did that apply to illegal dance parties? Did they risk it? Or did Dima turn himself into a girl? 

Sia was bi. Harry knew that. It settled into his mind that Dima might charm himself and throw on a skirt every now and then, catering to that side of Nebojsa’s sexuality. Hell, he and Draco had done it and they’d been together less than a year! Five years into their relationship… surely turning Dima female wasn’t that unusual. Not enough to warrant the shifty fucking look on Dima’s face. 

Once again, the baby of the family spilled the beans. “Leftover Polyjuice Potion.” 

Harry’s mouth fell open. The last time Dima used Polyjuice, he’d….

Draco realized it too, and fell off his chair laughing. “You’ve been going…” he gasped. “To raves… sellin’ mushrooms… as…” He held his stomach. He couldn’t take it, his face turning red. “Hermione Granger?!?” 

Harry had to pry Draco off the floor so they could go get ready.

 

 

 

 

Walking into their bedroom, Draco suggested, “We oughta go straight.” 

“Pardon?” 

Draco went to the wardrobe and began pulling things out. “Disguise ourselves as a straight couple, too,” he clarified. “It would draw less attention if one of us were a bird.” 

Harry had never been to an illegal dance club before. Looking at Draco’s casual ease… yeah, the prick had probably been to a few. Harry grudgingly accepted his husband’s expertise on the matter. Even Dima and Nebojsa went as a straight couple. It was probably for the best. Not to mention that they could actually be affectionate in public that way. Or, God forbid, kiss. 

“Alright,” Harry agreed, wondering how he’d balance the weight of his pistol if he were smaller again. He went for his bag, where he’d packed a few potions—including the last of Fred and George’s gender-swapping potion. They hadn’t had a chance to brew more with the shop being so busy. And, if Harry was honest, he didn’t exactly want Fred and George knowing that he and Draco went through so much of it. They might realize what the Potters used it _for_ , and Harry wasn’t keen on having that conversation with his mates. His and Draco’s sex life was private. 

As Draco went through their clothes, Harry pulled out the potion and uncorked it. With his wand to his temple, he started thinking what Nebojsa’s sister would look like. 

“Wot the fuck?” his pureblood spluttered. “Oi! Git. Give it here.” 

Harry cocked his eyebrows. 

Draco sneered at him from across the softly-lit room. “I don’t have a say in my own appearance?” His lip curled. “Pretentious boy-hero cunt. Everything’s gotta be _your_ way!” he ranted, silver eyes wide and mocking.

Harry had intended the potion for himself, of course. He watched silently as Draco went off on his own tangent—spiky, animated, making faces, doing an oafish Harry Potter impression: “I’m The Boy Who Lived so you’d better do as I fucking say!” 

Harry considered himself to have a pretty thick skin. He’d developed it over the years in no small part thanks to Draco’s constant bullying. As Draco made fun of him, Harry pieced together what was really going on inside his husband’s head. 

Draco assumed Harry was taking over because Draco still didn’t understand that he had a choice. Draco always saw himself as being at someone else’s mercy, even when that wasn’t true. Draco would rather complain after-the-fact than learn to stand up for himself in the first place. That was a shared flaw, which Harry was working on in his therapy sessions. He didn’t want to respond to stress that way. 

Draco hadn’t tried to clarify Harry’s intent—he assumed Harry was going to boss him about, because that was what Draco thought constituted affection. Draco was whining and making fun of Harry because he wanted a rise. A part of him wanted to be yelled at, because that was how he knew anyone cared enough to notice him.

Harry hadn’t realized how much Draco used his sense of humor to conceal his Bipolar symptoms. It was much easier to express a false belief as a joke, passing it off as something to laugh at. Draco made his disassociation from reality seem funny, because he wanted anyone nearby to believe he was joking. If they thought he was serious they’d strip him of his magic and lock him up as a menace to society. 

Harry found a tempered, even tone for his voice, cutting Draco off mid-rant. “Baby. The potion’s for me.” 

Draco stopped abruptly. Then he chuckled. “Tha’s a barmy idea.” 

Harry explained his reasoning. “I don’t want you to be a target—if you’re a bloke, you’ll be left alone.” He didn’t want Draco getting groped or grabbed; an experience which could set off memories of being raped. Harry thought it would be better if he were the femme. He could handle a few strange blokes making a grab at his ass. He’d conquered his own memories in that area, and wouldn’t lose his cool. 

Draco was back on solid ground—done joking and ready to point out to Harry Potter all the ways in which he was wrong. “A girl selling drugs would look ludicrous to Romanians. Theirs is…” he blew out a breath, not wanting to say something disparaging, but also wanting to be clear what he thought. He found an acceptable phrase. “It’s a male-dominated culture, bordering on chauvinist. A woman selling drugs would instantly be a target.” He repeated Harry’s words back to him—a demonstration that he’d actually heard Harry’s concern, and wasn’t just reacting. 

“Hand over the potion, Scar Head.” Draco held out his hand. “Once again, I am the bird.” 

Harry sensed something in Draco’s eyes. He’d gone off because… he wanted to change his appearance. Possibly he was jealous that Harry would be using magic to change the way he looked. The potion was a way to express himself, and Draco wanted to get out of his own skin for a night. So Harry agreed. 

He handed over the vial and clambered up onto their bed with his gear. He had three magazines to load, which he might as well see to while Draco made up his mind about a disguise. 

Harry packed bullets, golden .38 specials which matched the décor. Seven rounds to the clip meant he had twenty-one shots, plus the five round capacity of his back-up Model 52. It was absolute overkill, never mind that he’d be carrying his wand as well. He’d rather be over-strapped than caught or killed. He could only hope that his preparation would turn out to be unnecessary. 

Harry could pack a magazine without looking—which was a good thing, because Draco was distracting. 

The appearance Draco chose was especially interesting to Harry. His hair stayed light but grew down to his shoulders, taking on a wavy texture and a more ashy tone. Periwinkle blue eyes instead of silver. His nose shifted into a rounder, strawberry-like shape dotted with freckles. His lips grew even fuller. Thin cheeks fleshed out, his sharp jaw line receding as his face transformed from a long oval to a heart shape. Of course he had large breasts—because Draco was obsessed with tits whereas Harry would classify himself as more of an ass man. 

Draco looked like his mother. He looked like Tonks. He looked like Heather Lightly. 

He made this form for himself. Something about it pleased him—the tits, obviously, but the memories of his family seemed to bring him a calm comfort. 

Harry’s fingers forgot how to load, dropping a golden bullet when Draco peeled off his trousers, then his pants, and his shirt, leaving his new body naked. 

Harry realized the biggest difference between Draco’s female creation and what Harry made for him in the past. Draco had taken a paintbrush to his skin—removing every trace of hair from below the neck, painting his body in creamy smoothness. He’d gotten rid of his scars. And the Dark Mark was gone, too. He was soft and pale everywhere. A few sprays of freckles called out to Harry’s mouth. He knew he’d be running his tongue over the speckles on Draco’s shoulders before the night was out. 

Waving his wand, Draco fashioned himself a bra, spelling one of Harry’s tshirts into see-through white lace, wrapping himself up. Harry’s prick was doing a mad dance for escape. A fresh pair of Draco’s briefs turned to matching lace, disappearing up the crack of his bum. A God damned thong of white lace, blending with his skin. Harry felt his heart slam against his throat. He might lose his cool before Draco was done getting dressed. 

Draco wormed into a pair of his own tight, low-waisted black trousers, tits bouncing slightly as he jumped, tugging them up over the swell of his arse. That bum was still Draco’s—lifted, a good amount of muscle, just right for Harry to dig his fingers into. Draco buttoned and zipped up. 

Then he caught Harry staring. A pale hand traced up his stomach, gliding fingertips between his breasts, teasing Harry by directing where his husband should look. 

Draco was flirting. He was being sexual. Because he felt sexy. Draco’s self-consciousness about his scars and his Mark made it hard for him to appreciate his own sensuality. Like this, he knew he looked hot. That confidence showed in the way light fingers tripped over lace, tempting his own skin. His eyes were a deep purplish blue in contact with Harry’s own, daring him to say something about the curvy body clad in white lace and skinny black trousers put before him. 

Finished with his ammo, Harry waved his hand over the array, magically scrubbing his fingerprints from the rounds he’d loaded. Draco eyed his wandless, non-verbal magic with interest. 

“Not wearing a skirt?” asked Harry. He’d like to see those legs. It would distract the hell out of him, but he’d still fancy seeing it. 

Draco snorted. In his hurry he’d forgotten to account for his voice, so he remained the Ice Prince of Slytherin under lace and tits. “I don't fancy getting fingered by strangers every five seconds, so no,” he scoffed. 

Harry hadn’t considered that. He’d sure like to get a hand up Draco’s skirt; but if his slow sex-brain had thought of it then so would every straight man in a fifty kilometer radius. 

Harry took a breath to dispel his fucking jealousy. His rampaging possessiveness. Draco wanted to look sexy. He wanted to do this for himself as much as for Harry’s visual stimulation and pleasure. Draco was also being safe about it. Trousers made it easier to hide a wand.

“Fair enough,” Harry conceded. Then he added, because he was a total pillock for not having said it yet, “You look amazing.” 

Draco’s feminine hands cupped the undersides of his breasts, mashing them together for closer examination. “Yeah, they turned out alright, didn’t they?” 

Now it was Harry’s turn to snort. “I didn't mean the bristols, luv. Though they’re definitely worth getting punched for.” He made a joke. A year ago Draco had knocked him a fantastic facer, informing The Boy Who Lived that his bristols—he’d meant his bollocks at the time—didn’t need to be rescued. 

It turned out they both needed rescuing. From themselves. And the only person they’d accept help from was each other. 

“I don’t recommend going in just the bra,” Harry tacked on. 

Draco’s smirk was still his own. “No?” 

Harry waved a loaded magazine at him. “I swear, I will shoot anyone who tries to touch those tits. Wear a bloody top, Malfoy,” he joked. “Or hundreds of muggles will die.”

Still holding his breasts mashed together, Draco turned a little pink. He was flushed—because they were flirting. Shit, this was what flirting with his husband was like! He’d almost forgotten. 

Draco simpered at him, squeezing his tits to keep Harry’s attention where he wanted it. “You don’t have enough bullets, baby.”

Harry shoved off the bed, stalking towards Draco. “I’ll get more.” 

Draco’s chin lifted, defiant as ever. He conjured for himself a halter top of black leather. His bra straps showed on his slim shoulders, intending to drive Harry further toward madness even though he’d covered up… mostly. There was plenty of Draco’s bare stomach to admire. Harry liked the indentation of his waist leading to softly flared hips. 

Shit. Shit. Shit. He was gonna spend the whole night with a boner, wasn’t he? 

To top it off, Draco drew a finger across his throat. Harry knew the gesture. Draco had done it the first time they’d been together, suggesting Harry’s Gryffindor friends would kill him for sleeping with The Prince of Slytherin. Now, Harry couldn’t quite take the blond’s meaning. Were they fucked for trying to do this? For helping their friends? For endangering muggles and using magic for their own gain? Or did Draco really think Harry would kill a man for touching him? As jealous as he was, he’d probably only break someone’s arm, and only if Draco didn’t punch the guy first. 

Harry couldn’t quite decipher Draco’s meaning. He did note in the wake of that finger was a dark trail of magic, coalescing in the appearance of a thin leather cord. It wrapped around the base of Draco’s neck, a tight choker necklace against his fresh freckled skin. 

Draco was calling Harry’s attention. He was being purposefully provocative, brushing his hair aside so Harry could get a good look at the elegant white pillar of his neck. Bright periwinkle eyes locked to his, almost daring Harry to close the distance between them and place his hand over that line of leather. A piece of leather around Draco’s throat never failed to get them both off. _That_ meaning wasn’t lost on Harry even as the zip of his jeans bit into his rising erection. 

Draco was toying with him. Draco was being blatantly, overtly sexual again. Draco _wanted_ him.

It felt insanely good. 

Harry backed Draco against the wardrobe. He wanted to rip those tight trousers off—lacy knickers too—and jam his face between Draco’s legs. He wanted to know how strong Draco’s thighs were, how tightly they’d wrap around him, how they might quiver and shake, trying to rip his head off as his mouth worked. He wanted to lick that sweet gash until Draco came, until Draco grabbed a fist full of his hair and screamed Harry’s name. 

Draco wanted it too. He could _feel_ Draco’s increasingly wanton thoughts without Legilimency. The pureblood’s fantasies were melding with his own. Fucking in that big bed, Draco riding him, coming over and over again. Or maybe they’d find a loo or an alley near the party where they could sneak off and fuck some more. Cigarettes and luxuriously slow blowjobs in alleyways, big eyes glowing up at him, holding tight, working him over in a practiced form of mutual torture. 

Draco’s knickers were getting wet. That was a fact, not a fantasy. Maybe he just knew his husband that well. Their desires were once again so closely synced. 

With the worst possible timing, that was the moment someone chose to knock on the Potters’ door. Harry growled. He was mere centimeters from Draco’s face, about to kiss him. Draco’s lips were turned up to his, parted, waiting—wanting Harry to make the first move, to explore this new body and claim it for his own. Harry growled louder. 

The door opened a fraction, squeaking. 

Nebojsa poked his head in, carrying a few clothing options for Harry to try. Lightning blue eyes flickered between Harry and newly-female Draco, putting things together. Unconscious of his reaction, the Serb licked his lips at seeing Draco’s new body. 

 _Don’t_ , Harry snarled in his own head. 

Nebojsa recoiled like Harry had thrown a curse at him. With his shoulders raised up around his ears, he held up the clothes almost like a shield. He hadn’t meant to interrupt—but they were short on time, and Harry needed to get his own disguise in order. He knew it. He didn’t appreciate having his energy diverted away from Draco… especially when they’d finally found their sexual spark again. 

“Fine.” Harry waved his friend in. Stepping away from Draco felt like prying two magnets apart: their bodies wanted to stay together. 

Sia dipped his head at Draco. His black hair was especially shiny in the restored electric lights. His head bobbed, acknowledging Draco’s choice of body and clothing. He deemed it necessary to hiss his appreciation. “ _Harry, you’re one lucky ssssssson of a bitch_.” 

The smile on Draco’s face lasted for hours.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

“Harry.”

He jerked to attention. His name was the same in Romanian as it was in English. 

“No sour look on your face, brother.” Misha pointed to his own face, smiling false-bright, suggesting that Harry wasn’t holding his expression right. Misha’s face wasn’t his own but Ron Weasley’s, which gave Harry a jolt every time. That was the Polyjuice they had leftover from their time at Hogwarts, and it was better to use it, keeping their disguises consistent week-to-week, than let the potion go to waste or be caught by the muggles in their ruse. 

It was an hour’s drive to the coast, and Harry’s mind had gotten stuck in a dark loop. His face must have shown he was cycling through increasingly gloomy scenarios, deciding what he might do if he and Draco were separated from the others, or if Death Eaters showed up. Knowing how he would react was calming to Harry’s nerves. Apparently it also made him look a bit too hard, even for a drug dealer. 

They were in the back seat of the Ferrari, the top up and the windows down, stars bright in the night sky surrounding them. 

Sia drove. Dima sat up front, scanning through the radio stations for a song he could tolerate. It was truly disorienting to hear Hermione Granger’s voice declare in Romanian that all pop music was shit. Misha argued back. Eventually Dmitry found a station playing American rock: all three of them sang along to pass the time—reminding Harry that while Ron sang to himself whenever he serviced his broom, it might’ve been years since he’d heard Hermione sing. 

He couldn’t recall seeing Hermione wear that much makeup, either; purplish-brown shadows around her eyes, bronze-colored rouge on her cheeks, and a swipe of petal pink over her lips. Only the lipstick was vaguely Hermione-like. The black nail polish, band tshirt with the sleeves cut off, and neon purple bra visible through the oversized arm holes were all Dima. Harry did like the way Dima styled Hermione’s hair—not apologizing for the frizz but working with it, making two very messy, very large pigtail buns behind each of her ears, like a punk Princess Leia. Skull-shaped silver studs glittered in her ears, a subtle match to the silver muggle pins used to keep her hair in place. 

They all wore some amount of makeup. Harry felt strange when Nebojsa pulled on his eyelid, drawing with a pencil to darken the line of his eyelashes. Between makeup and magic, the Serb was able to make their eyes exactly the same shape. Harry charmed a steely blue ring into his contacts before putting them in. After the application of two tattooed sleeves and a large three-bar cross on his chest—sketched onto his newly pale body by Dima’s expert wand—Harry didn’t recognize himself in the rear-view mirror. He looked like Sia’s twin sitting in the back seat. His shaggy black hair and trimmed beard, along with his more muscular frame, were just enough to hint that he was the more overtly dangerous of the two. A slight Serbian accent and Romanian Translation Charm were enough to disguise his voice.

Draco shifted. Between Harry and Misha’s broad upper bodies, he was jammed in tight. 

In an unexpected move, Draco squirmed his ass right into Harry’s lap. He performed a wordless Lightening Charm on himself, thinking his weight might put Harry’s legs to sleep if he stayed there too long—meaning Draco intended to ride out the remainder of the drive sitting in his husband’s lap. Draco’s big tits snugged up against Harry’s chest, an ash-blonde head tucked neatly against his cheek. 

Misha sighed in relief, stretching Ron’s long limbs, taking up some of the scarce seat space Draco had vacated. 

Harry felt a grin tug at his lips. Draco’s body was warm against his, lips on his neck, freckled nose drawing idle patterns against the short bristles of his beard. Draco inhaled against him—breathing him, enjoying the way Harry’s body smelled, looked, tasted, felt. Draco’s breasts lifted as he breathed, taking Harry in. Harry curled his arm around Draco, ghosting over the bare skin of his back. His wedding ring was warm metal against Draco, holding him close. 

“There you go,” Misha encouraged. “You almost look like you’re having fun.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Either Romanian police were really dumb, or they didn’t care there was a rave going on the pier. 

They put the Ferrari in a car park intended for dock workers, walking down onto the massive wood and cement structure extending over the Dead Sea waters. Sandy beaches glowed in the moonlight like they were made up of millions of tiny crystals, stretching out into the distance. Downtown Constanţa was lit up—bars and clubs serving patrons, taxis in the streets, people stumbling about on foot, drinking and smoking and singing loudly. Harry was tempted to think they were obnoxious tourists until he heard their voices overwhelmingly speaking Romanian.

People lined up on the docks, smoking cigarettes or drinking from bottles covered by paper bags, waiting to get into the rave. It was in a warehouse on the pier, the windows painted black so light couldn’t escape. Harry still heard the pounding base and screaming whistle of techno music from the car park. It only got louder as they approached. 

Again, the muggle cops were turning a blind eye, or they were inept. 

The five of them bypassed the line. A burly man shook Nebojsa’s hand, opening the door for them, admitting them to a smoke-filled cavern of flashing lights and noise.

 

 

 

 

Harry and Draco stationed themselves on one side of the dance area, near the bar, where foot traffic was most natural. People approached Nebojsa first—knowing his face, accustomed to dealing directly with him. 

Sia took their money, making the exchange look effortless, like a friend who owed him money paying him back. Other muggles were sly, slipping payment into his back pocket or leaning down to kiss Hermione’s cheek in greeting, getting the money into Sia’s hand while their heads were naturally looking down, making sure the cash changed hands without getting dropped. Some of the buyers were a little drunk. 

Each person who paid Nebojsa then went to Harry. With a confirmation nod from Sia, Harry would pretend to greet the person, sliding a little bag into their pocket or palm, however they initiated the hand-off. 

He’d practiced his handling with Draco and Nebojsa ahead of time, thankful for the dexterity in his hands born of being a Seeker and a sharpshooter. 

It surprised him how many of the buyers were women. He was glad to have practiced on Draco, making it look natural when his hand drifted over a girl’s back pocket without groping her butt outright.  

The process became a kind of assembly line. Draco and Dima had spare bags shrunken down and stuffed in their bras for safe keeping. Whenever Harry’s stock ran low, one of them would duck to the loo, release the charm, and return with fresh supplies. Draco liked to make his drop by grabbing Harry’s crotch: a subtle reminder to the rest of the women eyeing Harry that the tattooed dealer was spoken for—married—to the busty blonde with a dark twinkle in her eyes. 

Draco was three beers into his night, on the dance floor with Misha. It was only nominally strange to see a female-bodied Draco jumping around happily with Ron Weasley in Misha’s clothes—Misha inside, making Ron a much better dancer. Harry liked seeing someone manage to enjoy themselves tonight. 

Harry went for a quick slash. Returning, his eyes scanned the crowd, peering through clouds of dry-ice smoke to locate his friends. 

It was surreal to see Hermione Granger kissing Nebojsa.

His brain kept reminding him that she wasn’t Hermione—that was Dmitry in her skin, with bruise-like purple around her eyes, her lips bitten red, breathless from snogging. He’d never seen Hermione that way… sexual, slightly undone. Hermione’s short little fingers with black nail polish dug through Nebojsa’s hair, pulling his face insistently down to hers. Hermione’s thighs were parted by Sia’s knee in tight trousers, giving her body what she needed—his lean mass to grind against. 

Harry had some impression, now, of what it might have felt like when his friends—Ron, Hermione, and Ginny—had watched him make out with Draco for the first time. Like he wasn’t himself. Like someone else, a stranger, had taken over his body. Like they’d never known him. 

His friends had never seen his true sexual nature. Because, before Draco, Harry had never known that side of himself existed. 

Harry thought this part of Hermione had to exist somewhere—a piece of her which was seductive and intimate. Just because he hadn’t seen it for himself didn’t mean it wasn’t buried in her, waiting to come out. Maybe she’d find it some day with Ron. He wanted his friends to know that kind of fulfilling, carnal bliss. He wanted everyone to experience their own version of the passion he and Draco shared. 

Nebojsa easily picked Dima up, getting their faces level, to snog like they needed it to live. There was clear tongue involved. Hermione’s nails raked Nebojsa’s scalp, clawing him close, her tongue down his throat. And when he put her down, a feminine hand went immediately to his cock, squeezing. 

This was not the first time. Nebojsa seemed to know Hermione’s curves. His long fingers curled around the side of her tit. His thumb knew where her nipple was beneath her bra, putting pressure to it, earning himself another desperate kiss. 

They’d had straight sex using Hermione’s body. 

Harry gave his brain a moment to process that. 

He’d never experienced lust or attraction for Hermione, but he wasn’t blind. He knew she was a beautiful young woman. She had long legs and large, clear brown eyes. Harry hadn’t noticed her with a pimple in all seven years he’d known her. Beyond her looks, Hermione had qualities which Harry thought might be Nebojsa’s favorite things about Dima—intelligence, grit, a flash of vulnerable anxiety, the desire to please, and a big heart. It wasn’t just Hermione’s body Nebojsa was grinding against. Hermione Granger actually was the closest representation Harry could imagine of who Dima would be, if he’d been born and lived his life as a woman. 

“Tha’ is so bizarre,” Draco drawled, worming up beside Harry. He’d charmed his voice to a pleasingly throaty alto. And enhanced the Wiltshire accent for Harry’s gratification. That was a nice touch... knowing Harry liked it. “I canna’ imagine her with anyone besides Ron. Not tha’ I imagine them. Ack!” Draco hacked, giving a little shiver for emphasis. He liked Ron and Hermione as a couple, but they weren’t exactly his wanking material. Specifically, he objected to Ron—red hair was a universal turn-off for Draco. 

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. His English was tinged with a Serbian accent to match his disguise. “Definite mind-fuck.”

 

 

 

 

Draco gave Harry a little grope through the pocket of his jeans. “Tha’s the las’ of it, luv.” 

Harry wasn’t surprised. It felt like his pockets had a Replenishing Charm on them; whenever he thought they might be done, more mushrooms found their way to him. New muggles came in as others left—more people recognizing Sia and wanting to buy. 

In Hermione’s body, Dmitry’s keen eyes watched him, an unreadable expression on that familiar face. The real Hermione would’ve boxed his ears if she knew what he was up to. Dima just looked slightly guilty, always turning away rather than hold eye contact with Harry. Dima would slink off to the bar for a drink or go out on the dance floor, trying to forget what was happening. He let himself become a drug dealer. He let his boyfriend do it. He let his little brother be a party to it. Now their best friends were in on it, too. At last, it seemed the consequences of his actions were gathering some weight against his shoulders. Even the swirling lights and heart-pounding music couldn’t lift the tight expression from Hermione’s face. 

A muggle approached Harry. He assessed the bloke—muscular and well-tanned, mid-twenties, short hair cut, ashirt and loose jeans. He looked like he’d had his nose broken a few times, the way it twisted down his face, ending in a slight hook. Without magic, Harry’s nose might’ve looked much the same. The bloke pulled some money from his pocket, not quite clever about it. He seemed a little drunk by his gait and slumpy shoulders. 

Draco slid away, disposing of his beer bottle, letting Harry handle the situation.

“Hey,” the fellow greeted him in Romanian. “Hey man, can I score some?” 

Something twinged deep in Harry’s gut. Like there was a dragon or a basilisk around the corner, and if he kept going he’d be screwed. Harry brushed his hand against his wand, making it look like wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans—it was hot in the club, and everyone was sweating. The lights lit beads of sweat on the man’s forehead and between the short strands of his hair. 

 _Legilimens_ , Harry incanted in his mind. 

He got a flash of jumbled images: the muggle man had served in the military, had memories of active combat. The swirling lights reminded him of an ambulance, and the deep thump of the club bass sounded like mortar fire. Harry saw the muggle in a uniform, chasing people, a pair of handcuffs in his hand. He was a cop, undercover. 

Harry shook his head, jutting his chin across the crowd to Nebojsa. “You’ve gotta talk to my brother over there.” Harry was careful not to confirm or deny anything. His palms really were sweating. As the man turned away, Harry wiped his hands against his jeans for real, leaving one hand in his back pocket—near enough to draw his heavy pistol should he need it. 

His new height allowed him to catch Sia’s eyes across the club. They flashed, looking bleached in the twirling lights. Acknowledgement. Sia was alerted. He didn’t give any signal beyond that spark in his eyes. 

Harry shook his head. The muggle had his back to Harry and wouldn’t know Harry was signaling unless he had backup stationed elsewhere inside the club. Harry took the risk, needing to signal Nebojsa as plainly as possible not to make the transaction. 

“ _No_ ,” Harry mouthed. He projected everything he was feeling, wishing in that moment that he could hop into his friend’s mind like he did with Draco. Harry had to warn him. The muggle was a cop trying to bust them. “Politzia. Politzia,” he mouthed again. 

Nebojsa couldn’t see clearly—not with the bodies moving between them, the crazy colored lights, and the dry smoke muggles used because they thought it looked cool. Sia was too far off, the interior too dim. 

Harry slid his hand beneath his borrowed shirt, getting his canon from its hiding spot. The Coonan .357 Magnum was a heavy beast: streamlined plated silver barrel, three pounds loaded, and the recoil was enough to jam your wrist if you weren’t expecting it. It was the kind of weapon which scared people whether or not they knew much about guns. It was a serious weight against his palm, still hidden under his loose shirt. 

Draco was behind him, trying to wrangle the bartender for another beer. Harry took a careful step back, getting hold of Draco’s wrist with his free hand. He maneuvered Draco away from the bar and to his side—far enough away from his gun not to be startled if he drew it.

Touching skin to skin, Draco was able to reach Harry’s mind. 

_Trouble?_

_Yeah._

_We getting outta here?_  

Harry watched the muggle wind his way through erratically moving bodies. The club was crowded. He was having trouble getting to Nebojsa. That gave Harry time to formulate a plan. 

 _Stay alert_ , Harry warned. _Be ready to Apparate us both. You’re better._

The compliment wasn’t lost on Draco. _Why thank you_ _!_  

Harry had purposefully loaded this magazine with the first two shots as blanks. The Coonan produced a small muggle fireball when fired—enough to scare the shit out of anyone nearby even if they couldn’t hear the blast of gunfire over the music. For all it looked like a 1911, it spit bullets like a baby dragon, with a kick to match. 

He wanted warning shots. The blast from his gun ought to be enough to create confusion. That was all they needed to get away. Just a little controlled chaos.

 _Deep breath_ , he told Draco. _Inhale_.

He felt Draco swell beside him, doing as he asked. If Draco was breathing inward he was less likely to give a startled shout when the gun went off, giving away their position. He wanted the cops believing it was one shooter, not a man and a woman escaping together. Distraction. Misinformation. 

While Draco was yet breathing, Harry unholstered the pistol, pointing it purposefully towards the ground, a hair away from his foot. He squeezed the trigger.

 _BANG_. It shot up in his hand. The recoil made the Coonan feel alive—prophetic, magical, like it had a mind of its own and it had decided to try and break his wrist. He controlled it, feeling the jolt up his arm but not allowing his hand to waver. Still safe, still pointing directly at the floor, he squeezed again. 

 _BANG_. The second blank. There was no visible or audible difference between a blank and live ammo. And the tongue of flame leaping out to lick the dance floor seemed all too real. 

Muggles screamed. The music cut out with a screech. 

Already Draco had Disillusioned them. When Harry told him to breath, he’d gotten a hand to his wand, wanting to be ready.  

People started shoving around them, not knowing where the shots had come from. There was only one exit on the opposite side of the warehouse and everyone was scrambling for it. 

Harry squeezed Draco’s hand, and the pureblood Apparated them away.

 

 

 

 

“ _U pitchku materinu!_ _Jebem te Bog!_ ” 

Harry heard a familiar voice, cursing. He and Draco hadn’t used _Muffliato_ on themselves, and apparently neither had Misha. It was only somewhat strange to hear Ron’s voice swearing in Serbian—trying to upset Nebojsa, to see if it was the Serb who’d just Apparated in beside him. 

“It’s us, brother,” said Harry. “The Dragon and I are okay.” Apparently Draco’s Latinized name didn’t suit the Translation spell. 

 _POP. POP._ Two quick Apparitions: their sound like small balloons jammed with a needle. 

“ _Sia?_ ” Draco hissed, hopeful. Harry thought it was quite sweet that Draco had adopted his own private nickname for the guy. 

“Aaargh!” That frustrated noise was indeed Nebojsa. 

“What do we do? What the fuck do we do?!” And that was Dima in Hermione’s voice—panicked, still speaking Romanian. It would seem everyone forgot to use the muffling spell in their hurry to escape. That was fine. So long as they all made it out alright. 

They were all disembodied voices in a car park, no one able to see each other. In the distance, down on the pier, muggles could be seen running. The police had flashlights, chasing people down. Everyone was shouting. They didn’t have long. They needed to coordinate and then move out of the area. 

Harry held tightly to Draco’s wrist. 

“Sia, the police made you,” Harry explained, just in case those who’d been drinking hadn’t seen what lead up to Harry firing his gun. “Undercover cop. We need to get back to the house. Dima, Misha, take Draco with you and Apparate now. Get cleaned up. Then make the house look like we’ve been there all night—beer bottles, food, burn a few cigars with magic. Make it look like we had band practice or something. 

“The Ferrari is too recognizable. Sia and I will drive it off a side road, Disillusion it, and ditch it. We can go back for it in the morning.”

“Why?” whined Dima. He wanted them all to stay together. Finally, he realized the trouble he’d gotten his boyfriend into with this harebrained scheme to make some money. 

“The _cops_ ,” Harry practically hissed. “They’ll radio officers in Cernavodǎ to drive up and check on us. We need to make it look like we were never here. We were at the house all night,” he reiterated. “Got it?” He didn’t wait for confirmations. They were likely all nodding, and time was slipping away faster than Harry’s racing heartbeat, pounding out a tight rhythm in his ears. “Sia and I will ditch the car and Apparate back, since we don’t have the hour to drive. But if the police show up before we do, you’ve gotta make it convincing. Don’t let them look in the garage and see that the car’s gone. Transfigure something to look like it if you have to. Understand?” 

“ _Yes_ ,” Draco hissed beside him. 

“ _Da_ ,” Misha and Dima echoed each other. Harry never imagined he’d hear Ron and Hermione agreeing to follow him in Romanian. But it was a weird fucking night, and it wasn’t over yet. 

Draco reached for the brothers, laying hands on them by the sounds of their Gryffindor voices. They grabbed onto him, Apparating away without a word.

It was hard knowing Draco was gone on that sharp _POP_. At least Harry didn’t have to deal with the sight of his husband disappearing. He hadn’t wanted to see how worried Draco’s face might have been. The slight trembling against his palm had been bad enough. He knew Draco would be okay with Misha and Dima. The brothers would take care of him, look out for him, protect him like one of their own. 

Harry and Nebojsa hopped in the car before revealing themselves. There were a few people scattered around the car park, thinking the same as them. It was time to fuck off before they got arrested. 

Sia took the driver’s seat, knowing the roads better. His knuckles stood out white against the wheel, his sheet of shiny hair covering his face like a black curtain, obscuring his pretty features. With a roar of the engine, he threw the car in reverse, tires squealing against the pavement, and they took off into the night.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Having successfully hidden the car in the woods—marking the spot with magic so they could find it in the morning—Harry and Nebojsa Apparated to the palace gates. 

Harry removed his Disillusion wandlessly and non-verbally. Nebojsa did the same. 

His friend looked strung, emotionally and psychologically at peak. In a few hours they’d crash horribly and sleep like the dead. But for now they were firebrands. Their minds knew better, but their bodies thought it was war again. 

Harry didn’t wait for the complicated wand gesture necessary to open the ancient gates. He offered his palms, cupped low, for Nebojsa to step up—hoisting the man muggle-style in order to scale the gate at speed. Nebojsa straddled the wrought iron, holding his hand down for Harry. 

He strained, trying to pull the weight of The Boy Who Lived single-handed. Sia clamped his legs against the ironwork for leverage, and wrapped both hands around Harry’s wrist. He was close to being able to muscle Harry up; but Harry was almost two stone heavier, and Sia’s body wasn’t what it used to be. Even with adrenaline ripping through their veins, his impressive strength wasn’t quite enough. Harry pulled his weight up as far as he could. When his chin cleared his shoulders, he used their clasped hands as an anchor, walking his feet up the gate until they were both on top. 

 _This_ , he thought raggedly, _is_ _why wizards still need to work out. Magic isn’t everything._

From their vantage point, Harry could see down the long drive. There was a flurry of activity in the palace. He saw lights on in several rooms, the shadows of large objects zooming about. Band equipment, Harry guessed. The Ionescues and Draco were following his instructions, making it look like they’d had a full night of activities at home.

Down below, in the woods, Harry saw headlights. He wasn’t ready to take the chance that those headlights might be some random muggle driving by at this hour of the night. 

Harry stretched out his hand. “ _Accio, Nimbus!_ ” 

He didn’t wait for Misha’s broom to arrive. He jumped down, ready to sprint the length of the drive if he had to, but preferring to meet the racing broom wherever it came to him. Sia was a good runner; his long legs kept him right behind Harry. They cast spells as they ran, returning Harry’s appearance to right. They weren’t able to get rid of the tattoos since Dima’s wand made them. Harry remembered to scrub his hands repeatedly with magic, hoping it would be enough to remove gunshot residue, or at least get rid of the smell of gunpowder. He wouldn’t leave anything to chance. 

Misha’s Nimbus met them just as Nebojsa started gasping for air. Harry let the other man mount up first—realizing he hadn’t re-engaged the safety on his pistol, and valuing that over jumping on a broom and potentially having the gun go off. The soft tick of the metal pin was a comfort, a sign to his brain that the worst was over.

“ _Come on!_ ” Sia hissed at him. He was forward on the broom, making room for Harry to ride bitch at the back. Harry collapsed on the broom side-saddle, one arm around Nebojsa’s chest, the other still holding his gun safely pointed down. As they took off he glanced back, believing he could see the shine of headlights beyond the gate. 

Misha saw them coming from the lanai, where he stood with a few empty wine bottles and some burned-down cigars. He was still Ron Weasley. Moonlight reflected off of his shaggy red hair, his lanky body back-lit by the soft golden glow of the ballroom chandeliers. 

Sia made a pushing gesture as they flew up. Misha understood, retreating to the house, opening a door so they could fly in after him. Harry bailed off the side of the broom, rolling, springing to his feet. 

“Get out of sight,” he insisted. “I think the cops are coming.” 

Nebojsa’s magic hit him in the back, hearing his voice and remembering to remove the Serbian accent. Harry’s last words sounded like an actor affecting a different character voice mid-sentence. Once again he sounded like an Englishman speaking Romanian, rather than a fluent Serb. 

“Where’s Dima?”

“Upstairs. He just shifted back." 

“You?” 

Misha raised Ron’s eyebrows expectantly. “Any minute now.” 

“The Dragon?”

“Upstairs,” Misha repeated. “Can he change back?” 

“Yeah, but it’s tricky. Best to let it wear off if we can.” 

There was a half-empty, day-old beer nearby. Harry took two messy swigs, then passed it to Nebojsa. He got a raised eyebrow.

“If the cops interview us,” Harry reasoned, “and we say we’ve been here all night, then shouldn’t our breath smell like beer?” 

Sia conceded, taking a swallow for himself. 

“Scar Head! Harry!” He heard Draco calling for him all the way from the foyer. Not because Draco was shouting so loudly. He suspected it had something to do with the Dark Mark on his husband’s skin; even if it wasn’t visible, the magic linking them was still there. Through the bond, Draco could tell he was near—that Harry had made it back alright. 

Draco called out to him. The rise in his voice said he had an idea. 

Harry ran into the front hall, Nebojsa and Misha in Ron’s body on his heels. 

Draco stood on the balcony high above, holding a bundle of clothes—Harry’s pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt, to replace his borrowed club clothes. The sweatshirt was a good idea to cover the tattoos on his arms. The pureblood balled them together and dropped them down two flights. Harry caught the sweatshirt; it was heavier and therefore flew better. He tore off Nebojsa’s shirt and unhooked the pistol harness from his chest. He handed his strap and the weight of his Coonan to Nebojsa, not knowing whether Misha could safely handle a gun. Silent and efficient, Harry tugged the sweatshirt over his head.   

A zing of magic flew over Harry’s skin. Draco was helping from upstairs, using a spell to unhook Harry’s belt, denim button, and unzip his fly. Harry surrendered his unused Model 52 and leg strap to Nebojsa before worming off his borrowed boots and tugging down his jeans. He couldn’t be arsed that his friends were seeing him in his pants. Now wasn’t the time to be squeamish about dropping his trousers. He hopped his way into his checkered pajama bottoms. 

Draco floated down one last item: Harry Potter’s glasses. Harry caught them, banished the contacts from his eyes, and slipped his spectacles on. He held out his arms, asking everyone to inspect him for anything they’d missed. Ron’s big hand gave a thumbs up. From the balcony, Draco whistled his approval. Harry stifled a nervous laugh. 

Footsteps thundered down the staircase. Dmitry’s Polyjuice had worn off before Misha’s, and he was himself again—all two hundred and thirty-odd pounds of Romanian prince thundering down the stairs, his footfalls reminiscent of his Aethonian form. He’d put on athletic shorts and a worn-out tshirt, and mussed his hair so it looked as though he’d been sleeping. 

Vaulting the last few stairs with athletic grace, his body was silhouetted in white light. Headlights. The police had arrived and made it past the gate—apparently muggles could get through, but not wizards. Annoyingly clever. 

“Showtime,” muttered Harry. He made eye contact with Nebojsa, Draco and Misha, flicking his hands, sending them off to hide.

Nebojsa carried Harry’s weapons off into one of the many downstairs hallways. Misha floated Dima the bottle of beer so he could taint his breath and make it look like he’d gotten up for a drink, unable to sleep. Draco ducked back into the upstairs hall, his retreating footsteps the faintest of all, being so small. Misha raced up the servant’s staircase as fast as Ron’s legs would carry him, chasing after Draco to hide with him until it was over. 

They were running away—the people he loved, leaving him. They were going to hide, because he’d told them to. Because he was going to keep them safe. He recognized the images that flashed through his mind: the whip of a black curtain swallowing Sirius into a world of death, like the darkness surrounding him. Dumbledore lit up by the Killing Curse before tumbling off the Headmaster’s tower, not unlike the stone banister above him where Draco had disappeared. 

The images were still with him. He couldn’t be rid of them completely. But he could ground himself in the here-and-now. The taste of stale beer on his lips. His sweatshirt, which Draco must have worn recently because it smelled more like his husband and cigars than like himself. The polished marble beneath his sore feet, the cool stone soothing through his socks. They were safe. Though he’d raised his wand and fired his gun tonight, no one had died. And that was a vast improvement on the past. 

Dima took a long pull on the beer bottle, practically draining it. He winced, not having realized it would be flat. His face was a bit red where he’d scrubbed off makeup with magic, but the raised skin around his eyes and mouth only added to the illusion that he’d been in bed asleep ten minutes ago. Harry carded a hand through his own hair, making sure it was as fucked up as ever. 

A slow knock on the door. It echoed through the grand room, an ominous sound. 

Beer in hand, Dmitry muscled open the huge double-story stained glass door to his ancestral home. He leaned against the door frame, arms folded across his impressively muscled chest, the bottle hanging from his fingertips. 

“What?” he barked. 

 _Jesus_. Was that how Dmitry dealt with muggle authorities? 

Harry heard hushed voices, muffled, garbled from across the hall. “Disturbance in Constanţa… call to the station… report… curious….” 

Dima was glowering, not saying a word. 

Harry felt the rear pocket of his pajamas. His heart lifted. He owed Draco. So, so much.  

His steps were light, barefoot against the marble floor. He crossed the still-singed carpets, making his way to the door. He was able to approach without Dima or the muggle police hearing him. 

Harry slid the insanely heavy door open a bit more. He poked his messy head outside, putting on a casual but alert smile. 

“Good evening, officers,” he said in Romanian, stepping out. Dima’s eyes went wide as Harry brushed by him—worried, anxious, not knowing what it felt like to be rescued from his own cock-up. He forgot how accustomed Harry was to dealing with muggle authorities. 

Harry held his palms up so that his hands could be seen, easing himself out the door to stand on the front portico with the two muggle policemen. Their uniforms were dark with bits of shiny metal—guns and handcuffs and pepper spray at their hips. They were bathed in the white light of their car’s headlights, with a sort of spotlight aimed at the door for extra clarity. Dima squinted into the light. His orneriness could easily be mistaken for sleepy drunkenness. Still, the prince didn’t come off as precisely civil, let alone cooperative. 

Harry advised placidly, “Gentlemen, I’m going to reach for my badge. It’s in my back pocket.” And, turning slightly so they could see his backside clearly, he lifted out his MI5 credentials which Draco—fucking guardian angel—had thought to drop in Harry’s pocket. He flicked the leather billfold open before handing it over for their perusal. “Potter. British Intelligence,” he offered by way of introduction. 

One inspected his badge: the other questioned him. 

“MI5?”

The other’s lips twitched. “Like James Bond?” 

Harry shrugged one shoulder, lifting his hand helplessly. “I wouldn’t call my work _that_ exciting. But yes. I’m just on holiday visiting my friends,” he spared a glance back at Dima. “Is there anything I can help you with?” 

Now the men looked far more bashful—with Dima they’d been almost accusatory, like they suspected him of something but just couldn't prove it yet. His attitude didn’t help.

Looking at Dima, one officer said, “A known associate of His Highness was seen tonight at an illegal dance party in Constanţa.” 

Immediately, Harry laughed. To buy time, to draw the men’s attention in case Dima showed any reaction, and to show that they were innocent. Even though they really weren’t. He made it look like he assumed the officers were joking. 

“Oh… sorry!” he let his face fall convincingly. “We’ve been here all night. And Constanţa is an hour away?”

“Yes,” one officer confirmed. 

The other questioned, “You said you haven’t left the property?” 

“Correct,” chirped Harry. “Had a few drinks. Dmitry and his brother are teaching me to play guitar. We’re the night owls,” he gestured offhandedly between himself and Dima, chuckling. “Up late playing Silent Hill,” Harry named the first video game he could think of—Dudley had been obsessed with it last summer. Harry’d been kept up late at night to the sound of gunshots and shouts. That hadn’t done much to soothe his PTSD, but he remembered the game alright. “Been here all night. No one’s left.” 

The officers bought every word of it: his badge which was real, his casual demeanor, rumpled bed clothes, the hint of beer on his breath. Everything they could see, hear, and smell—every sense—backed up his story. He was a spy, a foreign agent, on vacation. He’d had a few beers and stayed up late playing video games with his host, the churlish prince. They had no reason to doubt his authenticity. 

“I'm very sorry, officers,” Harry apologized again—quintessentially English, even when speaking Romanian. “It would appear someone is wasting your time.”

 

 

 

 

Headlights illuminated the receiving hall, glinting brightly off of the mirrors as the officers turned their car around and started back down the drive. 

Dima shouldered the door shut with a sigh, downing the last swig of beer—not caring how stale it was. They’d survived. 

Harry heard the distinctive _whip_ of a wand slashing through the air. A second later, Misha appeared on the landing high above them, leaning against the marble balustrade, having Dissillusioned himself. He was back in his own body, naked but for a pair of gym shorts slung low around his hips.

Harry wondered if Misha been standing there the whole time, nervously watching them fend off the police. Misha didn’t want anything bad to happen to his only remaining brother. That explained the crazy way his hair stuck out from his head at all angles. He’d probably had his fists in it, silently freaking out when Harry stepped outside to get rid of the cops.

Harry had handled the situation. Flawlessly. Making it painful to think how badly things might have gone without his presence tonight. Harry’s interference had probably saved Nebojsa and the brothers from going to jail. 

Misha threw his arms out—muscles straining, his eyes huge and angry. His nostrils flared.

“You almost got Harry Potter arrested!” he shouted—screaming at his brother, shaking. "HARRY POTTER! Arrested, Dima! Will you pull your fucking head out of your ass and let me play quidditch now? Or does one of us actually have to go to Azkaban first?!” 

He didn’t give his brother a chance to answer, turning swiftly and stomping away. 

Harry and Dima were left alone in the vast empty room. Gone was the crunching of car wheels on the gravel road. Gone were Misha’s righteous words. Harry heard a few bugs clicking and chirping outside. And he heard the great breath filling Dima’s lungs as he drew in air. 

Owl eyes looked to him, as gold as the paint on the walls.

“Do I let him?” Dmitry asked softly. It was the first time he’d asked for Harry’s advice.

His voice... he sounded tired, and so scared. The war might be over but a part of him was still running. He didn’t believe they deserved to be okay. He couldn’t remember what it felt like to be happy, to sleep soundly, to be safe. 

Harry winced. “Misha’s gonna find a way, even without your permission. Best not to stand between him and what he wants.” 

That curl of Dima’s lip: he knew Harry was right. He didn’t like it, but the point had penetrated his thick skull at last. 

Harry had one last thing to say. “Come to England. Let him try out for a few teams, see what happens. And...” Harry wasn’t sure how his next suggestion would go over, but made it anyway—because his opinion had been solicited, and it was what he’d like to see happen. “I’ll go with you to the Ministry. My kicking a few people might speed things up getting your father declared officially dead, so you can get your vaults back.” 

Dima wanted to find an excuse, some manufactured reason why he couldn’t accept Harry’s help again. Harry stared him down. If Dima accepted that they were as good as brothers, then there was no excuse left. 

“After the Dragon’s birthday,” he conceded. They had big plans coming up, and Dima didn’t want to stick his big foot in that, which Harry appreciated. 

“After the Dragon’s birthday,” Harry agreed under Translation. “We’ll go to England for a little while, get your records and vaults sorted, and Misha can schedule a few try-outs. From there, we’ll see what shakes out. Do we agree?” 

Dima closed his eyes—swallowing, almost pained. Harry watched the thick muscles of his neck as they worked, forcing himself to swallow. 

He nodded. 

“ _Da, Domn_.” Yes, Sir.

 

 

 


	6. Круги На Воде

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Further adventures in Romania, including Draco’s eighteenth birthday and the return of marital relations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** public nudity, La Douleur Exquise  & Mamihlapinatapei, mention of genital mutilation, alcohol, kilts worn regimental, cross dressing, & sexual content (straight sex, gay sex, oral sex, forced orgasm, sub-space, virgin/Madonna fetish, penetration, frottage, voyeurism, & a bit more of other people fucking in case you’re not sick of it yet)

 

 

 

_Так пускай наступает холодным рассветом на нас новый день_

_Все останется в этой Вселенной_

_все вращается в этой Вселенной_

_Возвращается к нам, запуская круги на воде_

_Let the cold dawn of a new day take us_

_Everything remaining in this universe_

_Everything revolving in this universe_

_Returns back to us, like circles that ripple on the water_

“[Ripples On The Water](https://youtu.be/TIAn8GtBX14)”

Слот  |  The Slot

 

 

 

 

 

Draco stood at one of their many bedroom windows, moonlight drenching the curves of his female body. Presumably he’d watched a pair of headlights disappear into the distance, breathing a sigh of relief which they all felt. 

In his hand was Harry’s pistol, the heavy silver of the Coonan Magnum. It was a monstrous machine in those small fingers. It would appear Sia returned the guns to the Potters’ bedroom before turning in for the night. 

It surprised Harry that Draco would hold his gun, looking out the window… almost like holding onto some treasure of Harry’s, a voo-doo-like concept of possessing an object as a way to exact his desires on its owner; willing Harry to be okay, to come back safely. Except Draco was holding a weapon. And that said a lot about who he was under that unfamiliar skin. Hoping for the best while preparing for the worst. If something went wrong, Draco was ready and willing to protect himself. 

Draco was already looking at Harry when he entered their bedroom—having known he was coming by the magic binding them. 

The pureblood knew enough to keep the gun barrel pointed down. Steel glimmered in the lamplight, reminding Harry of the color Draco’s eyes ought to be. 

He was still in his female form, though he’d scrubbed the dark eyeliner and mascara from his face. He wore one of Harry’s tshirts and no trousers, the sight of his bare legs doing funny things to what was left of Harry’s brain.

In about half an hour Harry was going to crash. He needed the sleep. But for now he remained in battle mode. His focus was shifting from the offense of getting rid of the police to an assessment mode post-fight; taking care of Dima, and now Draco. Harry was taking stock, his eyes roving over his husband, checking that potion-induced form for any sign of distress, any need which he might fulfill before he went offline, becoming dead for a few hours. He wanted these lasts bursts of energy to be for his husband. 

“I want you to teach me,” Draco said, gesturing inexactly with the heavy pistol. “I wanna be able ta use this.” 

Harry agreed. “Been meaning to show you the ropes for a while,” he admitted. “Though… maybe not the magnum to start with.” Especially since Draco wouldn’t be accustomed to recoil. “First time I shot that gun, it popped back and hit me in the face. Gave me a black eye.” 

Draco snickered. “Tha’s my job.” 

“It certainly is.” Harry circled back, making good on a promise to himself. He’d wanted to teach Draco to fire a gun and now it was happening, mutually. “You should learn some basic firearm safety, for your own protection. I’ll ask if there’s someplace in the woods we can use. We’ll go out first thing tomorrow, and I’ll teach you to shoot.” He set a specific timeframe; not wanting to put it off, giving Draco that solid promise of what he would do, when, and why. He wanted Draco to understand his meaning, and then have the reassurance of watching Harry follow through on his word. That kind of stability might not be the most important thing to Draco, but Harry wanted to be the man who made good on every promise. 

He suspected, with all the abilities Draco had gotten off of him—quidditch, Parselmouth, and God only knew what else—it might be reasonable to think Draco could be a crack shooter right out of the gate. “The Model 52 is a target-shooting pistol, so we’ll start there and work you up.” 

Draco’s head tipped, considering. His expressions were condensed on that heart-shaped face, though no less potent for being smaller. “Does a 52 shoot fireballs?” 

Of course Draco was keen on that. Yes, the magnum’s tendency to spit fire was frightening, and powerful as fuck. Little wonder that turned Draco on. Harry could feel it. Draco was exhausted, spent, nearly ready to collapse in bed: Harry couldn’t blame him. The sun would be up soon, and they’d had one hell of a night. But there was something else in Draco’s violet-blue gaze. He hadn’t forgotten before, in this room—their flirting, Harry pressing his back to the wardrobe, pulses rising.

He was still in this body. He could’ve spelled himself back to male. But he hadn’t. He’d chosen to wait for Harry—not quite in a skirt but with his legs stripped, knowing what that image might do to Harry, and choosing to look that way when his husband walked through the door. On some deep level, Draco wanted to fuck… or at least, to fool around. After the night they’d had, it would be a comfort for them both. 

Every time he saw Draco’s legs, Harry couldn’t help but imagine spreading them… wrapping them around him, disappearing into them. He still wanted that, even now. 

He hadn’t answered Draco’s question about the Smith & Wesson Model 52. Looking at Draco, their hanging repartee about handguns was honestly the furthest thing from Harry’s mind. 

“I think anything shot by a dragon automatically has a fireball attached.” 

Draco liked that answer. Because it was a compliment, and because it showed what Harry thought of him regardless of what he looked like. Draco set the gun aside, coming closer. 

“Thank you,” Harry tacked on. “For my badge. Quick thinking. You saved our asses.” 

His sentences were stilted. Because Draco’s body in the moonlight could make him forget his own name. The prat knew it, too. That skin. It was still his—still smelled like him, might taste like him. Harry needed to find out. 

Draco stopped at arm’s length, meeting Harry’s gaze. Slowly, holding that eye contact, he pulled up on the edge of the shirt he wore… exposing his upper thigh, then the white lace thong, then his stomach, then a breast still covered in lace, before pulling the shirt off over his head. Draco kept the strand of black leather around his neck. Dark lashes made a stark contrast against his glowing skin. He was a play of darkness and light, existing in the same being. 

Harry was gone. He pulled Draco in, crushing his mouth with the proper kiss they’d been waiting hours for. Draco met him, small teeth sinking into his lip. That female body melted into him even as Draco’s verve escaped—the heavy press of tits against his chest, strands of long hair tickled his face, a light sound vibrating in their joined lips. But that kiss was all Draco, all fire, trying to burn him alive. 

Harry flipped his fingers, extinguishing the lights. They had the moon, stars fading, and soon enough the sun would break the horizon. 

He lifted Draco off his feet, groaning when those long velvet legs wrapped around him. He carried Draco to the bed and pressed him down, bodies flush, owning his mouth. 

Draco’s fingers clawed up his sides, pulling his sweatshirt up to expose his stomach. Draco tugged, growling—he wanted it off. Harry obliged, tossing his glasses aside, standing up to pull the sweatshirt over his head. Then he was back, his body smothering Draco against the bed. 

Every gasp, every twitch, rubbed those big tits against him—his black chest hair and white lace mashed together. Draco squirmed, needing to get closer. Heels dug into Harry’s back, begging for pressure. 

Harry wanted to take his time. Draco didn’t. Impatient, he vanished his own bra. Sharp fingernails dug into Harry’s back, that tight body pushing up into him, needing to be as close as possible. Draco moaned when the ache between his legs found Harry’s hard cock under his pajamas.

Harry held himself up by one arm, his elbow on the mattress so he could twirl his fingers through Draco’s hair—keeping it out of his face, but also getting himself a handful, something to hold onto. His free hand mapped Draco’s freckled shoulder, skimming around the outside of his breast—he keened, wailed, pressing up into Harry’s chest, begging for contact—before trailing down the indent of each rib, his fingers walking the path down to much curvier hips. 

He hooked his fingers under lace knickers, gathering the soft band in his hand. Catching Draco’s eyes, Harry lifted his eyebrows—making sure Draco wanted them to come off. Making sure Draco wanted the same thing. 

“You muggle-fuckin’, troll-felatin’ tosspot,” Draco gasped. “Get ‘em off me already!” 

Draco’s filthy mouth always unhinged him. Harry ripped the damn things. 

“Shit!” Draco panted, surprised by the brute force of his clothes being torn from his body. “Fuck… fuck….” He forgot how to swear as Harry sucked a nipple into his mouth, grazing with his teeth.

Draco arched fantastically, shoving his breasts in Harry’s face as encouragement. Harry used his hand in Draco’s hair to hold him down, earning his first tortured scream. Draco loved being held down. He needed something to fight against. One small hand buried in Harry’s hair, giving him a good yank. The other grabbed his free tit, squeezing, pulling on his nipple. He writhed. 

“Please!” 

Harry took his mouth away to ask, “Please, what?” 

“Dunno…” Draco gasped. “How much… time… left. Yeh gonna… fuck me?” 

Harry pressed his beard into the abused skin around Draco’s pert nipple. “Not sure. You haven’t asked me yet.” 

Draco spluttered. “I literally—” 

Harry released that handful of blond hair to drop to his knees off the end of the bed. Draco’s legs which had been held open wide to accommodate his hips were now spread for his viewing. Underwear had ripped from one hip. Harry shoved the knickers down his leg, his fingers spreading Draco. 

Draco was dripping. And the smell… he felt drunk, like breathing over a cauldron of Amortentia. Harry couldn’t help himself. His mouth locked on, sucking, breathing in; needing to get high on what the wizard he loved had made for him.

Draco screamed his name. 

Harry hummed his agreement between Draco’s folds, making hips buck. Harry had to hold on, winding his arms around Draco’s outer thighs, his hands splayed over a flat stomach—forcing Draco to keep still while Harry did as he liked. 

“Harr _eeeeee!_ ” Draco whined loudly. “Fuck me! Jus’ fuck me already!” 

Not yet. He wouldn’t stop until Draco came at least once. Preferably a lot more than that. He licked, sliding one hand down Draco’s flat stomach to rub at his clit. A few hard circles of his thumb was all it took. White thighs made a valiant attempt to strangle him. That was fine—Harry didn’t need to breathe for a while. He didn’t stop, working his finger, giving Draco his tongue to ride. His beard scratched and it was exactly the sharp, slightly stingy pain Draco wanted. The pureblood fisted both hands in Harry’s thick hair and tugged—not wanting him to go anywhere, not wanting him to stop, but knowing even in his mindless state that Harry liked it, and he wanted to do something back for all Harry was doing to him. 

Harry drove his tongue until Draco shook. Until his whole body spasmed, twitching, incoherent garbage leaving his mouth as he thrashed against the bed. 

Draco came so long Harry actually got light-headed from lack of air. Draco had made a puddle on the sheets, dripping down Harry’s chin. Harry sucked, at last able to breathe through his nose as Draco’s milky thighs unwound, becoming boneless, draping over his back as he worked. Harry liked the weight of legs over his shoulders, trusting him, not fighting. 

“Nah….” A weak sound, not much more than a puff of air leaving Draco’s lips. His head lolled to one side, too weak to control himself. “Na… ooooooh, gods!” A violent tremor from the touch of Harry’s teeth on his labia. “Harry!” 

Draco came again, spraying. Harry drank it. He never stopped sucking, lips against lips. 

Draco cried. He couldn’t move. He could barely speak. “Ha… ugh, Harr….” 

Harry pulled back—only enough to speak, his bottom lip still connected to the sopping mess that was Draco. He didn’t want to leave, either, but thought he ought to ask. 

“Still want me to fuck you? Or can I keep doing this?” 

“Nnnngh,” the blond grunted inelegantly. Thin fingers made a loose approximation of carding through Harry’s hair, but Draco could barely move his hand. He was overloaded, had short-circuited on pleasure. “Fuh… me… bastard.” 

Harry pressed his cheek to the tender inside of Draco’s thigh. His beard still scraped, but the area was slightly less sensitive. Draco would need the respite to have any chance at proper speech.

He asked, for obnoxious clarification, “Was that ‘fuck me, you bastard’?” 

“Mmhmm.” 

“You sure you can handle getting fucked?” Harry teased. 

Draco’s hand flopped against his stomach, where Harry could see the wizard give him a delicate middle finger. Sarcasm and agreement in one. 

Harry chuckled, licking the sweat from Draco’s skin. “Is insulting me the best way to get laid?”

“Mmhmm.” 

Wasn’t that true? Draco had to be rude to get Harry’s attention—to call him names, punch him, kiss him. Harry didn’t respond to subtlety. Then again, neither did Draco. The pureblood responded to a firm hand. 

Harry stood. He slid his pajamas and pants down just enough to get his cock out. He didn’t bother taking his clothes the rest of the way off. The way Draco looked at him with those bright eyes said, unequivocally, _now_. 

He sure was hard enough. He probably wouldn’t last long. 

Harry took Draco’s leg, wanting to feel strong thighs around him. He had to position both legs—Draco wasn’t much for strength at the moment. He looked at Harry’s cock like he was dying and it might save him. It was more likely to break him. 

“Fuh…” the blond licked his lips, trying to get his thoughts out through the haze of multiple orgasms. “Are ya… bigger?” He closed his eyes, wincing. Wrinkles creased his forehead. “Motherfucker.” 

Well, that word he could say. 

It was hard to know how much about his cock had changed. Harry didn’t think much, but there was a chance he’d increased slightly to match the growth over the rest of his body. He couldn’t tell for sure. His own hands had been his only measuring device, and now they too were different. 

“Wanna find out?” 

Harry teased himself against Draco’s gash—so swollen, so wet, so ready for him. It took every ounce of self-restraint he had not to snap his hips forward and take what was his—what had literally been made for him to destroy. 

His voice was deep, rattling low in his lungs as he pressed his intent. “Still want it?” 

Draco nodded. He looked beautiful. Upturned features lit in the moonlight, his lips open. His breasts moved with each quick breath, nipples standing up. And that thin black band at his throat… Harry wanted to replace it with his hand. Draco might like that. 

“Say it,” Harry insisted. He brushed up to Draco’s opening—holding himself there, pressure without penetration. It would have been nothing to slip inside. He waited. 

“Ugh,” the blond groaned, barely able to move his head. He took two fists of the sheets beneath him, hanging on. “Yes. Fuh… fuh… Harry.” 

That was enough. 

Harry thought the room was getting lighter. Or his vision was failing as he pushed his way into bliss. Draco wasn’t as tight as their wedding night, or as tight as when they’d fucked like this before in France. He was more than prepared. But there was resistance—more than Draco’s body tensing around him, not used to the intrusion after so many weeks. Harry found a physical barrier half-way home. 

A high sound vibrated Draco’s throat, like the trill of a bird in the morning. True enough, the sun was about to rise around them. “Agh… wh… wh…” he tried so hard to speak. 

Harry was able to lean himself forward; controlling his hips, not moving a centimeter inside Draco while getting their faces as close as possible. He nipped at pink lips—soft, pushing their mouths together in a lush contact to match below. 

“Maybe,” Harry whispered. “The hymen comes standard? You have to declare you don’t want it, otherwise… you get one?” 

Draco’s teeth nipped, looking for Harry’s lip—wanting to bite him. “Stupid Weasley rubbish…” He closed his lips, pressing, flinching. “Ummmmf.” That was a worried sound. 

Harry backed off, giving Draco room to breathe; and checking that he hadn’t subconsciously moved his hips. Nope, they were still bloodless at the virgin gates. 

He never would have imagined his night ending like this—he’d pictured jail cells and frantic phone calls to Leon Harper, he’d pictured Dima and Misha fighting and Nebojsa breaking them apart before they killed each other… but he’d never thought he might bring this adventure to a close with his cock pressed up against a virgin’s hymen. Draco, a virgin again. 

Harry wanted to fucking break it. Something about the blood on his dick, and the way the pain ripped through Draco, making him scream, making him so damn angry and hurt and happy, all in one go. He wanted to let loose. But not until Draco gave him the all-clear. 

Draco reached for Harry’s hand braced against the mattress near his head. He pulled knuckles to his cheek, asking Harry to touch his face. There was a twitch beneath their joined fingers—more than Draco clenching his jaw, more than the friction of Harry’s calloused hand against petal-soft skin. It was magic: Draco’s bones beginning to shift beneath him. The potion was wearing off. 

“It’s okay,” Harry told him. 

Draco groaned. He’d wanted to get fucked. Stupid hymen, slowing things down. 

The potion’s effects wore off before his eyes. Tits deflated. Freckles receded. Murky blue eyes turned silver. Scars bubbled up like there were fingernails inside Draco scratching up his skin, raising long lines of red all along his body as every last mark returned. 

Harry pulled out. He didn’t know precisely what might happen and didn’t want to risk it. He kept his hand on Draco’s face, comforting him, thumb pressing his lips as he groaned again, shivering: bones warping, bollocks dropping, wet gash turning to a long scarred prick with a kiss of red at the tip. 

In half a minute Draco was returned to his own body, sprawled under Harry on the bed—lying in a puddle of come belonging to the woman he no longer was. 

Harry brushed his finger, again, against Draco’s lips. They were the lips he knew; the mouth which told him “I love you” and “I hate you,” the mouth which recited wedding vows and curses, delusions and lies and love. Draco was back. 

“I don’t wanna be done with you,” whispered Harry. “Not done, Draco.” 

He needed Draco to know he was wanted, in this body. So he dropped back to his knees, staring down Draco’s long cock. Harry licked his lips, a scent on the air he knew so well it made his mouth water just the same as Draco’s pussy had. 

He still couldn’t fit half of Draco’s prick in his mouth. That much wasn’t going to change. Draco had a bloody basilisk, a right proper monster, between his legs. In a year Harry had learned what to do with it. 

He tasted his way up Draco’s shaft, mouthing sideways, roaming with only his lips. Reaching the peak, he sucked slowly at Draco’s head, getting him warmed up all over again, reintroducing sex to this body. 

Above him Draco liked his lips, soft and wet, rubbing his tongue over and over again against the roof of his mouth, exploring his own teeth, finding the shape of his mouth. He was coming back into himself. 

Draco groaned. He mumbled in that Westie accent which was still pitched higher than his own voice. “Suck it. Oh gods, suck it, yeh know wha’ I like.” 

Harry’s fingers explored his length, feeling him as his veins began to stand out from his skin. Harry started sucking lightly, taking himself lower with each pass—listening to the strangled growl from Draco’s throat every time he slurped his way back up. It could be rather a messy operation, with his spit everywhere, but it worked for Draco so Harry didn’t care. 

Draco liked his shaft treated roughly and his head loved. That was what made him come. Harry rested his lips against the head of Draco’s prick and snogged him. He took his time, ignoring the plaintive sounds the blond made and the hands yanking at his hair. Harry tongued the sensitive slit, red and beaded with scar tissue. He ran the gentle insides of his lips over and over against the spongy head, following with the equally sweet underside of his tongue. His hands gave continuous stimulation, palms slipping alternately down Draco's long shaft, distributing his spit but also giving an endless, unrelenting contact of skin on skin. The longer he did it the more sensitive Draco became, until he tipped over, falling into his orgasm like passing out on a broom from altitude, the air getting thinner and thinner, the world slowly slipping away to nothing. 

Harry didn’t care how long it took. His jaw could get tired; he’d still do this forever. Only for the sounds Draco made—needy, strangled, rasping. Draco threw his head back and yelled—a hand on the back of Harry’s head, fist full of his hair, simultaneously pulling and holding him there, wanting Harry to take it like he’d done since their very first time. He was seconds from coming. 

A muffled shout cut through the morning. From a bedroom down the hall came the unmistakable twin sound of agony—Harry couldn’t tell if Dmitry was getting sucked off or beaten. Neither would kill him, and by the sound of it, both would get him off. 

A heavy thump—someone hit the floor. And what sounded like a hard slap. The crack of it echoed like a whip through the air. Dima was getting his due punishment for not having listened to Sia in the first place. 

Draco garbled a scream, his back arching off the bed, jamming a pillow against his mouth to muffle the power of his voice. He held Harry on his cock as he blew his load. 

Harry still didn’t care for the taste of Draco’s come. He felt rather bad for that. He wanted to fancy it. Ejaculate was like a shot of cheap liquor he’d rather just get down and get it over with. At least he no longer made a face—he didn’t want Draco’s feelings to be hurt, or for his husband to think his come tasted bad. It was probably fine... Harry wouldn’t know. 

Sounds of sex and violence echoed through the palace halls. A far-off clout, and the last of Draco’s voice rasping from his throat like his soul leaving his body. He glowed as the sun broke the horizon. 

What mattered was the crazed, wild-eyed look on Draco’s face. His flushed cheeks and parted lips, the way his whole body spasmed, trying to get air. It would be a few more seconds before he relaxed. Harry loved seeing Draco in that moment. He’d just come but he was still so strung, taut, desperate. He didn’t know what he needed, but he knew Harry would give it to him.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry got weird looks from the lads when he separated the beer, wine, and liquor bottles from the rest of the rubbish. Apparently there was no concept of ‘recycling’ in Romania. They just thought Harry Potter was a bit mad. Most people did. 

His garbage-sorting paid off in his favor, providing him with a ready supply of bottles to use as targets when teaching Draco to shoot the day after they almost got arrested. 

It rained that morning while they slept. The grass was still dewy by the afternoon, the sky overcast as Harry and Draco set out into the woods. Dima had given Harry directions to a clearing not too far from the chapel where his father and uncle once practiced archery. There were still some old-fashioned targets there which they could use. 

Draco wore all black—his typical tight trousers, Harry’s hoodie from the night before, and he’d borrowed someone’s military-style boots, spelling them to the correct size, the laces wrapped up around his ankles with his posh trousers tucked in so they wouldn’t get muddy. The monochromatic look emphasized his pale hair and dark eyelashes. Harry caught glimpses of a line of black at Draco’s throat—his choker necklace from last night which he hadn’t spelled away. It suited him… or at least Harry liked the way the dark circle called his attention again and again to the stunning line of Draco’s throat. 

Harry kitted himself in his American work boots, a long-sleeve Henley shirt, and new denims which were Draco’s taste—tighter than he was used to—but Harry’s size. Maybe Draco wanted to see Harry in tighter pants; his boxers got all lumped up under the trousers and he’d eventually given up, putting on a pair of athletic compression shorts so his new trousers would slide on smoothly. They hugged his arse and thighs rather snuggly. That got Draco’s eyes on him. His silver gaze strayed more than once to Harry’s bum as they walked through the wet grass, floating bags of clanking beer bottles behind them. 

Harry had walked Draco through the names for each part of their arsenal as he’d cleaned them, preparing for their shooting lesson. He quizzed his husband on the way. 

“A revolver is different from a pistol because?” 

“It has a cylinder,” Draco recalled. “Pistols and rifles use a magazine.” 

That was right. “How many rounds in a revolver?” 

“Six.” 

Harry nodded. “The Astra has six.” Nebojsa had returned the revolver, unshot with the rounds removed. Draco had watched Harry clean each gun, pretending not to be interested but secretly fascinated by the technology. “Most revolvers have six shots before they need to be reloaded. Some have five, or more than six, but that’s uncommon. It’s always worth checking. If you assume the revolver being shot at you has eight or nine rounds, and it turns out to only have six, then your life just got easier.” 

Draco gave Harry a pained look—his eyebrows almost white in the weak light, arched at Harry as though to say, _Scar Head, when will anyone be shooting at me if I’m not in proximity to your stupid ass?_  

He tried to trip the blond up. “How many shots in a magazine?”

“Trick question!” Draco scoffed. He would’ve smacked Harry if he didn’t have both hands wrapped around a large thermos of coffee—mostly to keep his fingers warm, but also for drinking. “That depends on the magazine, yes?” 

Harry nodded. “And the size of the ammo. Most mags are gonna carry at least five rounds. More if the ammo is smaller caliber, or if the magazine is larger size. There are also extended magazines—they’re larger than the handle of the pistol or rifle, so you’ll recognize them hanging down off the bottom of the gun.” He tucked the gun cases under his armpits in order to gesture, miming what an extended magazine looked like, and how it appeared when the weapon was held to be fired. 

Draco puffed out a disenchanted breath. “Muggles have gotten much more sophisticated when it comes to killing each other….” 

Harry chuckled. “Compared to what? Beating each other with pointy sticks?” 

Because most of what Draco knew about muggle warfare came from textbooks. Only since last year had he been able to experience the non-magical world for himself and develop his own opinions. 

His husband was a bewildering mix of cultures sometimes. Draco had attitudes about slavery—namely house elves—dating back to the eighteenth century. The formal tone in which he wrote his school essays was right out of a Jane Austin novel. He could barely operate a tube travel card before Harry, had never been to the movies or ridden in a taxi, and hadn’t known what guns were either. Draco took it all in stride, though; there was his budding love for muggle art like Rammstein and Dior, he took less than an hour to figure out how Harry’s credit card worked, and here he was wanting to learn to shoot a gun. 

Draco wasn’t immovable, nor was he hopeless. Like the lie Harry concocted for the muggles on their honeymoon, Draco wasn’t too unlike a man rescued from a cult; brainwashed and a tad rear-facing, but he was willing to learn when it mattered. Draco wasn’t so closed-minded as Harry once thought. He still had his ways, and could be a stick-in-the-mud on things he believed deeply. But he _would_ listen to reason. He would participate in a discussion and find some common ground on which they could move forward… or at least not have another epic row. 

Maybe Harry was just getting better at not starting fights in the first place.

 

 

 

 

Draco had no problems with the target pistol. It was a smooth shot, designed for competitive shooting; fast but soft against the palm, with almost no recoil. The pureblood’s first grouping was tight at six meters distance. He remembered to breathe, not flinching in anticipation of the explosion so near his face. Then again, Draco was used to dodging Bludgers on the pitch, and loud noises never seemed to bother him—the guy liked death metal and would head-bang in front of a set of speakers. By that logic, a pistol firing an arm’s length from his face shouldn’t upset him much. 

Draco controlled it. Because he knew what was coming, he never flinched. He readily accepted the noise as a part of the process. 

Harry couched his overprotective side when he saw how proud Draco was of himself, examining the results of his first round of shots.

Bolstered by that excitable reaction, Harry took him back to ten meters, reloaded another five rounds, and had Draco try again. It was a longer shot for an amateur, but Harry wanted to see how he did. Draco liked a challenge. 

The blond took aim down the sight. He was left-eye dominant—a lefty with a gun, just like his handwriting and Seeking on the pitch—closing his right eye to properly align his shot. His pink tongue popped out between his lips, scrolling across his mouth like a lizard. He did the same when he did maths in his head or translated languages. He breathed, taking his time to line it up. His nostrils flared, his chest rising. 

Five clean, quick shots. 

Each bullet made a _ping_ against the target. Harry had sheets of parchment fastened with a Sticking Charm to an old metal window shutter propped against the archery hay bales. Shooting at glass bottles would come later. For now he wanted Draco focused on a single point. Moving his body and traveling his aim would come with time and practice. 

With the pistol empty, they walked together to see how much his accuracy had suffered over distance. 

It hadn’t. If anything, Draco was getting better the more he shot. The distance hadn’t effected him yet. 

“That’s quite good,” Harry reassured him. 

Draco’s brows were critical of his performance. He was often tough on himself. “Shouldn’t they all be on top of each other?” 

Harry grunted a negative. 

Draco peered up at him. “Are yours?”

He’d missed those eyes. As much as Draco had enjoyed last night—getting out of his body, enjoying the female sex, the fantasy of being someone else—this was what Harry wanted. Those sharp flecks of silver steel. His clear discernment, the intelligence of his gaze, even the wit written in the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. 

Harry’s mouth twisted. “Let’s find out.” 

He taught Draco to load—to keep the muzzle down while feeding in golden .38 special rounds. He snapped each one into place, learning the motions. He knew to give the pistol over handle first, pointed at the ground. The first lesson was to never point a loaded gun at something you didn’t intend to lose.

Harry lined up his shot. After months of shooting a semi-automatic, the Model 52 was a whisper in his hand. Five shots in rapid succession. 

When he lowered his weapon, Draco ran over to check his grouping. Harry heard the groan from ten meters. His shots would be closer together than Draco’s; he had nearly eight months under his belt, target shooting upwards of four or five days a week at Leon’s gun range. What did Draco expect? 

“How’d I do?” Harry called, cheeky, egging Draco on a bit. 

“You despicable little hobgoblin….” Draco seethed. He’d done well, then.

Harry started laughing. He couldn’t help it. Annoying Draco was… in some way, the definition of magic. Seeing his eyes go wide, color in his cheeks, rocketing forward on the balls of his feet like he wanted to punch The Boy Who Lived in the mouth just for existing. Because he understood Draco’s inner workings, he was that much more hilarious. Draco legitimately thought he would be as good a shot as Harry—who practiced daily, whose work the last year had encompassed little else but violence. Draco still thought he had a snowball’s chance in hell of outperforming Harry Potter. 

He still found Draco’s manic-delusional side disarmingly cute. And, somewhere along the line… it became sexy, too. He reminded Harry to be playful, not to take himself too seriously, to have some fun once in a while, and to never discount the impossible. 

Still laughing, Harry picked up the unloaded and freshly cleaned Coonan Magnum. “Wanna try this, luv?” he teased. “Make you feel better?” 

Draco marched right back, knowing what he wanted all along. His toes wiggled in his boots as he waited through Harry’s explanation of the safety and how to insert a magazine. Draco’s hand still sagged as the weight of the weapon dropped into his palm. It was as heavy as the semi-automatic Beretta Harry shot during the war, though not quite as intimidating; or at least not in the same fashion. The Coonan wasn’t nearly so long in the nose. The grip might prove a bit wide for Draco, even with his long pianist’s fingers. The blond tested the sights, lining up to the last parchment target. 

Harry stepped behind him, putting his chest to Draco’s back. 

“The recoil is gonna make it feel like the gun’s alive and tryin’ to get away,” Harry advised in a low voice. “Don’t let it. For now, use this.” On a whisper, he conjured a shoulder stock similar to what he used with his Beretta on repeat, fitting it to the bottom of the magazine, then into the cushion of Draco’s left shoulder. “It’ll kick into your shoulder instead of popping back in your face. I like your face the way it is.”

“Awh!” Draco mocked his declaration like it was a singing Valentine owl from an admiring third year Hufflepuff. He didn’t think much of Harry trying to protect him. 

Harry didn’t care. He wrapped his arm under Draco’s, getting a hand to his chest, feeling him breathe. He rested his chin on top of that blond head, wanting to be close. 

“Deep breath,” Harry coached him. “When you’re ready….” 

Draco waited for a passing breeze which turned leaves on trees and made their target flutter up, obscuring the concentric circles he was aiming for. Harry took that second to enjoy being close, working together, even if it was on something which might make other people flinch or question his judgment. 

 _BANG_. 

The shoulder-stock knocked Draco’s upper body back against him like a punch. Harry had been braced for it—he didn’t move. Draco gasped a breath, startled. 

“ _Putain_ _de bordel de merde d’enculé!_ ” he swore. The French cuss didn’t make much sense literally, translating to something about a shitty cock-sucking whore. Near as Harry could tell, it was the French equivalent to a muggle shouting _holy fucking shit_. His heart fluttered under Harry’s hand, then hammered.

“Okay?” Harry asked. 

“Oh…” Draco breathed, his chest rising, heartbeat slamming into Harry’s palm. “Fuck, yeah!” 

With the shoulder stock Draco didn’t have to wait between shots—just long enough for the slide to return, for his eyes to blink away the noise and re-focus on his target. He emptied the seven-bullet magazine.

As Draco lowered the magnum, Harry banished the conjured shoulder stock. It seemed Draco didn’t need training wheels after all—but he’d wanted to give Draco that stability just in case. The blond ducked out of Harry’s arm, gun in hand, going off to check his grouping. 

He gave an excitable whoop, punching a fist in the air, physically celebrating his victory.

“That good, luv?” Harry came closer. 

Draco met him half-way, the Coonan pointed at the ground. His other hand shot up, grabbed Harry by the front of his shirt, and kissed him. Hard. 

It was like their first kiss—the sudden, heavy press of Draco’s lips, taking his mouth out of nowhere, sweeping the contents of his mind into a convenient lump and then binning the lot. 

Harry hadn’t expected this, but this time he wanted it. So fucking much. 

Draco was debauchery incarnate, sucking at his bottom lip with sharp teeth and sin, begging him to come deeper. A twin sound rumbled in their throats. Draco stuffed the spent pistol in the pouch of his sweatshirt, wanting both hands free to rake through Harry’s hair. Those hands smelling like gunpowder yanked him down, demanding he get closer. Draco got his tongue to the backs of Harry’s front teeth, licking, plying, pressing against his own.

Their mouths exchanged coffee and the eggs Harry had made after his rainy jog. Coffee prevailed, especially as Draco licked his teeth like that, calling out Harry’s tongue. 

Draco was on his toes to get close, his hold on Harry’s hair keeping him balanced. He never stopped, pulling the larger man down, taking what he wanted. 

Harry’s hand drifted to Draco’s ass—and Draco bit down on his lip. A dragon’s nip of encouragement. Harry took his handful, bringing their bodies flush, bearing Draco’s weight. Draco growled his approval, fingers tightening, making sure Harry’s hair stood on end. 

Someone cleared their throat, and it wasn’t either of the Potters. 

Draco disengaged—fingers coming down out of Harry’s hair to trail through his beard, holding his face, meeting his lust-blown eyes before turning his head to see who’d found them making out in the woods. 

Thankfully it was only Misha. They were still on private property and couldn’t get in trouble for otherwise illegal bloke-on-bloke business, but still. Harry didn’t want to cause any more upset to the locals. They’d done enough damage last night to exhaust even his considerable penchant for rule breaking. 

Misha rolled his eyes at them. Seeing Draco stretched up on his toes to make out with Harry must’ve looked funny after a year of them being the same height.

The sixteen year old had a pack over his shoulders; either he’d been collecting cast-offs from creatures, or he was leaving snacks for them to encourage movement and nesting in certain areas. Misha was rather muddy up to his shins, his wand out. The sound of gunfire told him exactly who was in the clearing and why. 

“Great time to uze zhat Muffling Charm of yours,” Misha mocked them. “Gunshots. Not common, even on our land.” 

Harry flushed up to his ears. “Right. Sorry.” 

Misha waved off the concern. “Iz fine. Zhere iz no vone nearby.” 

“We’ll be more careful,” insisted Harry. They were guests. He didn’t want to make trouble for their hosts—especially knowing how badly behaved Dima was when it came to dealing with the local authorities. It seemed the only people the Ionescue brothers listened to or respected were the members of their chosen family. Dima and Misha’s trust was a thing preciously earned and precariously maintained. Harry was all the more honored to have it. “Thanks, mate.” 

Misha must’ve forgotten the Potters still had an active Translation Charm. Because, as he walked away, he couldn’t help but snark to himself. “Why does everyone I love have a fetish for fucking in the woods and letting me find them?” 

Harry and Draco looked at each other—Harry’s mouth open, Draco’s eyes bright, his pink mouth pressed to a wire-tight line to keep from making a sound and revealing that they’d heard that private comment. They waited agonizing seconds for Misha to leave the clearing, for Harry to brush his hand to his wand and cast the much-needed _Muffliato_ spell. 

Then they burst out laughing.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Hedwig had arrived at the palace after delivering Harry’s correspondence to friends. He had one more letter to write—to Kingsley Shacklebolt. 

His message was simple: _Whose cage do I have to rattle to get the investigation around Tihomir Ionescue’s death closed up? His sons are friends of mine_ _—proper war heroes, too—_ _and I’d like to see this whole thing done with so they can get on with their lives. Would appreciate a point in the right direction_. 

Harry felt bad asking his snowy owl to fly across the continent so often but… his letters were important. That was the price of leadership sometimes—asking people to go out of their way for you. Harry gave her extra treats and was sure she got her rest before sending her back to England with his parchment. 

They were going back to London after Draco’s birthday. For how long depended on how many asses Harry had to kick to get a dead man declared dead. Fucking bureaucracy. 

He loathed the prospect of throwing around his new Boy Who Lived Twice weight. It wasn’t his style to lean on his notoriety in order to get things done. But if his name opened the doors Dmitry needed to get his life back, then so be it. Harry was ready to walk up to Rufus Scrimgeour in the middle of Diagon Alley and start shouting if that was what it took.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry cornered Nebojsa one afternoon. They met at the front of the palace, in the driveway where carriages would have been hooked to teams of horses. Now the space was just an empty circle of gravel where they turned the car around. 

Sia was in gym clothes on his way to work out, and Harry was heading back to the house after helping Misha make adjustments to his flying obstacle course. 

“Hey. How are the guitar lessons are going?”

Harry never heard them play together. His husband and Nebojsa always disappeared somewhere in the palace where no one could hear. The place was bloody big enough to lose a battalion, let alone two sneaky wizards. Harry understood Draco wanting a bit of privacy while he learned, but he thought by now they’d have a song or two to share. 

Nebojsa held his long arms out, looking up at the sky in the pose of a crucified Christ. Like only God and the angels could help him.

“Badly.” 

Harry pushed his glasses up his nose. “What? Why?” 

Nebojsa made a noise in his throat, debating how much he wanted to say. His arms bent, gathering his hair—winding it around his fingers to make a knot at the top of his head, which he secured with a wandless, wordless spell. Harry noted how much magic Nebojsa did without a wand: Harry himself was pretty good, but sometimes Sia reached Dumbledore-like displays of casual power. He’d stop himself halfway through a spell, realize what he was going, and dig out his wand to finish in order to look more “normal.” Which only freaked Harry out more. 

They’d been speaking Romanian, so that was what Nebojsa chose to answer him in. 

“The Dragon is impatient. He’s too hard on himself, thinking he needs to be perfect even when he’s  a beginner. We all start somewhere.”

Harry had seen that before. Sometimes Draco’s own expectations for himself succeeded in psyching him out. He was his own worst critic and enemy, constantly thinking he wasn’t good enough when his attempts didn’t line up with the grandeur in his head. That was why he hadn’t needed Harry to respond to his bullying in kind back at school. Anything mean which Harry ever said to Draco, the blond had said a million times over in his head, tearing himself down because no one had bothered to teach him where real confidence came from. 

To Nebojsa, Harry gave a sympathetic nod. “Draco gets in his own way sometimes.” 

In their letters, they’d touched on Harry’s suspicions about Draco’s mental health. Durmstrang didn’t have prefects; they operated on social mentoring and disciplinary committees made up of students. After mentoring a lot of the struggling kids at Durmstrang, Nebojsa had a good handle on how to deal with behavioral issues. He talked about being constructive rather than reactive, which reminded Harry of Dr. Beasley. They were all three on the same page: that the best thing to do for Draco was to stay active, to stay on him, and to never give up. Even when he made it miserable. The gloom wouldn’t last forever. Even if it did, it was Harry’s mission to love Draco anyway. 

Sia had an idea. “You should join us.” 

Harry snorted. “Why? I’m sure I’d be terrible. I can’t even read music.” 

“Yes!” insisted Sia. Cheerful and a bit campy, he added, “If you are bad, the Dragon will feel better about himself.” 

Harry had to admit it was genius. Nebojsa really knew exactly how to work around Draco’s prickly aspects and get things done without being underhanded or weird about it. Harry joining their lessons would be a natural way to make Draco feel better. And Harry might actually learn something, too. Plus, it was a new hobby they could do together. He loved the idea of the pair of them practicing guitar back at Grimmauld Place. 

And he wanted Draco to have another thing he was better at than Harry. It would help him rebuild his shaky confidence. 

Their differences were really weighing on Draco lately; the knowledge and experiences Harry gained in the war, his fighting abilities, his instincts… even his stupid height. Draco didn’t feel like they’re equals anymore. Harry would do anything to help Draco see that wasn’t true. Just because they were different didn’t make them less. Watching Harry struggle through being horrible at the guitar and not able to read or understand music might be just the thing to show Draco he was doing just fine. 

“ _Sia, that’s brilliant!_ _I could kiss you_ _!_ ” Harry hissed. The words flew out of his mouth before he even considered them. 

He and Nebojsa _had_ kissed. Only last summer. He blushed a deep shade of crimson, feeling it up to his ears. 

Sia noted his awkwardness, staring him down with a stone face—making his blush that much worse. “It will be reward enough,” he whispered, “watching the perfect Boy Who Lived be terrible at something.” 

Smiling bashfully, Harry glanced away, muttering. “I suck at a lot of things.” 

There was a heartbeat of silence in which Nebojsa was still looking at him, the sunlight catching his hair, the sun beating on his bare white shoulders. An infinitesimal shift occurred in his electric eyes, somehow warming them though their icy color remained the same. That was a spark Harry had only seen in his friend once before—right before their lips had touched. 

Nebojsa was… turned on. Because of something Harry had said. 

Realization crashed through Harry’s mind. He’d talked about _sucking_ things. While his phrase had been common enough, it would be interpreted very differently when said by an MSM to an openly bisexual bloke. 

 _SLAM._ Harry’s heart leapt into his throat. He nearly choked. 

 _Fuck!_ Why did every other word out of his mouth sound like sexual innuendo? What was wrong with him? 

Nebojsa got closer. He raised a warning finger, shaking it faintly in Harry’s face. He had henna on a few of his fingers, trying out a potential design for a new tattoo. The whirls were mesmerizing.

“Do not _flirt_ vith me, Potter,” he said slowly, in English, enunciating every syllable, his Serbian tongue elongating the L and flipping the R inside his mouth. His lips popped the P. Harry hadn’t heard his surname used as a warning insult in a long time. 

Nebojsa was right. What his comments had been was indeed flirtatious. Sia was damn right to call him out for it, too. A part of Harry needed to have his own behavior pointed out to him; because outside of his relationship with Draco, he had no fucking clue what the difference was between pleasant banter and accidental flirting. Maybe he’d accidently flirted with other people in the past and not realized. 

Harry knew nothing about the subtle art of flirting. Every time he was supposedly hit on, he remained oblivious: Cho Chang, Ginny Weasley, Heather Lightley, then Draco Malfoy. Every one of them had struck him as being nice, pleasant, kind in conversation—and then _wham!_ They’d kissed him, seemingly out of the blue. Especially with Draco’s convoluted brand of flirtation, it had taken Harry the better part of seven years to figure out when Draco was insulting him verses when the guy was being sexy. 

Because Harry couldn’t read flirting. It was a foreign language to his brain. 

One it would appear he accidentally spoke sometimes—like muggle religious claimed to speak in tongues, not in control of their own bodies as gibberish fell from their mouths. 

This was simply the first time Harry had managed to speak the language back—with anyone _other_ than his husband. 

Very straight white teeth made an appearance from behind thin pink lips. Nebojsa looked like he had something else to say, but he bit it back at the last second, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip, physically biting the words back before they could get out. Instead, the tip of his finger connected with the end of Harry’s nose—a harmless, silly gesture which he himself used on Draco sometimes. Nebojsa pressed his nose like he was a kid, diffusing the sudden sexual tension as fast as it had swept in. 

Harry was so relieved to have made this mistake with Sia—a guy who wouldn’t just stand there and take it. Someone who would point out to him exactly what he was doing—calling it out as inappropriate since Harry was a _married man_ for God’s sake who ought to know better—and then let it go. Because beating the horse to death wasn’t going to make Harry learn any better. He saw his mistake and wouldn’t be repeating it: end of story. 

Nebojsa backed away. “Guitar lesson,” he insisted, walking backwards, trainers crunching on the gravel. “You will be very bad. It will make the Dragon very happy.” 

Yeah. It would. 

Harry stood there, letting Nebojsa turn and walk away from him. He watched the line of twisty black Cyrillic letters up and down his friend’s spine, visible under his thin singlet. And he thought about how much this man reminded him of Sirius—his unexpected laugh, his ability to reach people, his mystic tattoos and dark hair and shadowed sex life.  

Harry drew broken people into his life; because, like them, he was searching for answers to big questions. Sometimes they managed to find each others’ answers along the way. 

There was a question in Nebojsa, too. Something he needed to find for himself. 

Harry had to suppress the dread feeling that something bad might happen to the man before he found his answer. Harry didn’t want to see a dark curtain closing around Sia as he walked away—a sheet of blackness swallowing him whole. That was his mind playing tricks, substituting old images in an attempt to create false memories.

Nothing bad was going to happen to Nebojsa. Nothing bad was going to happen to Dima, or Misha, or Draco. Nothing bad would happen to the Weasleys, or the Harpers, or Hermione, or Luna, or anyone else he loved. Because he would stand in the way. He had these powers for a reason… and that reason wasn’t to stand in the middle of the driveway having an existential crisis as his friend walked away. 

Harry took a deep breath; feeling the sun on his back, smelling the forest on the wind around him, hearing the clank of tools as the contractors worked on the house. 

He was headed in the right direction. Sometimes you had to fly into the storm. Seeing wasn’t everything. Harry was slowly but surely teaching himself to live by the information he gathered from every sense… and to feel.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

On the morning of Draco’s birthday, Nebojsa faked a migraine. He and Harry had cooked up a plan, and the Serb needed to stay behind to execute it. Not to mention he and Harry remained on-edge, not forgetting that the muggle police suspected the Serb of being in a gang—which he wasn’t—and selling drugs—which he had. It was better that Nebojsa not show his face in town for a while. 

So the Potters and the Ionescues went to the coast without him, Harry navigating the roads with Dima and Misha’s help. He was beginning to learn the way on his own but still inquired when he couldn’t remember which road sign was which. 

They ate breakfast at a ritzy hotel in town where the Ionescues were noted and catered to. The brothers were striking—easy to recognize by their thick shoulders and hooded amber eyes. Dima’s rounder, wider eyes made him look like an owl startled awake, while Misha’s softer gaze reminded Harry of a puppy. The manager of the hotel greeted them formally by their titles, bowing, making sure everything was to their liking. The muggle treated them like celebrities, sending over a round of Bellinis—a morning cocktail of Italian sparkling wine and fresh peach pulp. Harry had a sip before pawning the rest of his drink off on Draco, knowing he’d need to drive again and not wanting to risk it. 

Between the brothers and his husband, Harry had never seen three people drink so much espresso. The food was delicious—fresh bread, rich cheeses, cured meats, and fish straight from the sea. 

Food and goods were cheap in Romania. When the bill arrived Harry snatched it up, taken back by how little it was compared to London. He tipped thirty percent, which he hoped was well enough considering how polite and attentive the staff had been. 

Harry enjoyed Constanţa in the daylight. They wandered through the town of old white stone buildings with colorful roof tiles, every window and balcony pointed at the sea to take advantage of the view. Newer buildings jutted out from the old architecture—tall structures of glass and steel glinting in the sun. The streets were a bit crowded given that it was a weekday. 

“Tourists,” Dima explained. Cruise ships regularly came through the port. People from all over liked to visit—for the culture, the scenery, and the low cost of entertainment. Harry heard many languages spoken in the open air market. Everything was for sale: pottery, paintings, clothes, electronics, even house wares. Misha picked up a new pair of sunglasses. Dima looked through a display of leather bracelets, a few of which were actually large enough to fit his wrists. 

Walking through the crowds of shoppers, Draco kept a hand pressed to Harry’s low back—sometimes touching, otherwise holding a fist full of his tshirt—not wanting to be separated as they slowly made their way back to the car. 

For days leading up to their departure from London, Draco dropped hints that he wanted to see the Black Sea. Harry made sure that happened for his husband’s birthday. 

They started with some time on the beach. Dima recommended they drive a few minutes south to Efoire Nord near the marina, where the sands were less crowded. And also, apparently, nude—which surprised Harry quite a lot, having lingered under the impression that Romania was a staunchly Catholic country. 

Yet nearly all of the women were topless. Some wore bottoms, others didn’t, baring their deeply colored bodies to the sun. Dmitry promptly ripped off every stitch of clothing and ran into the water. They’d locked their wallets in the Ferrari’s glove box, not wanting to deal with thievery on the beach. Harry stuffed a few lei in his shoe in case he wanted a bottle of water or some trinket from the stalls lining the waterfront. 

Aquamarine waters stretched in a level line as far as Harry’s eyes could see. He almost fooled himself into believing he could see the curvature of the Earth, knowing it was an optical illusion of intensely flat areas bending away from the eye. Little white dots in the distance were pleasure crafts on the water—yachts, private boats, and cruise liners bearing thousands of souls. They all looked like pinpricks on the horizon. He never realized how vast the Black Sea was. 

In the seven years the Potters had known each other, he’d never seen Draco in swim trunks. And Draco had only ever seen Harry swim during the second task of the TriWizard. Harry wasn’t entirely sure if Draco _could_ swim. Harry only learned because Dudley had taken to throwing him in the community pool one summer. Faced with the prospect of drowning, Harry learned to float even with wet clothes and sneakers weighing him down. 

Draco was bright in the sunlight, his hair turned an immaculate shade of white by exposure, his skin producing extra splashes of freckles. He’d laid himself out on the patio a few times with Harry, getting some color, but he always begged off within half an hour—saying he was getting hot, or bored, or didn’t want a sunburn. There was magic to guard against that, of course. Harry understood Draco was still somewhat uncomfortable having his body, and his scars, on display. That he wanted to go to the beach was somewhat contradictory; a place of beauty, which he’d imagined visiting one day, but perhaps not in the body he now occupied. 

Naked on the beach, Dima and Misha’s bodies were as messed up as the Potters. The brothers didn’t show any hang-ups in displaying their old wounds. 

The entire left side of Misha’s torso—from his shoulder and down, ending at his kneecap—was bubbled by an old potion burn. It looked like he’d bumped into one of his father’s industrial-sized cauldrons as a kid and upended the contents, getting scorched badly. His skin was permanently pink and rather ripply, like the surface of the churning water he threw himself into. Misha’s right arm was mangled around the elbow, where his wing had been burned by dragon fire during the fighting at Malfoy Manor. He’d healed, regaining full use of his arm, but the limb still shifted strangely, a type of bending which was more than mere double-jointedness and bordered on magical contortion. 

Dmitry had peeled his shirt off, revealing his body like a statue of Zeus—imposing, somehow made of iron but appearing as flesh, looking like he could throw lightning. Harry recognized the scar left by a knife wound just below his navel. Someone had tried to gut Dima and nearly succeeded. A slash of hair was missing from his shin—looking like he’d broken his leg so badly the bone had poked through, ridding him of a few hair follicles when his skin had grown back. Harry had the same sort of thing on his forearm—where his bone had broken through his skin under torture from Bellatrix Lestrange. The bone healed, but his hair never grew back, leaving a circular hairless patch made more notable by how black and thick his hair was. 

Like him, like Draco, these guys had been through a war. They’d been to hell and back. It was written on their bodies even as they played in the water. Harry felt in equal company as he toed off his trainers and socks, yanking his shirt over his head, careful to keep his glasses on. He’d spelled the lenses to darken in the sun. 

He touched the drawstring on his trunks, considering. He let himself pause, breathing, his eyes closed, heat and wet salt air on his skin, laughter surrounding him. He let himself feel—a trill of nervous excitement, insecurity, the newness of his body… fear of being judged verses the fear of someone on this beach other than his husband actually finding him attractive. 

Nudity encompassed two opposite categories in his life. Either he was showering in a locker room, a mundane and obliquely non-sexual activity, or he was getting busy with Draco. This beach was the middle ground between those two poles. After a lifetime of extremes, it was of course the normal things, the in-between, which floored him. 

Harry pulled the string—when in Romania!—and let his trunks fall to the sand. 

A woman whistled at him—playful, approving, nothing meant by it but good fun. All she could see was his back, and of course his ass. He still ducked his head, blushing, holding up his left hand to show her one more thing: his wedding ring. 

“ _Îmi pare rǎu_ ,” he said. The apology came from his mouth by way of a Translation Charm. Romanian made his voice thicker—sounding not unlike Dmitry, who’d cast the spell on him that morning. 

By turning to speak, he accidently gave her a free shot of his dick. 

She was fit; possibly in her early forties with some grey streaked through long brown hair which she was drying with a towel, her breasts held still between her elbows, somewhat smashed together. Harry wasn’t so interested in larger breasts but _holy shit_. Her eyes flashed down to his thick cock. 

Harry thought he could almost read the muggle woman’s mind in that flicker of her eyes. _Your being married doesn’t stop my imagination, young man_. 

The naked Boy Who Lived pressed his teeth together in an unconvincing smile. He’d look right silly if he put his shorts back on now; so he stepped out of them, leaving his things in a pile on the hot sand, walking out into the clear waters. 

He absolutely understood why Draco kept his trunks on. Harry, Dima and Misha were alright running about in the nude because their bums and bits were untouched by war. Their bodies wouldn’t attract quite the same attention. 

Draco knew others would look at his scars—the _Sectumsempra_ slash slicing his pectoral, the coral patch of skin ripped from his ribs, and the disconnected pattern of curse cuts and knife wounds, punctuated by tiny circles of cigarette burns swirling like their own constellations against his skin. Those marks alone were hard to look at. 

Draco didn’t want people feeling sorry for him. He didn’t want anyone to see the raised white slip where a knife had cut his cock open—Mulciber threatening to peel the skin off his dick and see how well it worked after. He didn’t want anyone to start wondering about the raised red skin around his urethra, where a searing poker had been inserted, robbing him of a few hundred nerve endings. That image might ruin anyone’s beach day. So Draco kept his trunks on. 

The casual, as-you-like-it attitude of the Ionescue brothers meant Draco’s choice not to bare all was acknowledged, respected, and binned in the blink of an eye. Neither man teased, nor commented, nor seemed to notice that they were nude and Draco wasn’t quite. 

Harry watched Draco wade further out into the water, his pointed face turned up to the sky—sunglasses on his head, enjoying the heat of the sun on his face as the cool water surrounded his body. Harry laughed when Misha tackled Draco, taking the blond underwater. Draco came up just fine, slicking his hair back with one hand, rescuing his bobbing sunglasses from the water with the other. He went after Misha, shoving the kid into an oncoming wave. 

Harry walked out into the sea—baptizing his new body, dunking his whole self under the waves to emerge new.

 

 

 

 

Harry and Dima found themselves invited into a pick-up game of beach volleyball with a rowdy crew of vacationing Australians—a seemingly casual game which quickly escalated to the competitive rivalry of an actual match. People gathered around, cheering for both sides. Harry was glad for the gift of sorcery, and Draco’s merciful Sticking Charm which kept his trunks from falling down on a few dives. 

Harry hadn’t played volleyball since muggle school. It took him a few tries to remember. The brothers seemed well-versed, groaning every time The Boy Who Lived passed poorly or missed the opportunity for a spike. 

Draco stood at the front of the crowd, having used some money from Harry’s shoe to get a large bottle of water, which he tossed to his husband between rounds. It seemed the pureblood had never seen volleyball before but figured it out based on when people hooted, booed, and assigned points via lines drawn in the sand. Harry was glad to see Draco making himself familiar with muggle money and customs, knowing the more Draco interacted with the outside world the more he might feel he had a place in it. 

The Aussies begged them to stay, but they had a surprise appointment: Harry had chartered a yacht to take them out onto the sea. Dima and Misha were going to teach the Potters to fish.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry had trouble keeping his face unaffected as they returned to the palace. He knew Nebojsa had been working all day on Draco’s surprise, and he couldn’t wait to see the expression on his husband’s face at finding out his birthday celebration wasn’t nearly over, but had in fact just begun. 

Dima had finished restoring the ceiling in the largest ballroom. Waiting under the painted horses and birds was the DJ equipment which Harry learned had once belonged to Vuk, along with several kegs of beer he’d ordered delivered, and more than a few of Draco’s friends. 

Harry had sent an owl to Blaise Zabini, asking him to rally the troops; the quiet Italian had outdone himself. 

They got Theo Nott, who’d been in hiding with his mum in Switzerland for the last year—his dad was a confirmed Death Eater at large, but Theo had reached out to Blaise after Voldemort fell, and he and his mum were thinking about coming back to England. Lorenzo Egidio came; the wavy-haired Spaniard was last year’s Keeper for Slytherin and planned to keep on at Hogwarts. There was also Finlay Harper, Slytherin’s Seeker who’d given Draco a good run on the pitch and was mostly recovered from a head wound sustained in the battle at Hogwarts. Harper had his wits back but still showed a few lingering concussion symptoms… like forgetting where he’d left his wand, and getting lost in the process of making toast. He’d responded enthusiastically to the invite—though he wouldn’t be drinking on account of the head injury. 

With the four black-haired Slytherins were two tall blond lads, introduced to Harry as Matthias from Poland and Mads from Norway. They were a few years older, friends of Chern Toleanu, whom Draco had shared many beers with on the Durmstrang ship. Dima had reached out to them as friends of his brother’s. Draco seemed surprised but quite happy to catch up with them. 

Harry got a message to Luna Lovegood, who was staying with her cousins for the time being—they were the children of her deceased aunt Rixenda, the Seer. He was glad her extended family had banded together; if she hadn’t had somewhere to go when St. Mungo’s discharged her, Harry offered her a bedroom at Grimmauld Place until she found her way and felt ready to tackle the wreckage of her childhood home. Harry wasn’t sure if Luna would feel up to a big party, how she might adapt, or who would help her around—but he wanted to extend the invite just the same. The details could be worked out if she wanted to come. He wanted her included. 

Luna declined with the best possible reason: she already had a date that night. A St. Mungo’s potion maker she’d met during her stay. Harry was delighted for her, wished her luck, and promised to catch up when he and Draco left Romania… whenever that was. The more time they spent, the less Harry wanted to leave. 

On an off chance, Harry had owled Viktor Krum, unsure if he or Charlie felt up to a party, either. While Charlie was under the weather, Viktor arrived within an hour accompanied by half of Bulgarian National. 

Angelina Johnson was the first female guest, Harry realized, when she came walking down the drive with George. Misha was stationed at the gate because more and more people kept coming, and as host Misha thought there ought to be a friendly face waving them in. 

They welcomed Lee Jordan, Oliver Wood, most of the Hollyhead Harpies, Troy and Moran from Ireland National, and a dozen beautiful French-speaking witches from Beaubatons. The time difference to America was severe, but they got a few night owls—namely Ivan and Johnny the werewolf, both of whom brought dates. Malaya Moreno bounced in with a few friends, gluing herself to Draco’s side, wishing him a happy birthday with a loud Texan accent and a big kiss to his cheek. 

Harry started losing track of each arrival as witches and wizards streamed through the open doors. He tried to say hello to everyone, introducing them to Draco as was needed and vice versa. Harry hadn’t realized the extent of his own social circle until they had a ballroom bursting with witches and wizards in their twenties or just under.  

Everyone was there, by whatever personal level of conviction, for the Potters. For Harry, but also for Draco. 

Blaise had started the ball rolling. Harry wanted Draco to have familiar faces. Once Harry owled Viktor, and Dima sent out a few messages of his own, their plan of a casual kegger had snowballed into a far larger beast. They were throwing the equivalent of a magical rave, and these first guests were only the chatty beginnings of a much wilder night. 

The kegs weren’t the only things delivered from town. There was food and hard liquor on Harry’s tab. Nebojsa had gone through the palace storage and found sufficient gold-painted tables and chairs to suit their purpose, and their guests were helping themselves. Nebojsa had conjured fluffy white blankets all over the lawn—for after the sun went down, a place to lie back and look at the stars, to smoke a cigarette or grab a snog. 

As the sky darkened they lit fires in large braziers across the property. Harry thought the look was vaguely Satanic: flames everywhere, reflecting off of gold paint, making dancing shadows on their faces. It was how muggles represented evil witches and necromantic rituals in most of their films—shadowed, in elaborate interiors, painted in flame. 

Orange fires against a blue-black night could have thrown his mind back to any number of battles he’d fought. Instead Harry squeezed Draco’s hand, bringing hard knuckles to his mouth to be kissed, lingering over Draco’s wedding ring. 

He’d never been to a proper adult wizard’s party before, and with Draco, he so wanted to know what it was like. 

The social aspect of the gathering shifted as the stars came out. At first everyone had offered birthday wishes to Draco, presenting him with small gifts and well-wishing parchment, engaging him in conversation. They grazed themselves on tables of food and drank sociably. 

When the sky was dark and the stars shone above, Harry enlisted a little help from George to lure everyone out onto the lawn for a fireworks display. 

Part of Nebojsa’s day had been spent distributing treats for the magical creatures on the grounds—drawing them deeper into the woods and providing a distraction from the noise of their guests so the animals wouldn’t get spooked and bolt across the lawn. Nothing ruined a good rave like a Thestral stampede. The impressive Weasley fireworks solicited ooooh’s and aaaaah’s from the crowd, and a few disgruntled clicks and chirps from the woods, but all appeared well in the dark forest beyond the house. Harry knew that Yuri Batushanski and Pavel Gregorovitch himself had stopped by earlier, double and triple checking the wards around the property. Harry didn’t want anything to go wrong on Draco’s day. 

During the fireworks Harry snuck his husband upstairs for a change of costume.

 

 

 

 

Their bedroom was at the very end of the south wing—a spacious corner room with a commanding view. Fireworks burst outside their windows, sprays of color and light across the sky. Sparks formed the shapes of magical creatures… a phoenix, a dragon. George was telling stories about the Potters’ lives in the night. 

The dragon teamed up with a very large pink toad to terrorize the phoenix and a family of red-haired foxes: Dolores Umbridge had been the toad. Harry’s phoenix rescued a bug-eyed critter from a huge white basilisk: the story of when Harry had tricked Lucius Malfoy into setting Dobby free. The dragon exchanged bursts of flame and tail-swats with a tiny otter: Draco and Hermione’s difficult relationship in their Hogwarts days. The red foxes rescued the phoenix from a family of oversize pigs: Fred, George, and Ron flying their dad’s car to save Harry from the Dursleys. 

It was all out of order, just a series of entertaining tableaus for their guests. Standing at one of the many windows of their bedroom, Harry and Draco saw the symbolism. 

Harry went to the wardrobe, retrieving the clothes which Nebojsa had arranged for him. He had no idea what wizards their age wore to parties, and had leaned on Nebojsa to help him out. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t have faith in his friend. He trusted Nebojsa as much as Draco when it came to fashion. But having never seen anything the like of it except for maybe a few racy late-night sci-fi movies which the Dursleys wouldn’t have approved of had they known Harry snuck out of his room to watch… he’d never seen anyone dress this way in real life. He had to be sure no one was pulling his chain. 

He held up the trousers. “What do you think?” Harry tried to keep his voice nonchalant. 

Draco turned from the window, about to spit something pithy. His face shifted, redirecting from mocking to… Draco was turned on. His tongue snuck out to lick over his lips, his sharp jaw canted, head tilting so his hair fell over his forehead. Sometimes Draco turned his face away from things that spoke to his libido—like he was searching for self-mastery, trying to control himself, pretending for the world he wasn’t moved. The way he bit his lip betrayed him. He took a step forward. 

“Oh…” Draco took in air through his mouth, his lips parted. Another step closer. “Oh Potter. You rotter.” 

Harry felt his lips twitch up into a smirk. “That’s a ‘no’ to leather trousers?” 

“Oh Potter,” Draco repeated, emphasis on their surname. His chest lifted, breathing deeply. “It’s a ‘yes’ to leather. Always yes to leather,” he licked his lips again, a flick of anxiety wrinkling his forehead as he touched the garment in Harry’s hand, testing the quality of the leather with his fingertips. It was good—supple, an auburn-russet shade with little cracks of caramel brown showing. Harry had something like an Auror’s vest to match, but it only covered his front, leaving his back bare. Draco sucked at his teeth. “But, if you’re going all out, then I need to rethink….” 

And he lifted the hem of his plain white tshirt. 

Every molecule of Harry’s being screamed—he was supposed to be ripping Draco’s clothes off, especially that simple shirt he toyed with, showing Harry a glimpse of the ash-tone hair of his navel. Harry may have growled because Draco’s face snapped back to his, eyebrows raised. 

“Bothered?” he quipped. “It’s _my_ party. I can outshine you.”

Harry’s body told him to advance, to hover over Draco, to claim the twist of his smart pink mouth. 

“You’d better,” he growled instead. He may have been hovering just a little. 

Draco stuck out a hand, reaching to his side. The Dark Mark squirmed on his arm, his skin flashing green and pink with the light of fireworks. Purple tones caught in his hair. Cerulean blue lit his eyes. 

He Summoned a pair of white Armani briefs. Harry recognized the first pants he’d ever peeled off of Draco’s body. 

“How about these?” the blond teased. 

Closing his eyes so he wouldn’t roll them, Harry snorted. “You can’t wear just your pants, luv.” 

“Yeah? Watch me.”

 

 

 

 

True to his word, Draco _was_ only wearing his pants. Everything else was conjured. 

They raced to the grand staircase, Harry still fastening his top. Three broad leather straps wrapped his chest, holding what was more or less a leather breastplate to his chest. It cut off halfway down his stomach, revealing a line of black hair disappearing beneath the low waist of the skin tight leather pants which had gotten him named a Rotter, then gotten his arse groped once he wormed his way into them. There were no pants for him—not with how tight the trousers were. Harry balked at Draco’s offer to turn a pair of briefs into a jock strap for him. 

Harry wore jocks for quidditch, of course, but they never quite fit right; after an hour or two of activity he often found himself slipping out, or the back straps started digging uncomfortably into his ass, making his thighs go numb. Jock straps were a hassle he preferred to avoid. Tonight, he’d rather go commando. 

Draco hadn’t seemed bothered. “Easy access,” the blond muttered, artfully wrapping a swath of leather around Harry’s upper arm, winding it down his forearm in a pattern which pleased him. 

The result of Harry’s costume was something akin to if Indiana Jones played the role of an Auror, in a porno. He was head-to-toe in leather, with a lot of his own tanned skin showing. Harry almost felt ridiculous; but the way Draco’s hands kept straying back to his arms, adjusting this or that, grazing against his skin… he knew he was okay. More than okay. Draco kept stealing kisses as they tried and failed to make their way back downstairs. Harry’s back kept meeting the gold-covered walls, his muscles felt-up, Draco’s deft fingers sneaking under his top to swirl through the hair on his chest—gripping him, pulling him in tight, sucking powerfully at his bottom lip before laughing, shoving him, tripping away so that Harry would give chase. 

Music pumped from the ballroom below. A few people were still coming into the palace through the grand entrance, the massive front doors thrown wide. They had a large cut-glass bowl on a table where those coming through the door could donate—to help offset the costs of food and booze and equipment. Coins glittered in the low light.

Harry had seen flashing dance-club lights shining across the lawn all the way from upstairs. The party was well underway. The floor vibrated beneath his borrowed boots. 

People in the entryway looked up when they heard Harry and Draco coming. They were laughing rather loudly: Harry because he was nervous and a tad tipsy, and Draco because he was drunk too, and thought Harry’s nerves were hilarious. 

Draco’s hair was naturally bleached after days spent in the sun. He’d lightened it all the way to pure white for his costume. 

Harry thought his husband looked like an angel. He’d always thought that, going so far to nickname Draco _mon ange_. He only called Draco his angel when they were alone. He didn’t think other people would understand what he meant by it. The endearment had always bourn a tinge of dichotomy—Draco was no divine being but rather an untamed creature, complex and stripped, fallen from grace. He had a slew of mistakes on his record, and everyone knew it. But tonight he looked the part of angelic. 

His husband was shirtless, a silver-white dust sprinkling his skin like he’d walked through iridescent rain and it clung to him, shining. In the name of modesty and not inciting a riot, he’d conjured a diaphanous sort of half-toga garment to sling around his hips. It was a suggestion of clothing: it wasn’t real. When Harry chased him around their bedroom his hands had gone right through it, finding Draco’s bum beneath. 

Inspired by Dima and Misha, Draco underwent a complex Transfiguration. He sprouted a pair of white feather wings from his back. They flapped and lifted as he ran, an extension of his body, tucking tight and aerodynamic as he turned, calling loudly for Harry to keep up. He didn’t quite have the power to take flight—but he came close, sliding down the banister with a loud _whoop_ , his feathers unfurled.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

A building hadn’t shaken quite like this since the Death Eaters took down the Ministry of Magic last fall. Harry consciously fought the association—like the muggle cop who’d nearly busted him, confusing club lights and music for rescue operations and gun fire. Harry knew he was safe. It took his hands a moment to catch up with his head. When they’d burst through the ballroom doors, Harry caught himself reaching for a gun which wasn’t there. 

Thankfully Draco had zero hang-ups, tugging Harry along by the hand, leading him into a crowd of bodies jumping and dancing in the swirling lights. 

Harry looked around. This was something he’d never seen before—a entirely new kind of magic culture taking shape before his eyes. 

He remembered the Quidditch World Cup, where older witches and wizards showed up in inappropriate garments: nightgowns, tutus, tea cozies for hats, and so on. This was nothing like that. Mostly because the fashion was deliberate.

One group of friends charmed their skin into silvery scales—it would have taken hours of painstaking muggle makeup to achieve the look, their bodies glistening like human reptiles in the light. A woman enchanted her flower tattoos to bloom and change colors based on the music. A tall bloke had his pet phoenix on his shoulder, the bird trilling along to high notes. Harry spotted a Metamorphagus changing his features to look like the singer of each song—and when he didn’t know a song he invented something of his own imagination. 

Clothing knew no divide of gender. Skirts and dresses on men. Suits or chavy box-like shapes on women. People wore what they wanted, not what anyone told them too. Branches and flowers grew out of people’s skin. Scales and wings and strangely colored eyes that glowed in the dark. 

Presiding over the magical madness was Nebojsa—at the center of the room, on a raised platform surrounded by DJ equipment and towering speakers, with a muggle laptop lighting his face and a set of overlarge headphones blending with his black hair. Harry only recognized him by his hair, and the tattoos on his arms. The rest of him was…. 

“ _Sia looks brill, right?_ ” Draco hissed in Harry’s ear. 

He was wearing a dress. An evening gown, properly. Ruby sequins poured over his body—sleeveless, backless, with a slit that ran all the way up to his hip, showcasing a hairy black thigh. His hair was down, flowing over his shoulders to blend with the ink on his white skin. 

“ _I talked him into it_ ,” admitted Draco. “ _Told him to go shorter—he’s got the legs for it—but no, modesty…_ ” he snorted. 

Harry wasn’t ready to see that. As his mind tried to unscramble the sight, Draco kept on. 

“ _Drink?_ ” 

Numb, Harry nodded. “Yeah. Let’s get you a shot.” 

Famous last words. 

Harry learned why you don’t suggest the birthday bloke to do shots at a wizard rave. 

Firstly, because Draco’s friends fancied lighting their shots on fire. Secondly because they lined up a dozen glasses, even though it was only the Potters, Blaise, and Mads the Norwegian. Then Egidio noticed them and made his way over, which meant another round. Harry watched his husband knock back six little glass tumblers of flaming Ogden’s Own in less than two minutes. 

“What’s the matter, Potter?” Blaise teased him, seeing how The Boy Who Lived picked up his shot and made like he was going to blow it out rather than shoot it down with flames intact. 

Egidio egged him on, too. “I heard you fought a dragon fourth year. Afraid of a little fire?” 

Draco touched Harry’s back, fingertips against his bare skin. _Breathe out so your mustache doesn’t catch fire,_ he advised. 

 _Oh. Great. Thanks, hun._  

Left with little choice, Harry took two shots in succession. He managed not to light his beard on fire. 

Mads reached for the bottle, about to pour another round. Mercifully Nebojsa transitioned the tracks just then, going from a dance song to something out of Dmitry’s collection—decidedly metal, with dark guitars and heavy drums. Harry didn’t recognize it but took the cue when he heard it. He grabbed Draco’s hand. 

“Sorry, fellas. Love this song.” 

He managed to get Draco away without protest. Just his luck that when the lyrics started it was a man and woman screaming in Russian—a livid love song over wailing guitars and a full orchestra—perhaps leading Draco’s mates to believe Harry’s taste in music was a bit more broad than Oasis and The Rolling Stones. 

Drawn onto the dance floor, Draco eyed him. “I’ve never heard this song….” Harry read his lips over the crash of cymbals and the sound of a dozen violins. 

Harry pulled him close. “Neither have I,” he confessed, mouthing up Draco’s temple to kiss the top of his white head. Through the burn of whisky on his tongue he could still taste Draco. “I just wanted an excuse to dance with you.”

 

 

 

 

He monopolized Draco’s time for the next half hour. They danced close, still finding the new fit of their bodies.

Draco wrapped his arms around Harry’s waist, his fingers curling around the leather straps, knuckles brushing his skin now and then as he held on, swaying with the music and the crowd. Harry hooked an arm behind Draco’s neck, keeping him close. He left his other hand free to explore—touches of bare skin, the hardness of each rib bone, and the waistband of his pants beneath that joke of a garment Harry’s hands went right through. 

Other people’s hands didn’t go through, Harry realized, as random strangers passed by or stopped to wish Draco a good birthday. He’d enchanted it to be permeable to Harry alone, which somehow changed The Chosen One’s outlook on their whole night. 

After agonizing about it far more than was healthy, Harry slipped his thigh between Draco’s legs. He didn’t want to seem forward, or imply anything about their sex life to those who might be watching. It was fine if other people knew they _had_ a sex life—they were married, it was a given. What he didn’t want was people making assumptions about pitching and catching based on something like this. Generally a man would tuck his leg between a woman’s, and not the other way around. He knew Draco was sensitive to how people viewed him. “The Golden Boy’s Bitch” he’d called himself, after that ruddy song Peeves made up. Harry didn’t want to contribute to that stigma—but he did want to make Draco feel good. 

He was rewarded by a brush with Draco’s erection, and a white head laid on his chest. To make things abundantly clear, Draco also dropped a hand to Harry’s ass, giving him a squeeze for any interested parties. They’d been thinking the same thing. 

Nebojsa played a long set of metal—Rammstein, Disturbed, Stained, and Mindless Self Indulgence, keeping Harry and Draco firmly on the dance floor. Pockets broke out of mosh pits and people head-banging. Witches and wizards who might’ve never been exposed to muggle music before seemed to like it, running up to Sia to ask after an artist or song, wanting to buy the album later. 

Harry looked around for the Ionescue brothers, thinking they’d be in the middle of a mosh pit. He didn’t recognize them at first. All he saw was the backs of two muscular extras from _Braveheart_. Kilts and combat boots, shirtless, covered in blue tattoos. When they turned, Harry saw their faces—also liberally splashed with the blue markings. They looked like an invading army, and it was just the two of them. Their outfits needed spiked mauls and a longboat to go with. 

Dima wore brown leathers like Harry, and Misha was in black. The kid’s kilt was a bit long on him, making Harry think it was actually borrowed off of Nebojsa. Misha was top-heavy, and could get away with borrowing bottoms off of Nebojsa. Dima looked like a brick wall in a skirt. Both brothers got a lot of attention. 

There was a loud, low _bang_ , followed by a whining sound. The music stopped abruptly, the lights giving one last flash before plunging the grand ballroom into darkness. 

People groaned. 

Harry was so thankful no one screamed. No one panicked or started running. They weren’t about to be attacked. Nothing truly bad had happened. It was just the muggle electricity acting up. Harry suspected they’d blown a fuse in the old palace. 

Nebojsa tapped a few keys on his laptop, then pushed a button on his sound board—confirming by process of elimination that it was the house’s power source that was the issue, since his laptop screen was still lit. It was the only source of light except for the moon, casting a whitish-blue glow around his face, sparkling off of his dress. 

Misha jumped up—vaulting himself onto the DJ platform. With his quick movements, his kilt inevitably flipped up. Several witches let out ear-piercing squeals of delight. Apparently Misha wasn’t wearing any pants. 

“Regimental,” Draco whispered approvingly. “The _only_ way one wears a kilt is regimental.”

Misha put his wand to his throat. Harry recognized a Sonorus Charm. His voice magically amplified, Misha released an intense series of sounds—the slam of a bass drum, the snick of a high-hat cymbal, and a drone like a steady dance beat. He was beatboxing again. This time Harry could hear every detail thanks to the magic in his throat. He thumped. The room shook. People screamed, their hands in the air, jumping to the beat he produced with nothing but his mouth. 

Misha saved the party, hyping everyone right back up again. 

Harry watched as Nebojsa gathered his gown up around his knees before jumping out of his booth. Having been raised in the muggle world, he was the one most likely to be able to fix the problem with the power. 

Harry gave Draco a quick squeeze, bending down to say against his ear. “I'm gonna help Sia.” 

Draco nodded his agreement, swatting Harry on the ass as he turned away. 

Harry glanced back over his shoulder. “Oi! Don’t have too much fun without me,” he teased, partly serious. He wanted Draco conscious when he got back. 

Draco raised his fist—a compliment to the music, Harry thought at first. Then his husband raised his face, his eyes closed, features upturned. Draco was bright white in a mostly dark moving sea of bodies. That was how Harry saw his husband—the brightest light of his life, guiding his way home. 

Harry forced himself to back away slowly, feeling his boots against the floor in a steady toe-heel, toe-heel to the beat of Misha’s voice. He had trouble leaving people: especially Draco, and especially when he looked like that. Harry made himself breathe, reminding his racing mind that nothing was wrong. He wasn’t leaving Draco in a Hogwarts hallway to defend himself against a wave of attacking Death Eaters. He was going to check a bloody fuse box and would be back in minutes. There was no reason for the tight bubble in his chest; it was there, and he breathed into it, asking his body to accept that Draco was safe, a light, right in front of his eyes. 

Draco opened his fist. Light poured out—splintering into thousands of bright, glittery specs, zooming out of his hand and into the air above. They hung like stars in the sky of the room, lighting everyone below, creating a shining nighttime indoor sky. 

People cheered. 

A smile cracking his face, Harry backed out of the room. He could actually s _ee_ Draco getting better, right in front of him.

 

 

 

 

Harry found Nebojsa banging around the muggle utilities—a room with a huge furnace, a water heater, and a few other big metal objects which, though they were muggle, Harry could no longer place their exact function. 

Sia was still holding his dress in one hand, hiked up above his knee, giving an unconscious view of his bare feet and long, hairy legs. His other hand was a fist pressed to the wall, his head and shoulders hunched, staring at the muggle fuse box and muttering under his breath in Serbian. Black hair cascaded over his bare shoulder. Harry’s eyes were drawn down his spine. The black ink almost squirmed on his skin—an optical illusion, that the letters were moving instead of the growing muscles beneath his skin. That dress showed his entire back, showing skin all the way down to the swell of his ass. 

It was mindbending combination of raw power and softness; like smelling colors, or screaming the words “I love you.” Bringing together opposing forces in a single body, allowing them to exist not in combat but at peace. Nebojsa seemed to say he wasn’t afraid to be strong, to show off the body he’d created from the ashes. That he could be soft, could express beauty and gentleness, not just appreciating them but embodying them all at once. Harry found himself lost, staring, inching closer. 

There was a faint rattling—the door knob and other pieces of metal in the room, vibrating with the beat of Misha’s voice. Almost like the tremors before an earthquake. The sound was in the walls, in the floor, making its way to them. 

No one’s hearing was sharp enough to detect Harry’s footsteps over the music. Nebojsa didn’t stand a chance. Harry was about to touch his shoulder when some sixth sense kicked in and the wizard turned, saw Harry from the corner of his eye, and jumped. He shouted, startled, covering his mouth. Harry noticed his eyes, painted over with a strip of black makeup that looked like a mask. Blue lightning stared him down as the man’s heart raced. 

“ _Îmi pare rǎu, Sia_ ,” mumbled Harry. He no longer needed a Translation Charm to apologize. 

Nebojsa jerked his chin at the panel. “Know anything about electrical circuits?” he asked, his hand falling to his heart. “Or are you always this blunt when you want to get a guy alone?” 

Harry blushed violently. He needed to get better at not sneaking up on people—he ought to start announcing himself, or wear louder shoes, or something. 

He stepped up beside Nebojsa, locating the blown fuse by a slight black color within the glass, like flecks of ash. He’d tried the light switches in a few of the other rooms on his way, making sure it was one circuit they’d busted and not the whole palace. Lights worked elsewhere, which meant the ballroom had its own circuit. The contractors had updated the wiring but hadn’t entirely finished, so the many switches on the panel weren’t labeled yet. 

Together, he and Sia poked around the utility room, Sia with his dress up around his knees, bare feet on the stone floor. They found a spare fuse and Harry successfully installed it.

A cheer went up from the ballroom as the lights came back to life... but the music didn’t return. They stepped back into the hallway. Harry still heard Misha’s powerful percussion, and yes, that was Dima’s voice too, singing a baseline. The crowd yelled. Then Dima started rapping. 

Harry stopped dead in the hall. Never in a million years had he expected Dmitry would have that particular talent. Like everything the big Romanian did, it was smooth and confident. He didn’t try to imitate the popular American artist who wrote the song, using his accent to find a unique rhythm which was his. It was like he didn’t need to breathe between sentences—probably because he’d been sucking Nebojsa’s dick for years and, like Draco, had trained himself to a point beyond needing air. 

Nebojsa stopped too, looking back at Harry. His head bobbed lightly to Misha’s beat, his long hair swaying, eyes closing to leave a completely black band across his face, like a blindfold. Sia’s head moved to the music, enjoying it. 

It didn’t surprise Nebojsa one bit that his boyfriend had a secret knowledge of this popular style of music; Dima wouldn’t let on to liking anything normal, wanting people to think he was hard as nails in all arenas. 

Dima was entertaining their guests… showing off. He’d wanted to start a band not just for Draco, but for himself. Maybe, in the name of exposing Draco to more of muggle culture, Dima might expand his repertoire, too. 

Sia didn’t say anything. He did hold out his hand, wiggling his long henna-twirled fingers, asking Harry to come with him back to the party. 

The original song was a duet—the rapper did the verses, with a woman singing the refrain. Nebojsa started humming the vamp in his monastery-trained counter-soprano, his sound lilting down the hall. Holding Nebojsa’s hand, Harry felt like Alice being pulled through the looking glass, through the eye of a needle, as he emerged into the ballroom filled with every color of light. Everywhere he looked, people with magic were dancing. They’d made the maddest tea party for themselves. Harry kept his eyes open for a glimpse of his white-rabbit-dragon in the crowd. 

Nebojsa put on a Sonorus Charm of his own—wandless and wordless, even after he’d been drinking—singing the line of a repetitive little guitar riff with his mouth closed, a hum heard round the room, adding to the impromptu a capella session. His head bobbed, eyes closed, feeling it. They’d done this before. Their voices blended seamlessly, practiced singers used to messing about after a few drinks, knowing each other so well. 

Still holding Harry’s hand, Sia pulled him back to the DJ booth, starting to dance. When he flipped his hair like that, Harry started to sweat. He felt a trickle down his spine. They might need to have a conversation about how this type of gender-bending screwed with the straight guy’s head… or libido… or… Harry wasn’t sure anymore. 

Harry watched as Blaise Zabini and Lorenzo Egidio hoisted Draco into the air, standing him up on the DJ booth with Dima and Misha. 

Harry gave Nebojsa a hand up, too—not thinking much about it, holding the guy’s hand like he was a girl. Harry put his hands on Sia’s ribs, sequins crunching under his fingers, and lifted him up. He wasn’t that heavy. 

A year ago, at the Battle of Ravenwood, Nebojsa had lifted Harry into the saddle by _his_ ribs. Now that they were more or less the same size, Harry was able to return the gesture. 

People clapped and hooted, seeing Sia slink up in his fancy dress, singing the girl’s part. He was absolute confidence, rolling his hips, his hair swinging back and forth across his bare back as he sang. 

When it came time for the chorus, all three wizards pointed to Draco. They were calling him out, daring him, knowing he didn’t think of himself as a strong singer. The challenge was meant to wake up Draco’s competitive side; the part of him which had ruled Slytherin, putting on a show, the center of everyone’s attention. It was his sodding party, anyway. He _should_ sing. 

Nebojsa dropped into his chest voice, singing in unison with Draco to get his confidence up. His big smile did as much as his voice, getting a grin out of Draco. 

Dima growled out a bass line. Misha’s voice rose too, like they were supporting him with their sound rather than words. 

Harry watched as Nebojsa and Draco started dancing, singing to each other. They looked like the muggle representation of an angel and a devil—Draco all in white, his wings fluttering behind him, and Sia, a still-slender man in that slinky red dress with the slit up his thigh. Sia started singing an echo to Draco, the two of them riffing and playing off of one another. Their voices blended effortlessly, like they’d been singing together for years instead of days. 

Once Draco got started his voice was clear. He imitated Nebojsa’s voice, adding a tiny rasp that was all his own. He didn’t need a Sonorus Charm. By some acoustical sweet spot in the room, or the power of his own scarred lungs, he was able to project himself over everything. 

Harry watched, transfixed, as people cheered for his husband. They danced, clapped, hooted and screamed, throwing hands and wands in the air, shooting off sparks of encouragement. It wasn’t just in his head. Draco _was_ that talented, and everyone else heard it, too. 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Somehow he managed to lose Draco in the crowd. Once Dima took over the DJ booth, spinning a combination of techno and grunge, Draco had jumped down with a flutter of wings to dance with Misha and some witches he appeared to know from Beaubatons. 

Harry had gone to fetch a bottle of water, and by the time he was back on the dance floor, Draco was gone. A pair of white wings shining in the lights should have stood out. He rose up on his toes, peering around. No Draco. 

He did lock eyes with Misha who, seeing the expression on Harry’s face, quickly mimed—a habit he’d picked up from Nebojsa. _Wings_ , which meant Draco. _Puffing on a cigarette_. The Dragon went outside for a smoke. Harry nodded his understanding, then held up his palms, urging Misha to continue and tell him _where_ Draco had gone off to smoke. The young prince pointed out the open French doors, onto the lanai, and around the corner. He made a dome shape with his fingers. There was a garden on the east side of the palace with an arched trellis covered in overgrown ivy butting up against the house. That’s where Draco would be. A quiet place to hide, near the woods, to have a smoke in peace. 

Harry nodded his thanks and slipped out the door.

 

 

 

 

People stood on the lanai, enjoying the stars, drinking, smoking, chatting. He recognized friendly faces waving to him along with strangers. Harry made his excuses with his expression and a bit of miming of his own—pointing to his wedding ring, then jerking his thumb over his shoulder. Everyone understood he was looking for his husband and didn’t press him to stay and chat. 

He slipped away from the party, away from the lights, and from people cuddled on fluffy blankets on the grass; holding hands or kissing, lit by the stars. The monk threw a damn good party. 

Harry was tempted to pull his wand and cast a Lumos Charm to light his way. He poked his head around the corner of the palace, down a corridor of green ivy threatening to take over. They’d pulled the worst of it away from the windows at least, to get light into the rooms, but maintaining the gardens wasn’t a priority yet compared to the house itself remaining upright. 

The trellis reminded him of the corridors at Hogwarts—a pointed gothic ceiling of leaves, and windows at intervals spilling light across the path. 

Draco stood in a beam of golden light, a cigarette to his lips. He was barefoot against the paving stones, looking like one of the fresco angels from the palace had come alive—his skin dusted in silver, his hair and wings white. 

Harry rapped his knuckles on the yellow-stucco stone, like he was knocking on Draco’s bedroom door, begging admittance. He was determined to learn his lesson about sneaking up on people. 

Draco’s head snapped up, his cigarette frozen on a path to meet his mouth. Seeing Harry, he smiled. 

“ _Joyeux anniversaire, mon amour_.” Harry had practiced, wanting to say it right. 

Draco’s smile grew. “ _Merci. Une bonne fête, oui?_ ” He agreed it was a good party. He took a contemplative drag, looking up through a gap in the leaves at the stars in the sky above. 

Harry started walking down the leafy corridor, wishing it weren’t so long. His feet wanted to run. Draco waited, a white dragon breathing smoke into the night. 

He was a madman for wanting to snog a dragon. Thankfully the fickle creature seemed to like him alright. 

When he was close enough, Harry got his back slammed against the wall. Draco grabbed him by one of the straps on his chest, putting The Boy Who Lived exactly where he wanted him. 

Harry realized he could get his face level with Draco’s by kicking his feet out wide like he was sitting on his parked motorcycle, legs out and leaning back, letting Draco stand between his thighs. At long last they were equal, able to press chest to chest, as Draco filled his mouth with smoke.

They’d done this before. He breathed slowly, taking what Draco gave, biting at his lip when he’d had enough. They both tilted their heads back, releasing twin columns of smoke into the air. The capacity of Draco’s lungs was insane. He’d been smoking for years and was used to the abuse. 

Draco tossed his cigarette. His hands plied Harry’s stomach, and then lower, working at his trousers. 

Fuck. Draco was going after him. It had been a long time. His whole body broke out in a sweat. Draco seemed to know, taking a lick of his neck, ending with a bite to his ear. 

Harry groaned. He couldn’t help it. The part of his brain still cognizant of where he was cast a wandless _Muffliato_ , just in case someone wandered by and heard them. He knew he couldn’t keep his fucking mouth shut. Not with Draco’s hands working the unfamiliar fastenings of his trousers. Not with those lips and that tongue against his skin. Draco was going to get whatever he wanted, to have his way. Harry was delighted to let him—it was Draco’s birthday, after all. 

Leather trousers opened. Draco grabbed his cock, and the feel of his hand was sublime. 

“Fuuuuuuuuck,” Harry croaked. 

Draco slithered down to his knees looking like an angel—his face pale in the moonlight, white wings spread behind him, licking his pink lips as he stared hungrily at Harry’s prick so close to his mouth. 

“ _I love the way you suck me_ ,” Harry hissed at him. He touched Draco’s jaw. “ _Do you want to, baby? Do you wanna suck me off?_ ” 

Draco’s answer was physical and immediate. He dove forward, taking Harry past his lips and into his mouth—palms pressed to Harry’s hips, holding him back so he wouldn’t thrust just yet. Draco hadn’t sucked his cock since… well, since before he died. Draco needed to find what had changed, to make his own assessments—he probably knew Harry’s cock better anyway. 

Draco released his jaw, sucking him down almost to the hilt. 

Harry saw stars. 

Draco found Harry’s hand, placing it on top of his head. Reflexively, Harry’s fingers curled, gripping. He waited for his pureblood to pull back, waited until he had his knees and feet dug in, ready for what was coming. 

He gave Harry a hint of teeth, raking against his shaft. Harry’s fingers tightened. 

“That’s how it’s gonna be, huh?” he growled. 

Draco hummed around him, agreeing, pulling back to the half point. Harry’s control was gone. He held Draco by his hair, rutting. Big grey eyes fixed on him—staring, refusing to look away as Harry took his mouth. 

He stared. His stomach shook—no way he could last. Not when Draco fixed on him like his life depended on making Harry come. Like it was the only thing in the world he cared about. Draco made his toes curl, made his whole body tense. He made Harry scream, hands fisted in his white hair, pounding into his mouth as he came his brains out. 

And Draco swallowed. He never broke eye contact, as though daring Harry to hold back, daring him not to lose his mind. Draco’s throat pulled at him, demanding everything he had. 

But it didn’t matter how hard he sucked or how long his silver eyes could stare. Harry’s boner wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t anyone’s fault—he hadn’t come like that in months. His body simply wasn’t done. Not yet. 

He dragged Draco back to his feet, pulling him up while vanishing his diaphanous garment and the pants beneath.

Possessed by lust, owned by his still-hard prick, Harry picked Draco up with one arm, pressing his bare back to the wall. Draco’s weight was literally nothing, as if the blond used magic to make himself light enough to fly on those wings. 

Harry wanted Draco as close as possible. He wanted Draco’s face level with his own, their mouths meeting in a heavy crush. Tasting himself on Draco’s slick mouth sent an earthquake through his body—rattling, smashing in his head, barriers falling down at the power in Draco’s kiss. 

“ _Wrap your legs around me_ , _gorgeous_ ,” Harry instructed with a hiss. 

Long, strong legs circled him; squeezing, drawing him in so tight. Draco hooked his knees into Harry’s armpits, his thighs gripping Harry’s torso for dear life—not because he thought Harry might drop him, but because he wanted to give that intense pressure, cutting off some of Harry’s breath, making him feel the same sort of force he used to smash Draco against the wall in kind. 

Draco was absolutely naked. He didn’t even try to use his wings to cover himself. He unfurled them against the wall, looking like a painting. He was stretched out, exposed, laying himself bare for Harry to take him. 

Supporting Draco with one arm, Harry wormed his other arm between their bodies. He gathered their cocks together in his hand, thrusting up against Draco. They were going to come together. He didn’t think about putting his bits in Draco, even though the angle was there. He wanted their bodies experiencing the same thing—the calluses of his hand working them both over, pricks drawn together, their mouths on the same plane, breathing each other. 

He still wasn’t nearly as long as Draco. Harry did worry he’d gained something in girth, which had been less-than-ideal before. He didn’t want Draco worrying about what had changed in his anatomy. He wanted Draco focused on what remained the same: the way Draco lit him on fire, made him lose his mind, made his skin burn and his heart leap into his throat with every desperate sound he made. 

“ _Fuck!_ ” Draco hissed. Parseltongue was beautiful on his lips. “ _Make me come_.” 

“ _Yesssss_ ,” Harry answered. 

Draco looked like an angel. A divine being nailed to the wall. That suggestion of purity did something to Harry’s insides—bringing out a destructive animal that wanted to rip Draco apart. He fought against it. He was larger than Draco now; and was keenly aware of it, pinning the blond to the wall, holding him with the strength of one arm. Harry didn’t want to hurt him, didn’t want to overdo it. He worried he might not know the full strength of his new body. 

But Draco was keening—wailing, begging Harry to go faster, harder, more. He chanted that word in Harry’s ear, hissing, rising, “ _More, more… more!_ ” And then he yelled, a sound like magic and music. 

Harry hooked his trapezius against Draco’s throat like he used to, giving him some of the pressure he loved against his windpipe… and also attempting to keep him a little quiet. _Muffliato_ only muffled so much, and Draco was mouth-watering levels of loud. The sound of Draco’s uncontrolled voice made Harry’s dick kick against his hand. He growled, pressing Draco harder against the wall, thrusting up—slamming into his body again and again, rubbing their pricks together until Draco lost his mind. 

Harry twisted his hand, working his way up Draco’s long shaft, pulling on his foreskin but just never quite touching the sensitive head of his prick, always pulling off at the last second, making him desperate. 

Draco keened. As he thrashed, edging closer and closer, his color started to change—the ends of his hair and the tips of his wings fading from white to platinum blond, then an ashy color to match his pubic hair, and grey which spread over his head and feathers until at last he went to the shadows around them, turning utterly black. His hair as dark as Harry’s, reflecting green eyes, mirroring the growls coming from Harry’s own throat as though Draco were channeling every dark desire in Harry’s own pent-up body. 

Light or dark, Harry worked him over—was determined to fuck him back to life. 

“Yes!” Draco screamed, deep and low from his guts. His hands fisted in Harry’s thick hair, pulling, yanking, his whole body tense. His thighs attempted to squeeze the air from Harry’s lungs. He demanded their faces be together, breathing the same air, eye to eye, mouth to mouth.  “Harry! _Harry!_ ” He slipped back, a Parselmouth again, so close to blowing his load. 

“ _Draco…_ ” Harry echoed. He wasn’t going to last. Magic raced over his skin, tingling in his lips, clinging, imbued in every bead of sweat along his body. He gritted his teeth. “ _God damn it you stupid fucking cunt I love you so fucking much—come with me, baby, come with me, come with me…._ ” 

Draco screamed. It was exactly what he needed: forehead to forehead, looking him right in the eye. Draco shouted in his face as he lost himself. Harry absorbed the man’s mouth, mangling him into the wall as he spilled between them, working Draco’s cock and his own as they both went off—gasping, screaming into each other, refusing to let go.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

It wasn’t yet morning. The sky was lightening slowly, a hazy grey pre-dawn still scattered with stars. Everyone was gone. Harry and Draco, with a bottle of champagne between them, wandered through the halls, back towards the ballroom. 

Music played in the empty hall. A unhurried song, soulful, with heavy bass. Harry could feel the lows vibrating in his chest, shaking ancient dust from the walls. 

Together they peeked into the ornate room. 

Nebojsa was sitting on top of one of the many speakers, his bare legs draped down the side, polishing off the last of a glass of wine. He had eyes only for Dima; elegantly, painstakingly, knowing full fucking well what he was doing… lowering the shoulder of his gown whilst maintaining a searing, heavy-lidded eye contact. The makeup around his eyes was a band of pure black shadow in the low light. His skin glowed with a sheen of sweat. The dress fell, exposing milk-white skin, patterned with deepest black ink. Dima came to him, his arms up, offering to lift Sia down like a princess from horseback. 

Sia dripped down Dima’s body, his bare feet at last hitting the floor. The pair began to sway. Thighs interlocked. Spines rolled. Hips met in an achingly familiar pressure. 

Draco’s nose brushed Harry’s upper arm, inhaling against him. “Are we gonna watch them fuck, or…?”

Harry bit his lip. Lately, he was opening his mind to a lot of things which he hadn’t previously considered. Including sexual possibilities. As much as he was growing and exploring… he didn’t feel quite ready to watch his friends have sex. Seeing them dance, the way they held each other… that was more than enough; it made his heart light, to see them happy. This moment was for them alone, not to be shared. He didn’t know if they wanted to be seen. 

Harry wrapped his arm around Draco, guiding him away. “C’mon. Let’s go to bed.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry put Draco to bed just as the sun began to show on the horizon, the sky lightening beyond the large windows, a wash of orange-gold behind the clouds. Harry cast a charm around their bed to block out the light, letting Draco sleep in peace. His husband fell asleep the second his white head hit the pillow. 

After a few minutes of being still with Draco—stroking his hair, observing his steady breath—Harry went back downstairs to see if the guys needed any help cleaning up. 

He watched Misha vanish trash and repair a few broken objects, pitching in once Misha taught him the spells. 

They couldn’t keep throwing parties like this once the house was fixed up proper—but for now, this grungy mixed-use space aesthetic was working. This party had been a successful test-run of a theory which Harry held: that between their two family names there was enough interest to hold events. For now, raves. Later it might be performances for their band, or fundraisers for charity once the brothers’ accounts were back in order. Between them—Ionescue and Potter—they brought in quite the crowd. 

Nebojsa and Dima came out of the ballroom looking well-shagged. Dima’s kilt was askew, and Sia used his long fingers to comb the snarls out of his hair. They pitched in with the cleaning, setting the house back to rights in short order. Harry didn’t spot a wand anywhere on Nebojsa’s body, and the brothers didn’t show any signs of surprise when he shot spells from his fingers like flicking away water. 

They sat on the lanai, drinking day-old iced espresso as they watched the sun come up. Misha fell asleep with his head in Dima’s lap. Dima levitated his baby brother onto the wicker outdoor sofa, being careful not to wake him, before passing out himself on one of the chaise loungers. That left Harry and Nebojsa sipping at cold nitro coffee, watching the sun turn the sky shades of plum and blood red. 

Nebojsa thanked Harry for his help before telling him he ought to get some sleep too. The comment was almost maternal, not intended to be a dig that he looked tired; although he probably did. 

Harry shrugged. After coffee and that bit of exercise cleaning up, he didn’t feel so tired as he should’ve. “Are you going to vespers soon?” he asked. 

Sia smiled, looking out at the gardens. “Of course.” 

“With your makeup on?” Harry teased him. 

“No.” Nebojsa half-laughed. The rest was a pleasant resignation, his devotion to an order he’d set for his life. It didn’t matter that he was tired. He was going to pray, because it was what he wanted more than sleep. 

In a few minutes he stood up, unzipping his dress. He wormed out of it with a shimmy of his hips, flicking it off his feet like he didn’t need it anymore. Wearing nothing but his underwear, he jogged across the lawn to the lake. Harry watched, blushing a tiny bit, as the Serb peeled off his tight briefs. 

Naked and unashamed—fearless, like his name—he jumped into the lake with an excited sort of scream.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Nebojsa soon realized that Harry sticking around meant he intended to go along to morning prayers. The Serb Summoned his monks robe from the house, slipping it over his head, his hair still wet and dripping. He helped Harry clean the grease paint off his own face with a few carefully aimed spells, his fingers twirling in the air. 

Harry Summoned a plain tshirt from the house, peeling and unwinding the leather from his arms and torso. He inquired whether his leather pants would be upsetting to the other church-goers, but Nebojsa shook his head, so he didn’t bother changing his bottom half before they set out. 

They walked across the lawn as the sun warmed the grass. Nebojsa was still barefoot like some kind of penitent sinner, atoning for his night of revelry as they walked a kilometer to the chapel to pray.

 

 

 

 

The chapel predated the palace, perhaps by centuries. Harry couldn’t tell how old it was. Built entirely of grey stone, in the style of a miniature cathedral, columns rose three stories above them to support a pointed ceiling. There were alcoves with altars to various saints depicted in gold paint, candles flickering before each portrait. The windows were stained glass, elaborate whirls of color, showing stories from the Christian bible. 

Muggles knelt in the pews, whispering prayers, their voices bouncing off the stone to sound like many more than they were. The sound reminded Harry of the Hogwarts ghosts talking to each other through the castle walls. Women had their heads covered with scarves or long sheets of lace. Everyone dipped their heads when they saw Nebojsa coming down the aisle. His robe was a symbol to them, not of magic but of his faith. These muggles seemed to respect him more than the magical world did.

They noticed Harry trailing behind him, offering a soft bob of their heads in greeting before returning to their prayers. 

The front of the church was unusual. Rather than an altar which Harry had been expecting, he was met with a long wooden partition—man-high, each panel painted with the image of saints or angels. An entire section of the chapel was cordoned off, inaccessible, hidden behind the wall. Like the black curtain deep within the Ministry of Magic, separating the living from the world of spirits and the divine. Like that curtain, Harry heard whispers. He tried to convince himself it was only the echo of those praying nearby, a trick. 

Nebojsa slid into a pew and knelt. Harry took up a position beside him. The leather of his trousers stuck to the little kneeling bench, almost gluing him down.

The congregation pulled little books from the pews, leafing through. Harry took a look—all written in Cyrillic. He blinked a few times as his Translation Charm did some untangling. The book wasn’t in Romanian but some closely-related religious language. Sia touched his shoulder, giving the burst of magic he needed to read the page. It unscrambled, revealing the words to prayers and hymns. 

A bell tolled from the high tower over the entrance. A squeak echoed the bell—some mechanism within the tower in need of oil, a metallic whine following each deep chime—the two sounds swinging.

They rose, the creaking of old people’s joints and the _clunk_ of kneeling benches returned to their proper position. Colored morning light touched their heads from the windows, lighting hair and lace, warming their shoulders. 

Nebojsa sang first. He chanted, his eyes closed. Everyone fell in behind him, finding their notes. They let his words speak for them, sustaining sounds, leaving a perfect ring in Harry’s ears. 

Harry found his voice with theirs. He settled near the bottom of their chord, the opposite of Nebojsa’s angelic high which cut over them all. 

He’d always been tone-deaf. His singing made Draco flinch and beg him to stop. Harry sang anyway; mostly to annoy Draco, but also because he felt like it, especially when he was happy. Now he realized that his voice, his notes, were correct. He must have gotten singing from Draco as part of their shared post-horcrux magic. 

Harry listened to the other low voices in the church. Their sound was echoing, ancient, one with the stone walls and high arches flying above them. Harry couldn’t follow the songbook in his hands—he still didn’t know how to read music no matter how hard he stared at the lines, hoping they’d make sense. Apparently he hadn’t gotten the aptitude for reading music, just the sense of pitch and timing necessary to carry a tune. 

Harry opened his ears, listening, taking his queue from the congregation around him. He waited for another bass to sing a note or vowel sound, and would join in a second later, adding his voice to their prayer. 

Their singing was a kind of magic—hopeful, lifting their voices to ask of power, looking for help, morality, guidance. That was all an incantation was: a wish. When you were a wizard, something inside of you answered it. For muggles, they had to wait for their God to make the impossible become real. 

Sometimes Nebojsa would look over at him, a question in his straight black eyebrows. Harry tried to remember if he’d ever sung in front of Nebojsa before. He couldn’t remember. He usually only sang in the shower, or in front Draco when they were on the piss. Draco never sang _with_ him: Harry dearly hoped that might change. 

Harry had leant his poor voice to Orthodox music only once before—four or five hours north of here, in the makeshift chapel of a Moldovan prison. And he heard the chants from Nebojsa when he stayed at Grimmauld—lilting syllables, aching, staying in his ears long after the man stopped singing. That voice was a part of Sia’s magic, perhaps something he might be able to teach Draco someday. His sound was from another world; filled with power, but merciful, always reaching out for something. Harry wanted Draco to see that pert of himself, his ability to connect with others through his music. 

Nebojsa was the cantor, the leader of their morning service. He sang all the prayers, the laments, the hopes for a better future. The congregation followed him. They accepted him as their leader. It didn’t matter that he was a strange man—piercings and so many tattoos which were incongruous to their old fashioned religion, his long hair and soft face. They had no explanation of why he left Serbia or why he wore monks robes but wasn’t quite a monk. The people in that church couldn’t know the long and stony path which had brought him here, brought him to his knees. But they saw in him a man to be followed—a humble leader with a good heart. They knew he was someone to trust. 

 _That was the true power of magic,_ Harry thought. When you used magic for good, from a place of peace and with love in your heart, that radiated off of you. It was how he thought of his mum. And it was how he thought of Nebojsa.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Returning to the palace, Harry and Nebojsa went to the kitchen. It was a long, cavernous room partly underground. It would have been worked by a dozen or more house elves when the house was occupied. There were little stools everywhere, which the elves would’ve used to reach the human-height counters and cabinets. 

A long, worn work table dominated the space. Dima sat at the end, a quill in his hand, parchment on the table, counting money. He had three shoe boxes—one each for galleons, sickles and knuts. He tabulated the results of the night, their intake minus their expenditures. Those ledgers he guarded so closely Harry might’ve thought they were state secrets. Dima bent over the page a bit like a brute not wanting to share his spoils of war. 

Misha stood at the burning hearth, wearing boxers and his big brother’s Rammstein tshirt—it was too big in the shoulders, and hung slightly off of his neck, like a girl wearing her boyfriend’s shirt. Misha was in phenomenal shape, but he wasn’t near as big as Dmitry. Dima was a mountain troll sitting at the end of the table, counting his gold. 

When Misha turned to greet them, Harry saw he was cooking bacon in a pan floating over the fire, turning the strips with a flick from his wand. Each piece he cooked he would deposit on a plate on the table lined with a napkin to catch the grease. Within seconds Dima would snatch the slice up and eat it, leaving no bacon for anyone else. Dima didn’t seem to realize he was being selfish, that his brother was accommodating him; and Misha just kept feeding him. That blind support of a mildly-narcissistic personality was vaguely reminiscent of a number of other wizards Harry had known in his lifetime. 

Pureblood men like Dima were raised to believe they were the center of the universe, and that it was right and natural for others to cater to them. And the more powerful they were, the more others tended to reinforce the practice. Even Misha felt in some way obligated to fulfill Dima’s whims; out of love, of course, but his actions still supported the idea that Dima shouldn’t have to lift his wand so long as Misha and house elves and others “less than him” were around to serve him. 

That was how Draco had grown up, too. 

Harry understood why Dima and Nebojsa argued so often. As much as they agreed about the big and important things, they came from very different backgrounds, and had quite different motivations behind their actions. Nebojsa’s focus was outward—he always thought of other people, of making an impact and doing good. Dmitry thought of himself first. Everything he did, even the good stuff, came from a place of what it meant for _him_ rather than how he might impact other people.

Harry sat down next to Dima, pouring himself a cup of hot coffee from a carafe on the table. He also snagged the next available piece of bacon. The grease didn’t exactly burn his fingers, but it was hot. He offered the piece to Nebojsa, who stood leaning against the door frame, observing. The Serb declined, and Harry ate the bacon instead while Dima stared at him. Apparently no one took his food before. Harry smiled at him, cheeky. 

“So. How’d we do?”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Lightning flickered. It left streaks of purple across the insides of Draco’s eyelids. He started counting, for something to do. It took until the count of six for the rattle of thunder. The storm was getting closer. 

According to Harry’s muggle guide book, it rained often during the summers. Draco had taken to reading the book at night when he couldn’t sleep. He’d read it three times now. 

Harry slept more or less on top of him—his new weight was almost stifling on a hot night. Draco couldn’t wait for winter, when Harry’s heat would feel less like a hot bag of sand smashed against his lungs. 

His husband slept like he was dead. Not even the storm outside disturbed him. Harry barely whispered Parseltongue in his sleep anymore. He didn’t snore, either. He looked dead except for the breath leaving his nose, fluttering the hair on Draco’s chest. 

Draco pried Harry off of him, working his way to the edge of the bed. Without his husband’s weight he was suddenly cold. Rain lashed at the windows, making the interior of the palace a wash of greys even with candlelight. Shivering, Draco put on pajama bottoms and borrowed one of Harry’s old jumpers. It was tatty but it smelled like him. Draco started down the hall, not sure what he would do. Perhaps a cup of tea, or…. 

Strange sounds stopped him short. It was a very odd scream—like a creature he couldn’t place, something elf-sized but reptilian. Interspersed with the death screams of these creatures was a repetitive banging sound. That one he knew: it was muggle gunfire. But it was so faint. It couldn’t be real. A movie? Television? His familiarity with both was increasing incrementally. 

Draco knocked on the door. It wasn’t properly closed, creaking, swinging open when his hand touched it. 

The ornate room was bathed in a pale blue-green light. Its source was what Draco recognized as a TV, though quite a large one. Beyond the television was a carved sofa—trimmed in gold, of course—upholstered in a rich, darkly colored velvet. Purple, blue, Draco couldn’t make out in the light. Sprawled out on the sofa was Dmitry, wearing athletic shorts and a singlet. Obviously he didn’t think it was that cold. In his big hands he held a bit of plastic roughly the size of a Bludger. His fingers tapped at it. Draco realized each movement of his fingers corresponded with the sound of gunfire, as though Dima was somehow dictating or even controlling the film he watched. 

Draco stepped closer, peeking around to look at the screen. He watched as the tip of a gun swiveled around—held by invisible hands, seeking out a target. 

Something which looked like a very sick, possessed house elf jumped out from behind a corner on the screen. Dima’s fingers snapped against plastic buttons, and bullets flew out from the gun, shooting the creature dead. Blood sprayed and it fell, collapsing against a wall. It was remarkably life-like, though he’d never seen a creature magical or otherwise which looked quite like that. 

Draco had never seen anything the like of this before. He assumed it to be a form of entertainment. 

“What do ya call this?” His last Translation Charm had worn off, and his voice came in English. 

Dima glanced at him, his honey-colored eyes sliding from the screen to take in Draco, then back. “Killing aliens.” 

Draco’s face scrunched. “Aliens?” 

“Little animals from outer space.” His tongue stretched L sounds, but his accent was fading the more he spoke English. There was a blast from the television, and the sound of many little slimy aliens dying horrifically.

Draco pointed at the screen. “What is it?” 

Dima tapped a button, and the entire screen froze, darkening. He cocked his head at Draco. “Yoo have never zeen zomeone play a video game?” 

Draco shook his head. 

Dima sat up, scooting to make room for Draco to sit next to him. He patted the velvet couch, encouraging. 

Draco obliged, sitting. He looked between the screen and the bit of plastic in Dima’s hand. “It’s a muggle game?” 

Nodding cheerfully, Dima explained what each of the buttons did, how to control the field of vision and the firearm, or to look at a list of imaginary objects to use against the alien invasion. 

Draco had to remind himself that Dmitry knew a great deal more about the muggle world than he did. Dima and Sia had hidden themselves as muggles for the last two years to escape his father. Two years had garnered him quite extensive knowledge whilst Draco had remained secluded… until Harry came along.

Draco held the controller, trying his hand at tapping on the buttons. It buzzed and vibrated softly against his palms, almost like a Snitch.

“Who taught you this?” 

Dima smirked. “Nebojsa.” 

The Prince jerked his chin over his shoulder, into a darker part of the room. Draco realized this was their bedroom. Behind the sofa, in shadows, was a grand bed—a canopy trimmed in gold and velvet protruded from the wall, held up by delicate marble columns around an enormous bed, large enough for at least four people. It looked like a bed where gods and kings might sleep. Curled in the blankets was the dark mass of Nebojsa. Draco could make out his shiny black hair, reflecting the light of the television, his head resting against a white pillow. 

The Serbian wizard was dead to the world—a heavy sleeper like Harry. Not even the sound of simulated gunfire disturbed him. Draco was more than a bit jealous. Wind against the window could wake him up sometimes. 

Draco looked between the bed, the television, and a generator still sitting in the corner. They’d had the tele and game set before the power came back on, using the generator to fuel Dima’s late-night hobby—meaning they’d either sold mushrooms or sold themselves to get it. Since this was muggle technology, Draco got the feeling it had been Nebojsa selling his cock… to surprise his partner with this treat. That struck him as something remarkably like Harry—always giving gifts, wanting nothing in return; always thinking of others before himself. 

“Zome nights I cannot sleep,” admitted Dima. “Zometimes for days.” 

“ _Insomnia?_ ” Draco provided the term in Parseltongue. Snake-hiss was quickly becoming the universal language of the house, understood by everyone but Misha. Dima wasn’t able to speak it, but he understood whenever they hissed, just like Draco had begun to understand when he and Harry started dating. After the battle—after what he privately considered to be Harry’s possession of him—Draco was able to speak it. It still felt strange, like the language didn’t entirely belong in his mouth. He had to concentrate, but he could do it. 

Dima confirmed. “ _Da_. _Srce moje_ taught me to play games, to take my mind off of….” 

Draco understood. They both had plenty _not_ to think about—most of their lives ought to be blocked out, Obliviated. Forgetting the past really was for the best. They’d never be the boys they were; Draco had no interest in going back, and thought Dmitry might feel the same. 

It was only recently that things got better. Sometimes it didn’t feel that way. Like the next alien to slither around the corner might be Voldemort or Dima’s father come back to haunt them, or some new unknown enemy descending from the skies. If only taking them out again were as easy as squeezing a trigger.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **POST SCRIPT:** If you're as in-awe of Daria Stavrovich as I am, check her out [live](https://youtu.be/ivZg_e2xc4A) with an orchestra. In 2014 she was stabbed in the neck by a fan at a meet-and-greet. She fought back with her bare hands. Still singing. The definition of a bad-ass.


	7. Bittersweet Symphony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry navigates what it means to wield power judiciously, bringing his weight down on the Ministry and working to repair his relationships with Ron and Hermione. Draco and the guys form a band.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** language, mention of blood play, light kink-shaming, mentions of capital punishment and criminal activities, politics

 

 

 

_It’s just Sex and Violence_

_Melody and Silence_

 

 

“[Bittersweet Symphony](https://youtu.be/1lyu1KKwC74)”

The Verve

 

 

 

Harry found himself dressed formally, much to his distaste. It was a necessary evil required in order to get shit done. The right clothes opened near as many doors as his name or his scar.

He was leaving Grimmauld Place by Portkey; Dima and Misha with him. They were all wearing robes—the brothers in black, because that seemed appropriate, somber, respectful—and Harry in his American Field Ops uniform, minus the sword. He didn’t want to go all the way to Gringotts and back for it. He still looked sufficiently frightening without a blade on his hip. 

Dima told him he looked sharp, that the Americans had some of the best-looking uniforms of magical law enforcement. Misha didn’t say anything, caught up in his own head and looking nervous. Nebojsa lacked their levels of anxious attachment: he was downstairs in the kitchen, making lunch for himself and Draco. They’d all been living together for more than a month, so Nebojsa didn’t feel the need to stand there and watch, waving goodbye, every time someone left the house—as though they’d never come back again. That was Harry’s problem, and Draco’s, and the Ionescue brothers’. 

That was why they all stood in the same room, all close enough to touch, waiting for the Portkey. 

Draco kept picking invisible lint off of Harry’s arm, adjusting his epaulettes—looking for an excuse to touch him, to preen, to feel the warmth of his body and the hardness of his deltoid under his dark green sleeve. Harry always wanted Draco to feel comfortable enough to reach out and have physical contact whenever he wanted. He needn’t fabricate a reason, Harry didn’t mind. But Draco had his prim pride, and wouldn’t be seen reaching out to Harry for some sodding _emotional_ reason, even if they were among friends. 

Harry had his fingertips to the Portkey, a statuette of an octopus. Dima and Misha held the tentacles firmly. Any second they would be taken away to the temporary offices housing the witches and wizards who worked in the Records Department of the Ministry. They were still using facilities on loan from the Norwegian Ministry in Oslo; the premises in London remained unusable for the time being. Having been imprisoned there briefly with Nebojsa, Harry knew the Death Eaters had trashed the place. It would need to be cleaned and thoroughly examined top-to-bottom before the business of governance could resume there. 

Harry adored the Norwegian Ministry building; with its pale wood and open windows looking out into nature. It was nothing like the British Ministry—dark, austere, every corner seeming to conceal something sinister. Harry disliked that his own country’s concentric bureaucracy was camping out in such a pure sort of place, hiding, trying to disguise itself in beautiful surroundings. He wouldn’t be fooled. 

With a tug, the Portkey took them away.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Following Kingsley Shacklebolt’s information, Harry let himself into a small glass office on the third floor. There was a lovely view of green trees and the city of Oslo nestled in the bay below. The room was sparsely furnished—a desk, a few chairs, an empty bookshelf, with nothing on the white walls. Truly a loaner office. 

A mousy man with a weak chin and a quill behind his ear looked up from a stack of paperwork. 

“Are you Merril Ainsworth?” Harry barked. 

Startled, the wizard nodded. 

Harry used his foot to shut the door behind himself. “Good,” he said flatly, not sounding pleased at all as he stalked closer. He sat on the edge of Ainsworth’s desk, leaning, to speak in the man’s face. “You know who the fuck I am. We’re gonna have a conversation.” 

The man’s eyes noticeably widened as his pupils retracted in fear. His gaze flickered over Harry’s hunter green and black uniform, landing on Harry’s forehead, trying to catch a glimpse of his lightning bolt scar. But Harry’s hair was too long, starting to curl at the ends, obscuring the famous mark. Ainsworth rightly knew who was sitting on his desk, glaring at him. Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. The Chosen One. 

He visibly, audibly gulped. 

There was no stern spine in this man. The easier for Harry to steamroll over. 

Harry pointed through the glass wall, to his brothers dressed all in black. His voice was low, smooth. “You see those two boys out there? That’s Dmitry and Mikhail Ionescue. They’re my best mates. And for the last two years they’ve been out on the streets, surviving by their wits and the kindness of strangers. They’ve been on the lam—because their father murdered their elder brother in front of them, and was trying to kill them, too. They fought beside me at the Battle of Ravenwood. They fought with me at Hogwarts. They fought at Valaam. And they fought at the Battle for Malfoy Manor.” 

Harry jabbed his finger at Misha. His arm bore a tweak of rage. “Do you see that kid right there? He’s sixteen. A couple months ago, when he was only fifteen, he got himself burned by dragon fire trying to help me. He asked for nothing in return—nothing—even after he nearly died in my arms. Twice. He’s the real fucking hero. Not me.” 

Harry scooted closer, his butt disturbing Ainsworth’s paperwork. Harry didn’t give a shit. The wizard was petrified, unmoving, not even blinking; it was wiser to let Harry Potter speak uninterrupted. 

His voice dropped even lower, resonating in his chest. “Now, I don’t know what you need to declare Tihomir Ionescue officially dead. I don’t really care. Whatever it is, I’m going to stay in this building and kick down every door you put in front of me until the file is complete, and you take your fucking little stamp,” Harry picked up said approval stamp off the desk, tossing it in the air, catching it, and then held it an inch from the man’s nose. “And make this problem go away. Are we clear, Mr. Ainsworth?” 

The man was trembling. 

“Are we clear?” Harry repeated, dark and soft, through clenched teeth. 

Ainsworth’s under-bite of a chin bobbed. He spoke with a stutter. “To de-de-declare His Grace Ionescue deceased, w-we need a corroborating witness st-statement.” 

A sarcastic head-tilt caused Harry’s hair to reveal his scar. Ainsworth stared at it. 

“Lucky us,” said Harry, deadpan. “Dmitry saw his father die. Does his testimony count?” 

Ainsworth nodded. So Harry got up, stuck his head out the door, and called for Dima. 

Both brothers came. Harry couldn’t blame them for wanting to stick together. They stood shoulder to shoulder before the desk. The two of them still passed for a mountain range—like the rolling tree-covered hills outside, they fully and unapologetically occupied any room they entered. It still amused Harry that Misha, the baby brother, was slightly taller and still growing. 

Harry gestured towards Ainsworth, who’d gotten up from his desk and made an awkward bow to Dima and Misha. “Your H-Highnesses,” he mumbled awkwardly. That was a great way to get Dmitry’s temper going. Harry pressed his palm down towards the wooden floor, suggesting Ainsworth ought to sit down and keep his mouth shut unless he had something useful to say. 

Meeting Dmitry’s eyes, Harry jerked his head back at the Ministry man. “He needs to hear how your father died.” Quick, like ripping off a band aid; that was what Dima preferred. Misha, too. They didn’t want to wade in it—they just wanted to get what was rightfully theirs and move on. Harry was there to facilitate, to pour petrol on the slow-burning fire. 

Big hands stuffed up opposite sleeves—a monk-like habit from Nebojsa—Dima thought back to that night. “My fazher vos trying to kill me. I vos in my Animagus form and could not defend myself,” he said simply, which was true, but not complete. “My best friend, Nebojsa Radič, jumped between us. Zhey dueled. Radič won.” Overly simplistic, but true. 

Ainsworth pulled out a file, comparing what Dima said to what looked like a report from the battlefield. He nodded. 

“And the, uh, m-m-method of, uh…?” He wanted to know how Sia had bested the Death Eater General, executing him, but didn’t have the guts to finish his own sentence. 

Misha and Dima looked at each other—their heads didn’t move, but they managed to catch golden eyes in periphery. They were trying to decide how much more to reveal. Dima’s account had to match what the Aurors and clean-up crews had found, otherwise the paperwork would remain in limbo… and so would their futures. 

Dima looked to Harry. The Prince chewed the inside of his lip when he was nervous, just like Draco did. The expression was similar; his cheeks sucked in, looking sour for anyone who didn’t know him better. Harry nodded— _yes, you have to tell the truth_. 

Dmitry was only willing to offer two words. “Blood Sorcery.” 

Ainsworth’s brow pinched. He pulled the quill from behind his ear, twiddling it in his hands; giving himself something to do because he didn’t want to speak. “I’m afraid… you’re going to have to be more specific. That d-d-doesn’t match what’s in the report.” He tapped the feather of his quill against the stack of parchment sheets. 

Harry rolled his eyes. “Then tell us what the report says,” he ordered. 

Thinking better of arguing with Harry Potter, Ainsworth flipped through the pages. “Your father’s body was discovered severely emaciated, with his hands, ribs, and spine broken. His body was covered in cuts and abrasions. It appeared he’d been tortured for quiet some time—several months—which is inconsistent with the amount of time he was on the battlefield. He was sighted days earlier whole and healthy. It was determined that he died of asphyxiation.” 

An vicious way to die. Tihomir Ionescue deserved it, though. It would be a weird state for a battlefield corpse, even by magical standards. 

Harry looked at Dmitry. He didn’t look surprised. His stern face didn’t change at all—he was still chewing his lip, still surly and a bit chilly. 

Dmitry was stubbornly holding on to a piece of this puzzle which he didn’t want to share. His pride was at war with his sense of self-preservation. And at the center of the storm was Nebojsa. Dmitry didn’t want to get the love of his life in trouble, nor did he care to reveal what Nebojsa was capable of when pushed. Like himself, like Draco, Dmitry wanted to keep this secret as quiet as possible. The wizarding world would not react well to their new-found powers. 

“S-S-Sorry,” stuttered Ainsworth. “You’re going to have to explain ‘B-Blood Sorcery.’” 

Harry sighed; already knowing that he was about to pull heat onto himself to protect his friends. That was just who he was. 

He’d likely started this mess. Or Voldemort had, and it was Harry’s job to finish what that scaly fucker started. So he stuck his hand out, palm up. He turned himself inward, focusing the anger and frustration he felt. A small blue light appeared, and then more, orbiting his hand, snaking like lightning in slow motion, tendrils sparking around his fingers. He held his hand out over Ainsworth’s desk. 

“It looks something like this,” Harry offered. “Except Radič’s is white.” 

Impressively, Ainsworth didn’t faint or piss himself. He _was_ looking at Harry like Voldemort reincarnated. “And w-w-w-what does it do?” 

Harry let his hand drop, the light fading with it. “Well that depends on the sorcerer. Mine is an amplifier—it makes my spells stronger, or I can feed it into someone else to temporarily increase their output.” 

Dima added privately in Romanian, “The Dragon’s is healing. I saw him use it when you were unconscious, after….” 

Harry nodded. He looked back at Ainsworth, to be sure the Ministry wizard didn’t speak Romanian on the off chance. He looked as clueless as ever. 

So Harry spoke, trying to make it sound as though he knew what he was saying all along—that he wasn’t reasoning his way through it on the fly. “Radič’s ability is a kind of reciprocity. Karma. He spent a year under torture in a Death Eater prison. They broke his hands. His ribs. Daily.” As Mulciber had done to Draco, sometimes on the hour. And Harry could never forget watching Bellatrix Lestrange choke Nebojsa to death in Pavel Gregorovitch’s body, leaving him dead for at least a minute before resuscitating him. That would explain how Nebojsa was able to asphyxiate Tihomir Ionescue. Because Nebojsa had died once before, in the same manner. 

Harry folded his arms across his chest. “Whatever’s been done to harm Nebojsa Radič, he can return in kind.”

Dima gave the tiniest of nods, his head barely moving—but he let Harry know his assumptions about the Serbian wizard’s abilities were correct. 

Ainsworth gulped again, clearly uncomfortable. 

Misha made a disgruntled, grossed-out-little brother sound, screwing up his face at Dima. “Ew! I’ve seen you two use that when you fuck!” Thankfully he didn’t say it in English. 

Dima rounded on him, raising a finger in warning. “Hey! No kink-shaming.” 

Even under Translation, it took Harry a few seconds to process that interaction. Like Harry and Draco, Sia had probably found his ability by chance—while in bed with Dima, accidently blasting him with white light… accidently hurting him. And since they kept using it that way, sexually, often enough that Misha caught them in the act: that meant… Dima, like Draco, was into pain. Possibly quite a lot of pain. Tortured-at-the-hands-of-Death-Eaters kind of pain. Or maybe he just wanted to know what Nebojsa had been through, to feel it in his own body, to take on some of that suffering as a way to know him better. That much Harry could understand. 

Misha’s reaction implied that what Dmitry enjoyed in bed was somehow wrong—laying on some brotherly guilt, making Dima feel bad for what he liked. And that was something which didn’t fly according to their new household rules. Shaming, de-humanizing, and degrading were the old pureblood ways, and Dima didn’t want to fall into old habits after they’d come so far to be better. He pushed back on Misha immediately, challenging him, rejecting that shaming tactic. Their dad had used it against them their whole lives. 

Harry had never heard the phrase _kink shame_ before, but he’d felt it. He liked to catch, and people made fun of him for it, as though it was in some way unmanly to want a prick up his ass. He liked giving Draco blow jobs and considered himself to be pretty okay at it; again, he got mocked for it. He’d gotten dirty, confused looks for the ways he and Draco liked to fuck, for the violence which sometimes occurred between them, even though they both wanted it. Other people felt the need to police his sexuality—to try to make him feel guilty, ashamed, wrong, because of what got him off. 

Harry leveled a stern glare at Misha; the kid tried to pull an innocent face but Harry didn’t let up. The depth of his voice surprised him, even though his voice was always lower in Romanian. “It might not be your preference, Misha—but don’t you shame your brother for being brave enough to admit what he likes and get his needs met.” 

Duly chastised, Misha’s cheeks turned pink. He looked away, muttering an apology to a stunned Dima. 

Dmitry wasn’t used to anyone but Nebojsa sticking up for him. Especially when it came to unorthodox sex. _Well,_ Harry thought, _welcome to the new world order. You’ve got me in your corner now._

Harry forced himself back to the Ministry man. “Does that work for you? Radič used his ability in defence of another to put down a mass murderer.” He left unsaid that Tihomir had gotten exactly what he deserved in the end—to feel a fraction of the pain and suffering he’d inflicted on others all his life. 

Ainsworth’s quill scribbled. “That’s ce-ce-ce-certainly enough f-for the Death Record,” he stuttered his way through—nerves. He picked up his stamp to officiate the record. Ainsworth drew his wand, cast an inking charm at the stamp, and tapped it down on several pages. That much was done. Harry almost breathed a sigh of relief, but then Ainsworth had to add, “You’ll st-st-still need to see Stapleton about the f-fines.” 

A low growl rumbled from Dima’s throat, like an angry griffin flapping its wings, wanting to charge, wanting to kill. Ainsworth squirmed in his chair. 

“Fines,” Harry grumbled. “Who the fuck is Stapleton and where’s his fucking office?”

 

 

 

 

Ainsworth lead the way. 

As they walked, Harry asked Dima if what was said about ‘fines’ made any sense to him. 

“Conviction fees,” he explained under Translation. “Anyone found guilty of being a Death Eater must pay fees to various Ministries, to be dispersed to victims and families.” 

“Your father’s victims?” 

Dima looked like an owl when he raised his eyebrows. His eyes were huge and bright. “Not necessarily. They assess whatever fine they like. And there’s no way of knowing how much gold goes to who, if it supports my father’s victims or any victims at all. No rhyme or reason to it. The more you have, of course, the more they want.” 

That seemed suspect to Harry. If the money wasn’t given directly to victims, then where did it go? What programs or offices did the fees support? Had _he_ ever benefited from these fees? He was, after all, a victim of countless convicted Death Eaters. As far as Harry knew, he’d never seen a knut for all the times a Death Eater had tried to bump him off, of which he’d lost count years ago. Maybe the Ministry was still tabulating, and he’d see his own pay-out. Doubtful. 

There was a spitting-angry creature coming to life in Harry’s gut. 

He protested as they walked. “Even if the Death Eater in question is dead? They’ll fine the surviving family, post-mortem, for the crimes of their dead relative?”

Dima nodded. 

That jerked Harry’s chain. He didn’t think children should be punished for the sins of their parents. Anything ill-gotten should be removed, of course, if the Death Eater had stolen, or taken bribes, or committed some other financial crime; but the rest of their gold ought to go to the deceased person’s family without further interference. It was hard enough losing an adult family member; a wage-earner, a parent, a spouse. Those left behind still had to eat, had bills to pay; if they weren’t involved in the Death Eater movement, why should they be made destitute? To Harry, it tasted more of revenge than restitution. The balance was off. 

They’d arrived at Stapleton’s office. 

Harry had enough fire in him to kick the door down; instead he consoled himself with shouldering it open, barging in. 

Three wizards sat at their desks with reams of parchment and bags of money, counting. They reminded Harry of scenes from mobster movies—all they needed was a few cigars, curls of smoke coming up from their desks, and a machine gun or two propped in the corner. Their faces looked like they’d been caught with their dicks in something they shouldn’t be. 

Harry had promised door-busting, and he delivered. 

Harry let everyone get a good look at him—the deep green of his American uniform to match his seething eyes, his signature messy black hair and glasses, the wand in his hand a twin to Voldemort’s. He gave them that moment to understand who’d just banged his way into their office. And then he boomed, “Which one of you lot is Stapleton?”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

An hour later they all stood in the Gringotts lobby. Misha had flooed back to Grimmauld to fetch Sia and Draco. They had business with the goblins. 

Harry about hit the floor when Stapleton assessed the Ionescues a fee of fifty thousand galleons—almost three times what Harry had loaned them for repairs to the palace. Dima agreed without blinking. There had to be a lot more gold than that in the family vault if he was willing to give so much without a fight. 

Stapleton then turned himself on Harry, demanding eight thousand galleons on Lucius Malfoy—and that was just the fine to unlock the bank vault which rightfully should have been Draco’s. Harry shelling out close to thirty thousand GBP didn’t even get Malfoy Manor back; the house had to be released by a different department, with another fee assessed since it had been used as a Death Eater stronghold. Harry suddenly understood what happened to whatever money Misha and Dima had when the war ended—they’d likely been unloaded of every last knut by their own government just to get their home back. 

It seemed a habit for the assessors to go hard on the surviving family of convicted Death Eaters—a sick sort of vengeance. By the looks on the other assessors faces, Stapleton was going easy on The Boy Who Lived. Harry didn’t think they’d have been half so accommodating for Draco had he come alone; the fine might’ve been doubled or tripled without The Chosen One directly involved. Harry regretted not bringing his sword. 

But he saved that battle for another day. For now he held the levy order, his own vault keys, and a re-key order for the Malfoy vault. Apparently the key hadn’t been found anywhere in the Wiltshire house, and it was standard practice for the goblins to issue new access when the account changed hands after a conviction, anyway. 

Lines of goblins scribbled in their books, afternoon light from the tall windows slashing over them. Torches burned on the walls, day or night. 

Draco stood beside Harry dressed in a simple charcoal grey robe which had been Harry’s. A hazy azure satin dress shirt—a gift from Harry—poked from the collar, calling attention to the softly purple-blue veins of Draco’s neck. He’d gotten a hint of color in Romania; no where near Harry’s tan, or the brothers, but at last Draco looked like he’d seen the sun this year. His freckles stood out; one in his eyebrow, another hidden on his eyelid only visible when he closed them, and one more nestled in the bow of his lip which Harry liked to kiss. 

Draco clasped his robe over his chest with an eye-catching pin—a long, slender dragon made of sterling silver, curled into a half-moon shape. It had little black stones for eyes which caught in the light. 

Waiting, Harry touched the pin. “This is quite nice.” 

Draco raised an eyebrow. “Romanian flea market.” 

“You’ve always had great taste, Draco.”

Silver eyes slipped away—still not completely comfortable accepting a compliment without condition. Draco’s lip twisted up, forming half a smile. He glanced down at the official Ministry orders in Harry’s hand. 

“Re-key…” he murmured, not exactly a question, reading the paperwork upside down. Harry handed the parchment over, letting Draco read it properly—his pale thumb rubbing with disbelief over the stamp of approval. It hadn’t quite sunk in that he was getting the Malfoy vaults. His father’s money was now his. 

The Ministry could override Draco being disowned—either because his father was a traitor and a terrorist, or because there were no other living beneficiaries, or because Draco was married to Harry Potter. It was some combination thereof which neither Stapleton nor Ainsworth cared to expand on; then again, Harry hadn’t been too keen to ask. They might fine him another thousand galleons for being related to Death Eaters by marriage—because the assessors could probably find loophole after loophole through which to fine him until he ran out of gold. Harry was a soldier, a fighter… and maybe a bit of a masochist, but not so blindly aggressive as to lose their shirts and the roof over their heads just to prove he was in the right to a couple of Ministry berks whom he’d likely never see or hear from again. 

He was steamed. But he refused to take that out on Draco. Harry had a plan for his rage: he would take an hour or two at Leon’s range to blow off steam, then spend a session with Dr. Beasley to iron out his course of action, making sure he was going about everything the right way—his actions in line with his beliefs, not just running wild on emotion. 

“Why are we re-keying?” asked Draco. Fuck did Harry love it when Draco unconsciously spoke of them as a unit— _we_. That word made his heart melt, brought him back to what was important. “Are we not combining our vaults?” 

People moved through the lobby, charting a course around them. Their party was given a wide berth—the surly-looking Ionescue brothers, and their strange companion in a monk’s robe with the hood pulled up over his head. They were guarding the Potters, making a loose ring around the pair, deterring anyone who might otherwise dare step closer. Harry didn’t see any of what was happening around him. His entire self was focused on Draco, on this very strange magi-financial conversation which, though they’d been married for six months already, they’d never managed to have. 

Between the war and dying and coming back to life, the subject of Harry’s bank account had yet to seriously come up. Draco made a few jokes here and there; he was aware Harry had assets, while at the time of their marriage Draco hadn’t been worth more than the cloak on his back. He had an inkling from the prenuptial agreement they’d signed—a document which Harry had weighted hard in Draco’s favor. Draco never assumed he’d have another galleon to his name. Because Draco hadn’t thought they’d live this long. So they never discussed what might happen if they were to suddenly inherit whatever was left of Lucius Malfoy’s commercial property empire. 

Harry felt the need to tilt his head back and howl: _I don’t want anything to do with Lucius Malfoy’s bloody money!_ But that was an agitative statement. It implied that somehow Draco _did_ need the money. It implied that what Draco brought to their marriage was tainted, less-than… even unacceptable. Lucius Malfoy’s vault was now attached to Draco. So Harry wouldn’t pitch a fit about it; because Lucius Malfoy was fucking dead and buried, and why shouldn’t Draco have what was rightfully his? 

If not for therapy, Harry surely would have accidently started a knock-down, drag-out, thrown-out-of-the-building-for-disturbing-the-peace screaming match, right there in the middle of Gringotts. That was the old Harry Potter, the one who said shit without thinking about how his words might make other people feel. 

Instead, he had the presence of mind to take a deep breath, expressing what he really felt beyond his abhorrence of Draco’s dead father. 

“We can absolutely share a vault, if that’s what you want. It’s not my call. You make that decision for yourself. It’s your pile of gold, dragon.” 

Draco wouldn’t catch the reference that Harry was comparing him to Smaug, J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous dragon hording its gold within the Lonely Mountain. But Harry did imagine Draco breathing fire, turning his father’s legacy into a molten puddle under his feet. Draco had already burned down everything his father cared about. 

“Should we…” Draco considered. “Keep whichever vault is larger, then? Or whichever can hold the gold? Not much point in keeping both if one will suffice.” His dark lashes blinked, thinking. “What’s your vault number?” 

“Uh, 687 is the Potter vault. I also have the Blacks, 711.” 

Draco stopped blinking—he froze, his eyes large, looking up at Harry in the torchlight. “ _Saint Potter! Your gold_ _doesn’t fit in one vault?!_ ” he hissed.

 

 

 

 

Two goblins arrived to guide them down to their vaults. They needed two carts—no way were the five of them fitting in one, not with Dima and Misha’s shoulders. Harry didn’t think Draco would fancy riding in his lap in front of the goblins, either—it was fine for the back of a Ferrari in Romania disguised as a girl, but this was Draco’s old domain, the world of old-fashioned magic, and he wanted to maintain some sense of decorum. Draco seemed alright with Harry’s arm stretched over the back of the cart, not quite around his shoulders, during the course of their  bumping ride. 

They ventured down to the Ionescue vault first. Past the huge underground lake, under the waterfalls, down deeper than Harry had ever gone. When their carts went directly through the path of a waterfall, Nebojsa raised his hand; a flick of his pale fingers sent the water veering away from his cart, keeping him and the brothers dry. 

Harry and Draco’s cart followed. 

“Scar Head…” murmured Draco. He was apparently expecting his husband to save him from the deluge. “Potter… Potter!” They were about to get very wet. “ _Poilu_ , _quel connard!_ ”

At the last second Draco stuck his own hand out. Angry, a flash of light left his palm, bursting into a ball of fire above their heads which evaporated the water into a fine mist.

Harry took his glasses off, casually wiping the lenses on the tail of his green robe. 

Draco took the opportunity to smack Harry on the side of his head whilst his defences were down. “Cunt!” he repeated loudly, in English. The goblin in the cart with them tutted loudly but otherwise remained silent. 

Harry wanted Draco to get used to doing things for himself. The pureblood didn’t _need_ Harry for anything. Plus, a blast of angry magic every now and again was good for you. 

When at last they stopped, the goblins—who had never introduced themselves properly—announced it was vault “904” and demanded the levy slip before they would open the door. Apparently the goblins would see to it that the Ministry got their gold. 

The door to the vault was as tall as a muggle house. Harry reminded himself to keep his mouth shut, not to gawp. It scraped open, making a dry stone-on-stone sound which reminded Harry of the Chamber of Secrets opening up. 

Behind the door to their vault was a dragon. Harry had never actually seen a Romanian Longhorn before. Its body was deep green like pine needles, shiny, almost slimy in the low light. When it breathed a stream of fire, its golden horn sparkled. Dima and Misha ducked the stream of fire. The goblins were short enough it didn’t bother them, and the Potters were well out of harm’s way. 

Harry and Draco followed the brothers into the cavernous empty chamber—only after they were beckoned forward, told that the dragon was pacified. 

Behind the dragon was a ledge, leading out to the maze of tunnels. Harry was glad to see the creature wasn’t trapped in this space which, though large, was a relatively small room for a dragon. It could go out an fly anytime it wanted, stretching its scaly green wings. 

Nebojsa followed behind the Potters, his hands stuffed up his sleeves. The cart ride had thrown his hood back, his hair flying about. He’d righted his hood, but his hair still showed a bit snarled falling around his chin.

Harry asked Sia where his vault was. 

Nebojsa whispered for the sake of the dragon. “Oh, we passed mine already.” He pointed a thin finger towards the surface. “222. Easy enough to remember, but we never had much gold to put in it… it’s not much larger than a closet.” He shrugged. 

The guy really didn’t give a shit about money—he’d get his clothes from a flea market and sleep in a tent in the woods so long as he got to be himself and spend his life with the people he loved. He’d done it: slept rough, lived on the streets. The Ionescue money literally meant nothing to Nebojsa Radič… making him one of the few people capable of loving Dmitry for who he really was. Even a strong person might be lured in by his title, his lavish lifestyle, or the power his family once held. Even Harry wasn’t totally unaffected by Dima’s station—this vault intimidated him. It was guarded by a dragon for fuck’s sake! He couldn’t imagine what treasures might be inside. 

Draco mimed that he wanted to stay and admire the Longhorn. Meanwhile Dima took Harry by the elbow, tugging on his uniform, asking him to come with beyond another door, to have a look at their inheritance. 

The inside of the Ionescue vault was larger than the Hogwarts library. It was two stories high, with a balcony along the upper terrace level and a pair of stone stairs with rich red carpets leading up either side. There were shelves neatly and meticulously labeled from floor to ceiling, each bearing chests full of coins, or rare potion ingredients, the wands of ancestors, or priceless artifacts encased in dusty glass domes. Three gold chandeliers hung from the ceiling, lit by a Lumos Spell from Misha’s wand. 

Dima took the stairs two at a time, confident. He knew his way around, striding up to a certain shelf. He picked up a velvet bag and without examining the contents, threw it straight at Harry’s head. With Seeker’s reflexes, The Chosen One caught it with ease. 

Dmitry let out a triumphant growl. “I have never owed anyone gold in my life! What an awful feeling…” He picked up two more identical bags, stuffing one into his robes and throwing the other at Misha before starting back down the stairs. 

The goblins had begun counting out the Ministry’s levy. They grabbed two large chests of galleons, looking like pirate treasure, loading them into the mine cart. With all the money and other valuables in the room, it wouldn’t be missed. 

Here and there Harry saw display cases built into the shelves, elaborate glass housing for crowns, tiaras, diadems, and in one case a ducal crown and scepter. Misha stopped at one of the cases, opened it with a complicated movement of his wand, and retrieved what Harry could only assume was his rightful crown. He nestled the thin circlet of gold and sapphires against his forehead, the crown disappearing in places beneath his thick sable hair. Harry thought Misha looked like a boy King Henry VIII, freshly crowned and randy to fuck his way through a string of wives. Except Harry knew Misha’s treatment of the fairer sex would be infinitely kinder. He only _looked_ like a rogue with that slow-lipped smile, the bar pierced through his eyebrow, and that oh-so-supercilious stance. The kid had a swagger, even standing still, admiring his reflection in the glass. 

The velvet bag in Harry’s hands was the size of a generous grapefruit, and the contents moved like pebbles when he wiggled his fingers. Harry pulled at the silky drawstring, peeking inside. The bag was filled with diamonds. Most were the size of pencil erasers, with a few as large as grapes. It was likely worth ten times the amount of the loan Harry made them. 

Harry forgot how to breathe—he was holding close to a million pounds in the palm of his hand. Apparently a sack of precious jewels was a Prince’s idea of ‘repayment with interest.’ 

Harry chased Dima’s retreating back out of the vault, holding out the bag. “Dmitry, I can’t accept this!” 

“Shut up, Potter.” 

“Dima—” 

“I said shut it, Potter. Don’t you know it’s impolite to talk about a man’s ledgers?” 

They were in the large outer chamber with the dragon. Draco had remained there, marveling at the creature along with Nebojsa. When he heard them coming, Draco chuckled—not wanting to let loose his full laugh and miff the dragon. He found it funny that Harry couldn’t drop his muggle habit of talking about bank accounts, even knowing it was considered extremely rude amongst his pureblooded company. Their argument continued in whispers as they crossed the chamber, the goblins closing up the vault behind them. 

“Harry!” Draco chastised his husband just above a mutter. “Leave off, ya muggle.” 

Harry showed Draco the bag of diamonds in his hand, careful not to spill any with it open as they walked. Silver eyes went as wide as sickles.

“Dimka…” Draco cooed—was he… flattered? “You shouldn’t have.” Draco acted like Dima had bought him a racing broom for his birthday. The Prince had made them millionaires. Draco batted his lashes, smiling playfully—knowing it irked Dima to hear any conversation about finances and pushing the ruddy envelope because he too was a cheeky git. “Thank you.” 

That got him growled at, too. “Shut up, Potter.”

 

 

 

 

Next up was Harry’s pair of vaults. The goblins stopped their carts at vault 712, loading the levied gold into that vault which appeared to be a kind of goblin’s administration space. Harry’s eyes strayed to the vault next door, 713, where Hagrid had retrieved the Philosopher’s Stone seven years ago. 

He’d had no idea, seven years ago, that he might be standing in this same spot again; dressed in a foreign killer’s uniform, with his husband at his side. Eleven-year-old Harry Potter might’ve been pretty impressed—surprised about the same-gender spouse part, and the military part, too, but overall duly impressed. He’d come quite a long way in becoming a wizard his childhood self could look up to.

Harry squeezed Draco’s hand. 

The Black Family vault was number 711. Harry had never been inside. Upon inheriting it after Sirius died, he’d instructed Griphook to add the balance to his books and beyond that, he’d never cared to look. Draco had brought the Black key along with the Potter key, and their marriage contract to prove their right to combine their assets. The parchment was tucked into the breast pocket of his grey robe.

“There’s the Black vault,” Harry said. “I’ve never opened it, truthfully. We can have a look if you like.”

Draco chewed his lip, ultimately shaking his head. He didn’t want to dally too long and keep their friends waiting. Draco tugged his hand, guiding Harry down the line, past his own vault and a few locked doors down. The pureblood stopped outside 691. Apparently their vaults had always been just a few doors away. 

The re-keying process took several days. For now, the goblins opened the door to Draco’s vault by the same method as the secure vault which had held the Philosopher’s Stone—dragging a gnarled nail in some pattern known only to them. The door groaned, expelling a waft of dust as it opened. 

Draco poked his head in. “ _Lumos_.” The word was answered with another exhale of dust. 

Draco didn’t need a wand in his hand, Harry realized. Draco barely used his wand anymore—it was more when he remembered to pick it up. His spellwork was fine even if he didn’t have his wand on him. Some days he literally forgot and left it in their bedroom. Some days Harry forgot his wand, too. 

The lights came up, revealing three walls of stone shelves. The space was slightly larger than the parlor at Grimmauld. There were chests of gold like the Ionescues had, with the addition of many parchments in leather folios, gold lettering proclaiming their contents in characters Harry stood too far away to read. Those would be deeds to land and buildings and other documents relating to the property held by the late Lucius Malfoy. There would be plenty of unscrambling to be done there—many doors for Harry to kick in, throwing his Chosen weight around. For now, there was a good amount of gold remaining in those chests for Draco.

Harry handed his key to the goblins along with the levy against the Malfoy accounts. He was paying it. He didn’t want anything coming out of Draco’s inheritance—that was for him, a paltry balm for everything he’d suffered being son to that contemptible son of a bitch. 

Harry had to admit, this vault room was nearly twice the size of his own… which was tumbling over itself in coins. Harry could hardly walk more than three steps into his own vault without slipping on money. It was a mess. He ought to have a bigger vault. 

He put his arm around Draco’s waist, touching his hip. Harry asked the top of that white-blond head, “Still want our vaults together?” 

Draco nodded. 

Harry puffed out a sardonic breath. “ _Then you’ll be happy to know what yours is still bigger_.” 

That innuendo at least made Draco smile.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Nothing much changed after learning that his mates were billionaires. Then again, Harry hadn’t expected much to change. 

Misha still made breakfast in the mornings—coffee, bacon and toast. Harry pitched in, cooking eggs. Dima said Harry made a perfect French omelette. He’d learned to cook young, when the Dursleys made him a glorified human house elf while he was still in single digits; later perfecting his skills with his adoptive Creole grandma, Charlene Harper. Harry packed the eggs with spinach and goat cheese, a bit of garlic, and pinch of salt for flavor. 

Each morning Harry observed Dima eating Nebojsa’s share of the bacon. He watched without comment; it wasn’t Harry’s place to interfere, though he thought it was rather rude of Dima to just assume everything was his for the taking. Nebojsa didn’t need Harry to defend his bacon. If he didn’t want Dima stealing his food, it was on him to say so. 

Harry went for his morning runs, the air cool at the beginning of the day. Sometimes Misha joined him, getting himself ready for several try-outs he’d lined up with various quidditch teams. Harry had the younger wizard beat for cardio; he often left the Prince puffing behind him, whining petulantly because Harry refused to slow down his routine. Once a week Harry strapped on his trainers like he was going for a run, but Apparated to America instead, to make his appointment with Akilah Beasley. He felt bad for lying by omission, letting everyone but Nebojsa think he was out for a jog. But he wasn’t quite ready for everyone to know he was in therapy—it was enough to be working through his issues privately. Other days Harry ran south to Soho, to check on Fred and Taylor in the morning before they left for work. Harry brought back chocolate-stuffed croissants and fruit-filled muffins in a paper sack from the café beneath their flat. Every week Taylor showed a little more. The baby was due between Christmas and New Years. 

One day Nebojsa had a new silver watch on his wrist. Then a leather jacket, and a new pair of insanely tight trousers. Misha acquired a new guitar and the latest professional-grade Cleansweep. Harry spotted a few shopping bags in the corner of his own bedroom—and some loudly-printed new shirts appeared on his husband’s back, courtesy of the Ionescues. Like Harry, Dima enjoyed buying people presents. It was his way of showing affection, having grown up showered with gifts as opposed to real love; Dima still bought gifts, but he followed them up with a quiet hug or just an arm around your shoulder, being close. 

They went out for dinner a few times. Misha was vocal about needing to watch his intake before his quidditch trials. But Draco wanted them to at least try the sushi restaurant Harry had introduced him to downtown. Harry’s head whipped around when Misha spoke perfect Japanese to their waitress. Dmitry spent the rest of their meal embarrassing his pink-faced, scowling little brother; apparently Misha was a die-hard anime fan and had insisted on learning the language of his favorite muggle cartoons. Before the war broke out, Misha was supposed to spend a year abroad at Mahoutokoro School of Magic—he’d already had his roommates assigned and everything. The war had derailed everyone’s lives: for kids at Durmstrang, the chaos started a year earlier, making its way to Great Britain like a genocidal tidal wave. 

If Misha couldn’t land a Chaser spot with an English team, the Toyohashi Tengus were an option. 

Like Draco, Nebojsa enjoyed spicy food, so they went out for curry and ales some nights. There was an outdoor music festival in the park for which Harry picked up tickets. And of course Harry needed a guitar of his own, which necessitated several trips to the music stores of London for this and that. It was always a race between Harry and Dima to whip out their wallets and slam down cash or a credit card. 

The lack of electricity in Grimmauld Place was becoming rather a joke. They ran an industrial-quality extension cord from the kitchen, down the hall, all the way into the parlor. At least once per day someone tripped over the cord—yelled something about how it was bollocks that Magnetizing Charms didn’t work on copper—and then aimed a fresh standard Sticking Charm at the floor. They needed the cord for their amps and pedals, and didn’t want to conduct band practices crammed in the kitchen. 

Harry and Dima schemed together to get a large television and game console delivered as a surprise for Draco. It took Harry and Nebojsa the better part of an hour’s cursing in Parseltongue to figure out how to hook everything up… _and_ have it actually work. 

Harry’s house came alive with sounds—either muted gunfire and the cries of various enemies meeting their demise, or the wails of electric guitars as their friends showed off, teaching Draco to play each of their favorite songs. Either way, Draco’s voice rose over it all—sometimes singing, other times swearing as he died on screen or couldn’t manage to get a move right, his fingers slamming against the buttons, cursing up a blue streak. 

It struck Harry as terribly normal. They were, after all, a couple of teenage blokes. Their non-magical peers were out there in the world, drinking beers and playing video games. Why shouldn’t they? He didn’t want to pressure Draco to do more than experience a normal life. He knew Draco was capable of great things; he was more than a perfect score in Grand Theft Auto or a flawlessly executed Iron Maiden guitar riff. It was okay for Draco to take this time to be a regular guy. As far as Harry was concerned, Draco didn’t have to get a job with the Ministry or pursue a career. He could do that when he was ready, when there was something he genuinely wanted to do, something which made him happy. For now, Harry was going to let Draco act his age: because that was something Draco never really had before. 

Harry was better at GTA—he actually knew how to drive a car and what traffic signs meant. Draco was better at guitar—he actually knew how to read music and could identify notes and chords by name. They were each good or bad at certain things, and it all evened out. 

Their band was still notably short a drummer. Misha came through: his friend Galina Vitöls was available to be their beat. 

“Friend?” Dima teased. “Not how I remember it!” 

Misha looked like he wanted to throw something, but refrained out of deference for their host’s belongings. “We kissed a few times,” he admitted, snarky. “But I have the wrong parts for her to want me. Just friends.” Of course Misha had the ability to be friends with his exes—Harry couldn’t picture anyone disliking Misha. He would’ve been the perfect tester-boyfriend for a witch questioning her sexuality; the definition of easy-going, happy to just make out, and not harboring any hurt feelings when Galina moved on to fancying women full-time.

With no money and her whole family dead, Galina Vitöls took the Hogwarts Express back to London, got a room at the Leaky Cauldron, and was making ends meet as a translator—mostly muggle stuff, like legal documents and instruction manuals. Her girlfriend, Ravenclaw Mandy Brocklehurst, had gone home from Hogwarts and promptly told her parents she was a lesbian. Mandy’s parents kicked her out, and she was staying with Galina at the Leaky, waiting tables at a muggle restaurant. The pair could certainly use some money; Galina was too proud to accept charity, but earning pay from playing in a band she would agree to. Plus it would help the witches get a place of their own, or finance going back to Hogwarts in the fall if they wanted to. 

Misha showed zero hesitation over having his former snog buddy join their crew. So a drum set was purchased and they all looked notably ridiculous carrying it on the tube home. 

On the train, well-meaning muggles inquired about their band—what kind of music they played, and whether their group had a name yet. 

“Dumbledore’s Army,” Draco had answered sarcastically. 

“His Grace The Duke Can Suck It,” suggested Dima in Romanian. 

“A Bundle of Sticks And A Straight Guy,” offered Misha. Harry wasn’t sure whether the straight guy was supposed to be himself or Mishenka, not that it mattered much. Their band was, in fact, overwhelmingly gay-adjacent. 

They didn’t need a name yet. That wasn’t the point. The band was something to do, something fun, to have an excuse to sit around drinking whatever was in the cabinet and join their voices together. It felt good to laugh, to throw your arm up and bang your head, to turn up the volume and yell at Harry Potter when he inevitably fucked up.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry met Ron at a pub one afternoon. They were there to watch the football match. Ron was getting to know Hermione’s parents, and he decided to learn about muggle football as something to bond with Hermione’s dad. 

They each got a pint and watched the game from two stools at the end of the bar. 

Harry explained some of the finer strategic points. Football strategy was in some ways like quidditch. Football was also a bit easier, with no vertical element and only one ball—that wasn’t even trying to kill you. 

Harry used to really enjoy football. When he was younger, before finding out he was a wizard, he imagined he might try to play professionally one day. He’d imagined he’d be bigger; at the time he’d had no idea what his dad looked like, and no way of knowing how tall he might be grown up. Nebojsa and Dima teased him that he was still growing, and Harry thought they might be right. 

Watching a football match wasn’t that exciting to him anymore. He understood it and could enjoy it, but compared to quidditch... football wasn’t enough to satisfy him anymore. He needed the rush of magic that came with quidditch. As much as he appreciated muggle culture, his wizard side was taking over as he got older. His future was in magic, and he knew it. 

Harry felt as though, finally, he was making the shift to be more wizard than boy under the stairs. 

After the match, on their third round, Ron turned to him, speaking low. 

“Look...” he began, his head down, talking to Harry’s knees. “I haven’t been around much this last year. That’s my own fault. I made that choice.”

Harry had a lot to say—but nothing which was worth speaking over Ron. He let his friend lead the conversation to start with. Ron had watched from a distance as Harry went through his first serious relationship. His mate’s observations and opinions did matter to him. Harry wanted to listen, even if he didn’t agree. 

“In school, we were both awkward with girls; I was bad, but you were so awful it was kinda funny. I started thinking that maybe I would do better in relationships than you. No offense, mate.”

That made sense to Harry. Growing up in the massive shadow cast by his older brothers, Ron always wanted to shine, to be good at something. Harry being so abominable with flirting and relationships made Ron feel great by comparison. 

Harry made a long, passive face. “No offense taken.” He went to take a sip of his drink, but stopped with his fingers around the cool glass. “Do you know why I was so shit at flirting? Why I could never get a girl, even though I was The Bloody Boy Who Lived?” 

Ron shook his head. He seemed curious if Harry himself had the answer or if he was asking rhetorically. 

Harry fortified himself with a drink. He wasn’t sure how this might turn out, but he did want Ron to know. 

“Ever heard of someone being asexual?” 

Two long lines crossed Ron’s forehead. Mr. Weasley and Bill had the same thing. It was their _I’m confused, tell me more so I can understand_ face. 

Harry had been reading books and other materials from Akilah—anything he could get his hands on—in the hopes of better understanding what he was experiencing, making sense out of his feelings and desires. He’d started with information on sexuality and sexual identity; because Hogwarts had no sex education, and he hadn’t gotten more than basic anatomy from muggle school. Slowly, he was piecing together a picture of himself which made more sense than just being horny, awkward, and lonely during his years at Hogwarts. His experiences at school had been very different than others his age, for a reason which had nothing to do with Voldemort’s soul inside him. 

“Asexual is not straight or gay. It has to do with not feeling attraction at all, or only very, very rarely. I’m starting to think that’s what I am. Because the only person I’ve ever actually wanted to be with is Draco. So trying to be with someone else... I had no motivation, no desire to pursue anyone. That’s why it was always girls coming on to me, and never the other way around. That’s why I never seemed to know what to do when a girl fancied me. I made jokes about it and avoided any serious relationships to cover the fact that I never felt anything.” 

Ron considered that. “You never wanted to snog a girl?” 

“I thought about it,” admitted Harry. “I’m human, and everyone around me was doing it. But it was only a passing thought for me. I was never interested enough to want to act on the impulse.”

Ron made a non-committal sound. “Guess that makes sense, given how girls threw themselves at you, and you never seemed to care.” Ron drained his glass, sliding it away when he was done. He’d been jealous of the way women liked Harry more than him—their fawning behavior probably made Ron feel bad about himself, like he was doing something wrong. 

Ron looked at Harry, drumming up his courage to ask, “Draco was the exception, then?” 

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “He’d been flirting with me for ages. I was oblivious—because of the asexual thing. Even when we fought in school... that was Draco testing the waters in a negative kinda way. I think we were into each other even back then. Once he moved to Grimmauld and we started hanging out... he realized how he felt and started hitting on me for real. Being asexual, I _literally_ thought he was being nice to me. Honest to God. I couldn’t see that he was into me, even when he kissed me.” 

Ron bobbed his head too, agreeing with Harry’s self-assessment. “Yeah, that’s pretty thick. I thought you were smarter than that.” 

Harry laughed. “Apparently not.” He signaled for another round. “Other people started pointing out what was going on between me and Draco; adults, people with more insight than me. I remember Viktor saying right away that he suspected Draco of having a crush on me. I didn’t believe him. I brushed it off. Hermione suggested a few times—I didn’t listen to her, either.” 

“Dumb move, mate.” 

Harry raised his eyebrows at his past self—ignoring Hermione always ended in disaster, and sometimes a trip to the Hospital Wing. “Yeah.” 

Ron drummed his fingers on the bar. He’d remembered something from a year ago, saying, “I used to hear Hestia and Tonks make jokes about you two. They said you were in puppy love. I ignored it, too, because I didn’t wanna hear it. I... I still don’t know much about relationships. I could tell something was happening with you, but I didn't know what. I guess because I’d never seen you... be into someone before. For real, wanting to be with them. I never saw you make a move or be aggressive, romantically, and that struck me as weird.” 

Harry waited for their pints to be refilled, not wanting the barkeep to overhear. It was a relatively quiet afternoon in the pub after the game finished. A few people had stuck around, but he and Ron were relatively secluded at the far end of the bar. 

Harry looked Ron over. He was making every effort—talking with Harry about his marriage, piecing through what had gone wrong in their understanding of each other this past year. 

Ron was trying to learn about the muggle world, too. He was learning football to have something in common with Hermione’s dad. He wore a royal blue Chelsea FC jersey, shorts, and flip flops. Ron even had a muggle watch on his wrist and a travel card in his pocket. He was doing it, one step at a time—because he saw Hermione’s world and knew that every frustration and mistake would be worth it to better understand her life before he came along. He’d never made that effort before, expecting her and Harry to conform to him. Ron was coming around. 

So Harry made a step, too, admitting where he’d gone wrong. “I realize now that it must have been confusing to you and Hermione to see me suddenly having... intense feelings for someone after a lifetime of me not being sexual at all. I can see how that made you worry. You’d never seen that side of me, and up until then, I hadn’t known I had it in me either. I had no way to warn anyone that was even possible.” 

For Harry, realizing he was into Draco had been like discovering a new side of himself—scary, but also exciting. To Ron and Hermione, it probably looked like there was something seriously wrong with him. His behavior—hiding his attraction, then suddenly being highly aggressive and intensely sexual with Draco, while going behind everyone’s backs and lying about it—went against most of what they knew about him. 

His friends had healthy homes, good parents, and in Ron’s case loving siblings, too. Unlike Harry, they didn’t feel the need to hide their feelings or intentions for fear of getting beaten. That fear was buried deep in Harry’s head, telling him to hide away the things he loved so they couldn’t be used against him like a belt against his back, using his emotions to make him suffer more. Harry concealed the depth of his feelings for Draco because he was irrationally afraid someone or something might take Draco away. He effectively kept everyone at arm’s length, including his friends, who possibly could have helped or been more supportive had he not been a paranoid little twatter the whole time. 

His friends had walked out on him, but he was equally responsible for driving them away. 

“I didn’t know how to talk about what I was feeling,” Harry admitted. “With anyone. I wish I would’ve gone to you guys anyway. That was my fault. I was scared you wouldn’t support me, and I let that fear go to my head.” 

Which had been a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. In being afraid his friends wouldn’t accept him, he went behind their backs, ultimately insuring that their feelings would be hurt and they would then turn from him anyway. His secrecy screwed him over so much worse in the end. 

“I made it worse. I lied to you. And Hermione. And to myself for a while. I was paranoid, and stuck in my ways. I’m so sorry I hid everything from you. I wasn’t the best at sharing, or talking. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know how to trust, because this secret was so big it scared me. More than Voldemort.” 

Dr. Beasley was worth her weight in galleons. Twice-over. Six months ago he was still too angry and hurt to realize his own role in breaking his relationship with his best friends. Six months ago he blamed them, because he felt like a victim; he’d viewed the situation as his friends walking out on _him_ , and refused to take responsibility for his part in driving that wedge between them. Six months ago he didn’t think his actions had any effect on other people. Now he knew better. 

He did want to build back what they’d lost. That started with acknowledging his own mistakes, how he’d hurt his friends, and apologizing. 

It was easier with Ron somehow. Hermione would be next. 

“I was scared. But that’s no excuse for having been a shitty friend to you. I’m sorry.” 

Ron blinked. “I… is that an apology?”

“Yeah. I fucked up, and I’m sorry. I should’ve trusted you.” 

Ron put his elbows on the bar. He sipped his full pint without picking it up—it was full to the brim, and he didn’t want to spill any. He got that from his mum, trying to make things last, to stretch resources as far as possible. 

His head lifted, looking at Harry. “Mate… _I_ wouldn’t of trusted me with that secret a year ago. I think you were right,” he said sadly, reflecting on himself. “If you’d told me Draco fancied you, and you fancied him back, I’d… tell you to get your head examined. I’d have made fun of you for liking a bloke. That’s what Bill and Percy and I did when we first found out about Charlie. I’m not proud of that, but I really do think that would’ve been my gut reaction.” 

“Fair enough.” Harry picked up his fresh pint for something to do. “Thanks for being honest.” 

“And, like you said,” Ron pointed out. “You were never interested in sex before. I wasn’t ready to hear about you being into someone. With your asexual-ness, or whatever,” Ron incorporated the new term into his reflections. “I thought you’d always be hopeless at getting girls—or blokes, whatever the person was. Being in a relationship—you know, getting someone to love me and wanna snog me—that was the one thing where I had any hope of being better than you! Then suddenly you and Draco started going at it,” he blushed violently, “right in my face and... yeah, I lost my temper. Big time. I was jealous of you. Because once again you were beating me at... being a man, I guess.” He looked away, his cheeks bright red. 

That made Harry really sad. He didn’t want Ron to think that they were in competition with each other, or that relationships were some kind of goal or marker you had to hit in life to be considered successful. 

“Sex doesn’t make you a man,” Harry whispered. 

Ron pressed his lips. “I dunno...” he swallowed visibly. “I saw Draco’s... his, uh...” Ron couldn’t bring himself to say 'Draco’s massive cock,' but he gestured vaguely over the crotch of his shorts and raised his eyebrows pointedly.

In all the commotion and craziness, Ron had managed to note how well-endowed Draco was. Ron’s brain was even more competitive than his. Dead serious, Ron told him, “Harry, if you can handle _him_ up your bum, I think that makes you a stronger man than I’ll ever be.” 

It was possibly the best, most sincere compliment Ron had ever given him. 

Harry laughed so hard he may have started crying.

 

 

 

 

Ron suggested Harry come back to the Burrow to hang out. Harry had to decline, admitting he had guests waiting back at Grimmauld Place.

“Friends of Draco’s?” Ron asked. “Anyone I’d know?” 

“Ah… the Ionescue brothers, and Nebojsa Radič.”

Ron’s shoulders tensed. His expression didn’t change, but Harry saw the hesitation in his friend’s body language. 

He elbowed Ron. “What?” 

It took a second for his mate to find the right words. “Radič. He gives me the creeps.” 

“Why?” Harry asked blandly. 

This wasn’t the first time he’d heard someone say that about Nebojsa; in fact, it had been Hermione who first voiced the thought. Harry knew other people found Nebojsa unnerving... he just couldn’t see it. As far as Harry was concerned, people ought to find it uncomfortable being in the same room as _him_ —someone who’d died and come back to life, who’d taken so many lives in a single night… Harry ought to creep Ron out! Not the placid Serbian monk. Harry was the more dangerous of them, anyway; Nebojsa had the laws of his religion holding him at bay, while Harry had only his self-defined morals, and his love for Draco. As far as trust and security went, the Serb was the safer bet no matter what he looked like. 

Ron licked his lips, considering. “He looks like… a Death Eater. His eyes. His skin. The way he speaks. His spellwork,” Ron whispered the word so no one in the bar would hear. “He just... I know I never had to see You-Know-Who, and I’m bloody thankful for that. But Radič is more or less what I imagine You-Know-Who looked like back in the first war, when he killed your parents and stuff.” 

Harry thought Ron was being rather overdramatic. Ron had likely never seen someone who looked or dressed the way Sia did—someone with tattoos and a bunch of piercings, who was skinny and pale, wearing tight black clothes, painting his fingernails, putting on makeup. Especially a dude wearing makeup would be a whole new bag of tricks to Ron. Gothic style was rare even among muggles. Harry only saw it in London, where there were heavy metal bands and grunge culture. They didn’t have any goth kids at Hogwarts. Ron probably didn’t even know what being goth was: a style, a visual aesthetic, which had nothing to do with power or the Dark Arts or anything even remotely evil. It was just how Nebojsa looked, how he and a bunch of other people liked to express themselves. 

Harry knew full well that not all Death Eaters were frightening-looking like Voldemort. There were handsome ones too, like Philippe Didier. When it came to Voldemort’s followers, appearances were far from an accurate predictor. 

Harry’s eyebrows rose. “Really?!? ‘Cause I think Nebojsa’s kinda cute.” 

He hadn’t meant to say that—the word _cute_ fell out of his mouth without his thinking. When Ron said Nebojsa looked like Voldemort, all Harry could think of was his friend saving his life, desperately trying to patch him up while he bled to death in a snowy field. And… his friend in a dress, holding his hand out to Draco, getting Draco to sing and to dance with him. Nebojsa was fearless, shameless; a man unto himself, a bit more queer than Harry had expected, and utterly free. That wizard had absolutely _nothing_ to do with Voldemort. He was the complete opposite, the personification of love and acceptance.

Ron was gobsmacked. “Does Draco know you think that?” 

Harry shrugged off the concern, a smug expression tilting his brow. “Oh, Draco thinks he’s hot too. We talked about it ages ago.” Which was partially true.

They’d had an argument once—which almost turned into a full-blown fight—after Harry had a weirdly sexual dream about their friends. Draco was cool with Harry thinking Nebojsa was attractive. That much was true. It was a lie that Draco admitted he fancied Nebojsa’s looks, too: Draco thought Sia was alright, but he preferred Dima and Misha. 

Because Draco liked masculine guys, MSM type of guys... guys like Harry. Nebojsa was too feminine-looking for Draco’s tastes. Nebojsa didn’t always pass for straight these days. Or maybe his elegance and calm command reminded Draco too much of Philippe, turning him off by mental association. That could be part of it. Draco preferred blokes who acted as straight as possible; guys who didn’t talk about their feelings but would rather burry them. Draco liked macho, hard-headed, insensitive men—narcissists, like his father—because they were easier to deal with than someone who made Draco confront his own feelings frankly and honestly. Draco’s instinct was to run away from anyone capable of breaking down his icy exterior. 

Draco worked hard to keep people at arm’s length, even tailoring his sexual preferences to partners who wouldn’t dig too deep. He’d underestimated Harry, thinking The Straightest Boy Who Lived wouldn’t have an emotional side. 

Either way, they could both agree that Nebojsa _and_ Dmitry were good looking blokes, each in their own way. It was just an opinion, an observation, not anything they would act on. 

“And... you’re cool with that?” Ron questioned. “You’ll leave him alone with a bunch of blokes he fancies and not... not….” Ron petered off, unsure if he even wanted to say it. Harry’s temper was legendary—Ron didn’t fancy poking it. Especially as it concerned the tender subject of his spouse’s fidelity. 

Harry managed to smile. He didn’t quite feel it but... he didn’t want to get upset, or have Ron think this was an inappropriate question. He was genuinely glad Ron finally felt comfortable enough to discuss his relationship and sexuality. What Harry didn’t want to discuss was his own jealousy when it came to his husband—that was between him and Draco: their private marital business.

“I’m not worried at all,” said Harry evenly. “They’re really good friends of ours. So what if they happen to be fit? Draco’s not gonna screw around; neither am I, and neither are our mates. We’re all just friends.” 

Ron raised an eyebrow. “You sure?” 

Harry elbowed him again. “I thought you said you didn’t know anything about relationships,” he teased. He tried to find a way to explain the situation which Ron would understand. “You have female friends who you consciously know are pretty. But you can choose not to act on that, because you love Hermione. You gave her your word, and you stick to that. You’d rather be with ‘Mione than fuck about with anyone else. It’s the same with Draco and me. We’re married. That comes above everything else, even our friendships. We put each other first.”

Pink crept up Ron’s neck. It took a ton of courage for him to suggest, “What if he gets another crush? Like he had on you?” 

Harry looked at Ron over the top of his glasses. Maybe he _did_ know more about relationships, and sexuality, than his friend after all. 

“So what? Draco’s allowed to have fantasies. That’s healthy.” Harry raised his eyebrows. “If Draco has a crush on someone, we’ll get us some Polyjuice and… he can get it out of his system. With me. No harm done.” 

It was a good thing Ron didn’t have beer in his mouth, because he surely would’ve choked.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

On his way home from beers with Ron, Harry stopped at a butcher shop, picking up some steaks to cook for dinner. He took the underground, walking home from Euston Square. 

He had to get used to coming back to Grimmauld—to seeing the house from the street, lights on, some of the windows open... sound leaking into the evening. That wasn’t a record, a cassette, or a CD. The sound was live. 

Music poured out of his house. 

Harry stood on the sidewalk, the bags forgotten in his hands, listening. 

Guitars screamed on metallic pedals. A steady drum beat. The snap of cymbals. Nebojsa’s bass pulling it all together, a heavy rhythm like running against pavement, relentless.

Dima and Misha sang; a growling, gravel-shout exchanged between them, English falling easily from their lips. It was their own version of Disturbed’s “Stupify.” 

The Potters’ next door neighbor the CEO had parked her black Mercedes on the street outside her front door. Harry saw her backside retrieving a briefcase and gym bag from the car’s backseat. She waved to him, closing the car door with her hip. Then the music reached her ears and her eyes widened in the darkness—Harry saw their whites in the streetlamps. She walked over to him, meaning to say hello. 

Harry waved. “Hi Deborah.” 

“Hello, Harry.” She considered the great wave of live metal noise coming out of his windows. 

Harry felt rooted to the spot—his head starting to go, neck loose, almost banging to the beat. They might be practicing but at least to Harry, they sounded great. 

The boys were in the bridge. Dima and Draco growled together, Draco’s voice somehow darker for being higher. There was something dirty in their tone, something of sex and violence, of being left wanting. 

“ _Don’t deny me. No. Baby, now don’t deny me_.” 

An electric guitar wailed under them, like writhing on the floor, begging.  

Galina’s new drums crashed back in, along with Nebojsa’s bass. For a second it had been just their voices, raw, with the echoing wail of Draco’s guitar. Harry knew it was Draco playing. His sense of timing, the space between notes, was that unique. 

Deborah gave Harry some serious eyebrows. “I, uh... I thought your husband was a _classical_ musician,” she criticized primly. 

Through the windows he saw Draco and Nebojsa in silhouette. Each wizard had a guitar slung across his body, an arm pumping up and down over the strings in a motion not too unlike wanking, working the instruments beneath their fingers. Their shoulders hunched over their music like holding a lover, like it was their whole world, lost to it. Their heads rocked, black and blond. Nebojsa’s hair flew. Draco’s skin glowed. They looked up at the same time—eyes locking, catching each other rocking out. They laughed and went right back, harder. A tiny, two-man mosh pit in Harry Potter’s parlor. 

Harry blinked. He couldn’t look away, didn’t want to see his silly neighbor and break the spell. They were making a new kind of magic in front of his eyes. 

“He _is_ classically trained, yes. We have houseguests—a couple of friends visiting from Romania. They wanted to jam a bit. Let us know if the noise bothers you, we can turn it down.”

 

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Dima and Sia had been out around London that morning. They were looking at flats. 

“Just _looking_ ,” Nebojsa emphasized, giving Dima a cautionary raise of the eyebrow and wiggle of the lip ring. They wouldn’t be signing any leases until it was confirmed Misha had landed with a team, and that they were going to stay in England. They weren’t about to let a sixteen year old live by himself in a foreign country, even if they were only three years older. They still considered themselves his chaperones; Dima remained his legal guardian, and Nebojsa was the closest Misha ever had to a mom. They weren’t about to leave the kid to fend for himself, even if he looked like a grown man and demanded to be treated like one.

Still. Looking at flats together was such a lovely, normal-couple sort of activity. Especially for Dima and Sia, who’d never expected they could be together openly, let along get a place of their own and actually _live_ under the same roof without getting arrested or killed for it. 

“I love that you guys wanna move in together,” Harry told them, encouraging. “I think it’s terribly romantic.” 

“Ahhh, _da da da_ ,” Dima nodded, sighing wistful and over-dramatic. He stretched his huge muscular arm out, gesturing to Nebojsa as though they were in a play on the stage. It was a silly gesture which all three of them made sometimes, making Harry wonder if Durmstrang had a drama program no one talked about. Dima spoke about the man he loved. “You abandon zhe priesthood for me. Kill my fazher for me. Ve get tiny run-down flat and I bend over zo you can fuck my ass. Ve live in sin, happily ever after, _da_?” 

Harry and Draco both laughed so hard they nearly hyperventilated.

Dmitry was in the parlor now, playing Draco’s piano, slow and soulful wizarding music drifting through the house. Nebojsa was doing exactly what Harry did when Draco played—lying on the couch with his eyes closed, feeling the sunlight on his face from the nearby window, letting the music wash over him like a tide. 

 

 

 

 

Leon Harper had been asking after Draco, having met each other briefly at the Order of Merlin ceremony. Harry sensed something there, something Leon was trying to keep close to his chest.

Leon owled, wanting to see Draco again. Maybe because Draco was Lucius Malfoy’s son, and Lucius and Leon had been rivals, bitter enemies despite their genetic ties. Maybe Leon’s desire to spend time with Draco had to do with the old man being the closest Harry had to a living grandfather figure. Perhaps Leon wanted to get to know the young wizard whom Harry had chosen as his spouse. Or maybe Leon was drawn by Draco’s eerie resemblance to his dead son, Gideon. 

Harry wasn’t entirely sure. But he invited Leon over to Grimmauld that afternoon—after warning him that the place was a bit of a mess. Neither he nor Draco were strong housekeepers, and the property had been stuck in late 1970’s wizard fashion when he inherited it. 

Harry and Draco served tea for Leon Harper in their kitchen, a few of Draco’s sugar biscuits on a plate, a jar of cherry _varenya_ in lieu of sweetener. 

Leon skipped the pleasantries. “I need ta talk ta ya about that ring,” he said, arms folded on top of his paunchy stomach. He meant the Gaunt family ring on Draco’s finger. “Tell me everythin’ ya know, lads. It’s important.” 

Draco began by explaining what a horcrux was, how Tom Riddle had become obsessed with preserving his own life and so began taking the lives of others, fracturing his soul in order to preserve it in these vessels he’d selected. That he preferred objects of magical significance—belonging to the founders of Hogwarts. Though he never laid hands on a relic of Godric Gryffindor, he found objects belonging to the rest. Helga Hufflepuff’s cup. Salazar Slytherin’s locket. Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem. And this, a family heirloom left by his dying mother, who had conceived him through the use of a love potion on an unsuspecting muggle man. 

Harry took over the tale, explaining that Albus Dumbledore compiled this information through scouring the memories of many related parties over many years. Dumbledore then began to seek out the horcruxes, destroying them one by one. Harry destroyed one in his second year; by accident, not understanding its significance until several years later. Lucius Malfoy himself had delivered it into Ginny’s cauldron, ensuring the book found its way into Harry’s proximity. Dumbledore died before he was able to find and destroy all the horcruxes, leaving Harry to finish the work.

After the horcrux was removed from the Gaunt ring, Harry kept it as a way to remember his fallen Headmaster. He gave the ring to Draco the previous summer, having cast upon it some manner of spell which neither of them fully understood. 

“I’m being perfectly honest, here,” Harry shook his head. “We’re still not sure what kind of spell is on it. I was starting to show an affinity for endopathotics at the time. Draco and I had just had an argument. We were both upset. I gave him the ring wanting him to be protected, since we were about to be separated and I felt he was still in danger… part of that danger was me, frankly.” 

“When was this?” Leon asked. “Be precise.” 

“After my birthday,” Draco recalled, looking to Harry for confirmation. “No later than the twentieth of June. The ring began exhibiting some strange properties immediately,” he continued. “It would turn warm and sting my hand when danger was near. I was the target of a failed assassination attempt—the ring warned me. And later, at Hogwarts, someone tried to sneak truth potion into my pumpkin juice. The ring stung my hand again, whenever I got close, warning me not to drink it.” 

“And when I was close, too,” Harry reminded him. 

“Yes. Whenever Harry came back to the castle after being away, the ring would get warm. It was as though I could sense where he was. It reminded me of _drengr leita_.” 

“The Dark Mark,” Leon gruffed. 

“Yes. Exactly.” 

“Draco was wearing the ring when he was hit by the Killing Curse,” Harry offered. “It shattered the stone. We repaired it the best we could—more out of sentimental value than…. well…” he shrugged. His memories of the ring were good memories made with Draco. His husband had wanted to keep the ring. Harry offered to put a different stone in it, but Draco said he preferred the cracked, imperfect black stone which he believed, in part, had saved him from Voldemort’s final curse. 

“Voldemort’s final horcruxes were hidden in me, and in an Invisibility cloak which had been my father’s. He hit me with a Killing Curse, which destroyed the horcrux in me. Then Draco destroyed the cloak, which I’d been wearing, making Voldemort mortal again… or susceptible to death, at least.”

Draco explained the proof of _Se Impetro Munus_ which he was supposed to be working on with Severus Snape. So far Draco had ignored all of his owls, as any further exploration required they go to the Ministry for testing, and Draco wasn’t going anywhere near there just yet—not until Harry felt the premises was safe, and Draco felt sound and solid going there. 

“We believe that having a horcrux in him for sixteen years gave Harry much of The Dark Lord’s aptitude for dark magic, by way of _Se Impetro Munus_.” Leon grunted, and Draco went on. “When Harry was hit by the Killing Curse, we think that his magic understood he was dying, and having the blueprint for how a horcrux is created, took half his soul and moved it into me. I was his vessel.” 

“Voldemort liked living vessels,” Harry said. “He used a venomous snake—the one who took a chunk out of my leg, actually. He liked the idea that his horcruxes would be housed inside a living thing, which could protect and defend itself. It was his desire that his horcrux vessels would actually be weapons and defend the portions of his soul which they held. That never really happened… until Draco and me. 

“Our friend Colin was there that night. He’s a photographer. He took some pictures. Apparently Draco’s eyes were glowing. Red.” Harry hadn’t seen the photos yet. He knew he wasn’t ready for the images. Snape had copies, when he and Draco were ready. 

Draco nodded. “It wasn’t unlike the Imperius Curse. I was cognizant and aware of my actions. But my hand was guided by a force beyond me. I didn’t recognize it as Harry at the time because, obviously, I was in shock. I thought he was dead. I’d seen him die.”

“I bit Draco’s lip,” Harry confessed. “When I died, I kissed him, and bit him. The lightning bolt scar I have is where Tom Riddle’s horcrux entered me when I was a year old. After my mum died protecting me. And the scar on Draco’s lip… it’s exactly the same.” 

Draco pinched the side of his mouth, pulling his lip out for examination. The zigzag line was still quite clear to see, striking its way through his plump pink lip. 

“We’re not sure why my horcrux acted so differently than any other I’ve come across.” Harry shifted his eyes, not quite rolling them. “Then again, Tom Riddle never died saving the life of someone he loved, did he?” 

Leon shook his head. “A child conceived as the result of a love potion is cursed forever,” he told them. “They will never know love. It’s one o’ the worst fates.” 

Harry thought about it. “That makes sense, actually. Dumbledore always used to say that my weapon against Voldemort was my ability to love. It was the one emotion he could never understand, or predict—so he underestimated how Draco and I feel about each other, and what that would mean.” 

Leon folded his weathered, leathery hands on the table. 

“Tha’ ring…” he growled. “Bears the stain of powerful Blood Sorcery. A Blood Bond. When I met yeh, I could feel the residual magic from across the room. An’ it ran my blood cold.” He looked to Harry, his face grim. “I believe I owe ya an apology. I assumed, wrongly so, that ya were operatin’ some kinda… personality-altering program on Draco. Because that’s what a Blood Bond does. It’s an imperative. It rearranges a person’s mind an’ heart, can make ‘em believe white is black or up is down. It can destroy a soul. To create a bond that strong requires the destruction of a soul, for another to be remade.” 

At that moment, Dmitry stuck his head into the kitchen. They all jumped, tea cups rattling. 

“Blood Bond?” Dima wiggled his eyebrows. He then sat himself down next to Leon and snagged a biscuit. “Razher my area,” he added. His big hand tapped the moving tattoo of a Thestral on his arm.

“It’s true?!” Leon gaped at him. Apparently there were rumors about Dima’s family secret. 

Harry made formal introductions—the exiled Irish former-Head Auror, and the gay Romanian Death Eater Prince. Two people who, without a series of unfortunate events and a great amount of personal courage, might very well have killed each other from opposite sides of the war. Instead they shook hands, perfectly agreeable, pleased to work together in helping the Potters unscramble their sorcery problems. 

For Harry’s benefit, Dima explained. “In a ritual handed down from fazher to zon, ve take zhe life of a magical being and share its blood. By zhis sorcery we take its form. My fazher and my brozher vere Thestrals. The first male alvays vos. Younger brozhers were permitted lesser vinged creatures. I am Aethonan,” he told Leon. “My brozher Misha is Granian.” 

Harry had no idea the brothers had been forced by their father to take the life of a magical creature—destroying the animal’s soul in order to take on its likeness and soar through the sky as they pleased. It was horrific. Knowing Dark Magic, the ritual likely took place around the age of puberty. They might’ve been as young as twelve or thirteen when their father forced them to make their first kill as part of a ritual which they couldn’t refuse. Had they said no, their dad probably would’ve killed them. Tihomir Ionescue had more than one son to succeed him, and he made that painfully clear on numerous occasions. 

Dmitry pointed at the ring on Draco’s finger, the stone split by the last curse Tom Riddle ever cast. Another Killing Curse which failed. “Thiz ring… iz zhe most beautiful Blood Bond I have ever experienced. Almost as old as yoo are, Harry. Given to yoo by your mozher as she died for yoo. Taken from your blood and placed in zhis ring, as your love for Draco.” 

That made sense to Harry. “Voldemort always wanted my blood. He said it gave him powers he couldn’t fully understand.” 

Dima looked to Draco. “Vhen did yoo first have hiz blood?” 

Harry felt pink creep up his cheeks. The answer was likely during somewhat violent sex, which they had rather often. 

He heard Draco swallow. “Not long after I arrived here, last summer. We had a row. I punched Harry and split his lip. Then I kissed him.” 

“That was two days after my birthday!” Harry realized. “Dumbledore always said that the protection my mother gave me would wear off after my seventeenth birthday. I must have somehow passed it to you, through the ring and my blood, before it completely faded.” 

Draco’s smile was positively cheeky. “Good thing I landed you that facer, huh?” 

Dmitry was leaning with both elbows on the table, engrossed, unraveling their story. “Zo,” he asked excitedly. “Vot is zhe imperative?” 

“The what?” Harry shook his head, not understanding. 

“Blood Bonds force some sort a’ action or belief,” Leon explained. That was why, when he’d experienced the ring on Draco’s finger, it had rubbed him the wrong way. He thought Harry was trying to _change_ Draco rather than protect him, like Lily had done for Harry. 

“Are we supposed to know?” Draco asked, genuinely unsure. 

“If it vos made at zhe moment of death, zhen… I zuppose it may have been lost.” 

Harry chewed his lip—thinking about the similarities of his mum dying to protect him, and how he’d in turn thrown himself in front of Draco in the moment. What his mum had left him was a lesson within her legacy: that anything and everything was worth it for love… even dying. 

Harry reasoned, “If I had to guess… having been on the precipice of death myself, and wanting to save the person I loved most, I would say… my mother wanted me to know love in my lifetime. For love to be my shield and my protection. She would want me to find love, and to be loved.” 

“Beautiful,” Dima declared, looking misty. It was the most romantic side Harry had ever seen of his hard-edged friend. 

“But dangerous if left unchecked,” Leon cautioned. Always the fucking downer. 

Harry turned defencive. “I don’t think my mother’s Blood Bond somehow engineered or forced Draco and I to have feelings for each other.” 

Draco just shook his head, pouring himself more tea. His silvery eyes rolled, saying the idea was ridiculous; that he made his own decisions for his heart, uninfluenced by magic, powerful though it may be. 

“Nor do I, lads,” Leon agreed with him. “I do think it may influence other people’s behavior towards ya. Make it easier ta build trust an’ form relationships.” 

Draco gave Harry a side-eyed glance over the rim of his tea cup. “You always made friends _very_ easily,” he criticized his spouse. “Given your history, you should be far more distrustful than you are.” 

“Ozhers naturally love yoo,” observed Dima, knocking his eyebrows suggestively. “Not just becauze yoo are handsome. And brave. And famous. And rich.” 

Dmitry would know all about that; people had come after him his entire life for those reasons, wanting a piece of or proximity to what he had. Dima was implying that the attention Harry received was of a different nature than what was directed at him or his brothers. 

Harry’s mind traveled to Ginny, and her crush on him from a very young age. Then Cho Chang, who developed feelings for him while she still had every right to be grieving Cedric’s death. Even Ron and Hermione, whom he’d yelled at, lied to, and pushed away more times than he could count; they still loved him, still came back to him, even when he’d done nothing to earn their affection. All of these people cared for him when it wasn’t sensible or logical. Love wasn’t a rational emotion. 

But had their actions, and their feelings, been guided by some outside force beyond their own instincts? Harry couldn’t say for sure. 

Draco nodded, sage and sarcastic. “Your cult-like popularity does boggle the mind, Chosen One. I mean, have they met you? You’re kind of a nightmare! Arrogant, rash, deceitful….”

Harry almost spat out his drink from laughing. “Maybe you should take that ring off and see if you still love me,” he quipped. 

“I’d… rather not, actually.” The playful expression fell from Draco’s face, replaced by mild concern. “Last time I took it off was our wedding, and it made me feel… nauseous.” 

“Oh shit.” Harry slapped his forehead. “After you threw it at me, I told you never to take it off again. And I put it back on your finger.” He slipped into Parseltongue. “ _I don’t think either of us were bleeding at the time._ ” 

Draco shook his head. “ _I backhanded you, baby_ ,” he recalled, tapping his cheekbone. “ _Split you open just under your eye. With the_ _ring on_ _my finger. I remember it._ ” 

That was true. As soon as Draco said it, Harry remembered the blow: he got himself hit so frequently it rather all blurred together at this point. Draco, a lefty, still would’ve worn the Gaunt ring on his right hand at the time. He would have had his wand in his left hand, brandishing it at Harry as they argued, leaving his right free to backhand Harry with, getting the Chosen One’s blood on his ring. When Harry retrieved the projectile ring and put it back on Draco’s finger, making him promise never to take it off again… had that oath somehow compounded itself into the Blood Bond?

“ _We fucked later that night,_ ” Harry added. “ _So we definitely drew more blood there_. _Wonder if that made the bond stronger?_ ”

Dmitry put his hand in the air. For a second it looked as though he had a question—then Harry reminded himself that his highness understood Parseltongue perfectly, and knew exactly what they’d said. Dima wasn’t raising his hand: he was offering Draco a high-five for drawing blood during sex. Harry reached across the table, not wanting to leave his friend hanging, and slapped his hand. 

Draco stared hard at Dmitry. His mouth opened, unable to form words. He was trying to parse out why what had happened to himself and Harry was also effecting Dima and Nebojsa. Dima was understanding Parselmouths because of something _they_ had done. What had happened to Draco early in their relationship was, by all appearances, now happening to Dmitry, too. The only connection was the Potters; therefore they were the cause.

“You…” Draco had to start again. “When I go to the Ministry to do testing for Snape… you’ll have to come, too.”

“We should figure this thing out,” Harry agreed. “If only to make sure we’re not going to hurt anyone.” 

Draco tittered a tad dryly. “It’s an imperative to love. The one power greater than the Dark Lord himself. How could that possibly go wrong?” 

Leon looked from the broken ring to Draco’s face, split by the horcrux scar in the very center of his lip. “Maybe ya shouldn’a wear that ring fer now.” 

Draco’s lips puckered, accenting the white scar there. His mouth twitched as he came to a decision. “Nah. I think I’ll take my chances on love.” 

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry arranged for himself and Draco to have lunch with Kingsley Shacklebolt. They chose the Leaky Cauldron. Because they wanted people to see. 

Kingsley was officially running for Minister of Magic against Rufus Scrimgeour. Surprisingly—at least to Harry—there were no other candidates. No one else wanted anything to do with it. Or perhaps everyone else qualified and crazy enough to do it had been killed in the war. 

Over pub fare, Harry initiated a frank discussion about what Kingsley stood for—beyond campaign promises or policy. It was still important to know what he wanted to do if elected. But Harry really needed to hear that Kingsley believed in the type of radical change it would take to turn the ship around. Harry’s preference was to sink the whole thing and start over from scratch. Kingsley’s thinking wasn’t far from that. 

“I refuse to have another Ministry like what I’ve grown up with,” said Harry. “I’ll do whatever it takes to see that happen.”

Kingsley wanted to start an Ethics Council—a group of witches and wizards to meet regularly and advise him on issues relating to magical culture, what was needed by the people, to keep him in touch and in check. He wanted people from across the Ministry, plus civilians, to be on the committee. And he wanted the Potters. 

Draco choked on his sandwich. He couldn’t fathom being wanted for anything, let alone an advisory on ethics. To him, it sounded like a mistake. Draco didn’t see himself as a bridge between purebloods and muggleborns: he came from one of the oldest families, yet he’d married a mixedblood, and together they lived with one foot in each world. Draco’s presence on such a council would provide a voice for the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight. He could represent compromise and tolerance, the future of pureblood integration. 

“And you, Harry,” Kingsley turned his attention on The Boy Who Lived; his whole head turned, only having one eye with which to regard them both. “I’d very much like to see you as a part of Law Enforcement.” 

“No commitments, Kingsley. I need to see the policy. I need to see that you can execute real change. I won’t support the Ministry as it is now.” 

“I understand,” he conceded. “There’s massive work to be done. We’re proposing to upset hundreds of years of systemic power imbalance.” Oh, Kingsley knew Harry was emotionally invested in the idea of restoring power to the magical people—he could push at Harry’s buttons, drawing him out. 

“I won’t accept any special treatment,” Harry cautioned. 

“Fair enough.” Kingsley pushed a bite of food past his lips, chewing, thinking. “Let’s say I’m able to make this happen. We get control of the Ministry, get rid of the stuffed cloaks, start some real reform. Where would you be in this?” 

Harry appreciated that Kingsley wasn’t outright offering him a job, but rather asking after his own preference. 

Harry looked to Draco, who nodded encouragingly. They’d discussed it.

“If you’re elected… I had considered becoming a Hit Wizard.” 

“Really?” Kingsley was only a little surprised, leaning back in his chair, looking between them. “I thought you’d be interested in becoming an Auror, like James.”

Harry shook his head. “We’re very different men, my dad and me. Also, I hate paperwork. You should know that if we’re gonna work together.” 

“It’s true,” Draco chimed in. “Mainly because he has the most awful penmanship. Looks like a troll holding a quill.” 

Harry snorted. “Thanks, hun.” 

“Any time, Scar Head,” Draco smirked.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

They came home late. A magical photographer caught them eating with Kingsley, which wasn’t the end of the world. They’d wanted the press to catch wind. The annoying part had been standing in Slug And Jiggers Apothecary for three-quarters of an hour, intermittently peeking out the window to see if the fucking cameraman had given up yet. They didn’t want to be followed home; Apparating out through a Public Point. 

They made it home shortly before dinner, arriving in the hallway with a _pop_ , still in their wizard robes. 

The sound of a drum set and guitar put a soft smile on Draco’s face—the band had started rehearsing without him. 

Sia’s bass was missing from the mix. He came out of the kitchen floating a tray of cocktails. The Serb lured them into the parlor with the promise of drinks, sitting the Potters down on the sofa before handing them each a glass. 

Harry sipped at it and just about died. He knew he was drinking hard liquor but it went down like pumpkin juice. It was the sort of drink he could get black-out-drunk from if he wasn’t careful. 

“What’s in this?” 

Nebojsa shrugged. “Cherry Heering, _varenya_ , lime, and gin.” 

Draco’s eyebrows went up, taking a sip for himself. One mouthful and he moaned, his eyes closing. 

“Get me drunk and sing to me anytime,” Draco murmured appreciatively, drinking half the glass in the time it took Nebojsa to smile a little, lick his lips, and pick up his bass. 

The songs they’d rehearsed were Dima’s style—heavy metal, screaming, hard. Misha sang. Dima made sounds from hell deep in his throat. Harry was sort of expecting it. They sounded good, like a proper metal band. 

All of the songs were covers, nothing original yet. Harry hadn’t expected they’d be writing their own material so soon. But the last song they prepared was a surprise. It was their own darker version of REM’s “Losing My Religion.” Sia and Dima sang it as a duet. 

In that song, Harry thought they’d really found something of their own. 

It wasn’t just angry or loud. It had a purpose. It was about their experience, about the love between them; the struggle to align their lives and their feelings for each other when faced with what the world might think of them if-or-when they ever came out. 

“ _Every whisper of every waking hour_ ,” Sia sang. “ _I’m choosing my confessions, trying to keep an eye on you._ ” Because Nebojsa lied to everyone about his relationship with Dima. None but a few could be trusted to know. He probably couldn’t even tell those in his faith, couldn’t confess to his God in his church, for fear of being excommunicated or denied the priesthood he’d studied so long and hard for. He lied to protect Dima as much as his own future. “ _Like a hurt lost and blinded fool… oh no, I’ve said too much._ ” The fear of getting caught, of slipping up, not being able to hide it—especially when they looked at each other like that. The world would burn down before they stopped looking, that was how much they loved each other. 

Harry knew the feeling. Sometimes he let slip in public how he really felt for Draco. People didn’t understand him—they didn’t see who Draco really was. They’d rather think Harry had lost his mind and all sense of direction than believe Draco was worthy of him. 

“ _I thought that I heard you laughing, I thought that I heard you sing_ ,” Dima replied. Because it had been years since he’d seen his love happy. They never had a reason to be. They always assumed that Dima’s father would force him to get married—or just murder him for being gay and pass off his death as yet another tragic family accident. And without Dmitry in his life, Nebojsa would go back to his monastery and live the rest of his life as a monk. They never expected or imagined any of this—where they stood now, singing to each other in Harry Potter’s living room—was even possible. “ _I think I thought I saw you try_.” 

“ _But that was just a dream_ ,” they sang together, their eyes locked so tight, unblinking. After the nightmares they’d both lived through, even dreams were dangerous. “ _That was just a dream, just a dream…._ ” 

All of their songs should be like that, Harry thought. Because it was magic.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

In all the years Harry had been friends with Hermione Granger, he’d never been to her house. Upon learning where she lived, he felt like a complete tosser; the Grangers were in Hampstead—near the Heath where he jogged every morning, about fifteen minutes north by taxi… which was how he got there. 

A short front garden shaded the house from the street—the wooden front door had a row of stained glass rectangles at the top, flanked by bay windows trimmed in white, showing Harry an interior filled with book cases and comfortable furniture. It was a cottage style, semi-detached at the end of the row. Down the quiet street Harry could see glimpses of Golders Hill Park, where his more ambitious runs took him to sprint the flower gardens. Muggles liked to get married under the gazebo at the north-west end of the park. He’d run past event staff setting up chairs or hanging garlands of flowers for summer ceremonies. 

Harry knocked on the Grangers’ door with a large bouquet of flowers in his hand, a book from Romania wrapped in paper under his arm. The flowers were for Hermione’s mum. He knew Hermione would prefer the book, but maybe she’d be flattered by the spray of yellow roses, too. 

A breeze caught his hair, blowing it over his eyes. He wore contact lenses more often than not, sick of his longer hair getting caught on his glasses. He raked his free hand through his hair—an old nervous gesture turned to one of necessity. 

He still wasn’t sure what to do with his thick, stupid hair; every day it seemed a bit longer, with no comments from Draco or the others about cutting it. He’d never grown his hair out before, never mind this long. Another month or two and he’d be able to tie it back. 

The weight made it stick out marginally less. It started curling up at the ends, with a bit of a wave that stood out from his head in all directions. Harry had always assumed his hair was straight—but like his sexuality, he’d never given his body the chance to show him otherwise. Apparently what his hair needed to counter the wildness was space to roam free. What had once been an unmanageable, occasionally matted thatch slowly became… well, Draco called it “sex hair” in his mind; out loud, the only compliment his husband would attribute was to its prodigious volume. It did make his head look bigger. 

Harry knew that Draco secretly liked his hair. Draco was always touching it, in bed or when they kissed, running his fingers through it, grabbing Harry by it, or holding it away from his face when he gave head. That was happening a couple times a week now, putting a permanent grin on Harry’s face. 

Hermione opened the door with a cheerful shout. “Harry!” And she launched herself up into his arms. He held her one-handed against his side, trying not to crush the flowers or drop the book.

When he set her back on her feet, she looked him over, her eyes not knowing where to settle. “God! Wow… you look great.” 

Harry caught her meaning; he was almost unrecognizable from the boy she’d met on the Express seven years ago. His scar had stuck with him through it all, but his body was a man’s now. 

Invited inside, Mrs. Granger did a similar double-take at seeing him. 

“Harry?” she looked him over exactly as Hermione had—taking in his short black beard and long wavy hair tucked behind his ear, his hairy legs exposed by a pair of cuffed Bermuda shorts, the tattoo on his arm, and his casual linen shirt checkered in purple and blue. He still wore a lot of plaid, but these days it was tailored below his big shoulders, showing the shape of his body beneath the clothes. Draco had re-sizing charms down to an art, and his preference in tailoring was quite fitted. 

“My God, I hardly recognize you! John, come have a look at Harry. You won’t believe….” 

The process was repeated with Mr. Granger, whom Harry was now taller than. Harry presented Mrs. Granger with the flowers and Hermione with the book before being introduced to two little girls—Hermione’s cousins visiting for a few days while their parents, Mr. Granger’s sister and her husband, celebrated their ten year anniversary. The girls were five and seven, and very chatty. The word ‘precocious’ came to mind, like Hermione on the Express back in first year. The young sisters promptly informed Harry that he looked like the Disney cartoon character Aladdin. With his rich Black Sea tan, long hair and constant grin, he supposed that was apt. 

Mrs. Granger insisted on taking a picture of Harry and Hermione together. The photo currently on the wall showed them at twelve or thirteen, looking so small. Mrs. Granger positioned them in front of the bay window. Hermione posed with her arm around his waist, his over her shoulders—trying not to look too boyfriend-y about it. The last time he’d posed for pictures had been the TriWizard Tournament and the Yule Ball, which didn’t exactly give him a lot to smile about. He understood the Grangers wanted photos, for posterity, to document their daughter’s life because they loved her and were proud of her friendships. That helped Harry keep his expression pleasant as Hermione’s mum took a whole slew of photos. Hopefully they gave Ron the same treatment when he came to visit. 

Harry and Hermione went to the back garden for a private conversation away from her young cousins, who had no idea about magic. 

The yard was secluded by brick garden walls, blocking the neighbors and the occasional sound of a car on the street. Blooming ivy grew over the walls, turning the entire back yard green. There was a sunny brick patio with a table and chairs, yet Harry chose to throw himself down in the grass, his hands behind his head, looking up at the clouds blowing across the blue sky. 

The summer heat made Hermione’s hair frizz. As they exchanged stories about their summer trips, she divided her hair over her shoulders, practiced fingers blindly making a plait on each side starting behind her ears, tying them off. It was a youthful style, reminding Harry that despite their heavy pasts he and Hermione were only just eighteen. Harry felt much older. He wondered if Hermione did too. 

The conversation turned to Harry’s living situation. 

“They’re all at Grimmauld now?” she asked of the Ionescue brothers and Nebojsa. “How’s that?” 

Harry shrugged. He’d spent the better part of six years living in a dormitory—a third of his life spent bunking with dozens of blokes, sharing space and having meals together, passing the time. He was accustomed to living in close quarters amongst other chaps his age; sometimes it felt more normal than being alone with Draco. Though they’d been a couple for a year and married half that time, the Potters had only lived together for maybe four months in total—barely any time at all. 

“It’s really good,” Harry said. “Draco loves the company. They’ve started a band.” 

Hermione’s eyebrows went up. “A band? What about you?” She knew he’d never been musically-inclined in school.

Harry swallowed. “I’m in it, sort of. I play guitar now. I’m bloody awful, though.”

She looked over at him—her mouth smiling but her eyes heavy, concern bubbling up. Harry knew that look from the TriWizard Tournament, and every other time he’d run off to do something risky. Try as he might, Harry couldn’t put together how something so simple and normal as picking up an instrument could make Hermione worry the same as dangerous creatures trying to take his head off. 

“Are you... is Draco teaching you?” 

“Draco’s never played guitar before, either. We’re learning together, as a hobby.” 

She seemed relieved. She said, “Good. He’s an awful teacher.” 

That earned her a heavy snort from Harry. “Then why’d you ask him to take over teaching the DA?” 

Her spine stiffened—Harry had hit a sore spot. Hermione was often right and she knew it. The problem with being so smart and knowing the answers so often was that Hermione often ran out ahead of people, intellectually, and when others needed help understanding or catching up with her, she would huff and make it seem like the greatest inconvenience that she had to _explain_ herself. Maybe because she was an only child, raised surrounded by adults her whole life. Hermione hadn’t known how to help other kids, who maybe weren’t as bright as her. 

Hermione was wicked smart. But her people skills were kinda lacking. 

She didn’t like that he was questioning her actions. Harry hadn’t questioned much of anything until after Dumbledore died. That was when he started looking for alternate perspectives, new paths, people and ideas he’d never been exposed to before. Once he started asking the right questions, his whole world had opened up. 

“Well,” Hermione’s chin rose. “He was a mess at the time, wasn’t he? Binge drinking, Insomnia, his language….” She wasn’t defending her decision so much as going after Draco. “I even thought, more than once, he was in some danger of taking his own life.” 

Everything she said was accurate. And Harry could certainly go down that emotional path—he could get into a very extensive, uncomfortable conversation about Draco’s attempts to overdose on his pain potion back at Grimmauld Place, or the times he’d looked too long at a knife or Harry’s guns once he knew what they were for. There was a whole conversation about Draco’s mental health… which Harry didn’t want to have with Hermione. As much as he loved her, he didn’t think her empathetic abilities were quite up to par: it was hard to find compassion for someone who’d made you miserable for years, even if that person’s actions had been motivated by their own abusive situation. 

Harry had found it in himself to forgive Draco. In the last few weeks, he’d stopped expecting everyone else to feel the same way. Forgiveness was a place which everyone came to in their own time, and he couldn’t rush that process. 

He didn’t want to get into it with Hermione. So he grunted. Hermione could observe Draco’s Bipolar symptoms—Harry didn’t have to confirm anything, or engage with her about it. Draco’s mental health was still their private business, not something he would share unless it was a matter of safety. 

“So why’d you ask him to teach?” Harry repeated evenly. “Knowing he was so fucked up?” 

“I....” Hermione looked stumped. She didn’t exactly appreciate his language, either, but knew he was beyond scolding at this point. Harry Potter’s foul mouth was here to stay. His blunt acknowledgement forced her to stop talking about Draco’s mental health and focus on her own past actions. “Draco was suffering and I... I wanted him to be around people, I guess. To reinforce what normal behavior looked like. But having him teach was a horrible idea. He was fine teaching you the Dark Arts,” she conceded, “because he couldn’t bully you anymore. He didn’t stand a chance at pushing you around—because you’d push him right back. But he was not the best instructor to others. He was physically and verbally abusive, and highly inappropriate. I don’t know why I did that.” 

Harry knew why. He’d done the exact same thing. When Draco got manic at Grimmauld, Harry dragged him out to socialize. When Draco seemed depressed at Hogwarts, Harry suggested he take over the quidditch team. And this summer when he’d been listless, Harry dragged Draco off to Romania. The best medicine for Draco was to be around people, not to shut himself off and get dragged down by his own delusions. He needed an external check, a social distraction. Just like Harry, Hermione had subconsciously tried to provide that. 

“You already said why, ‘Mione. To help him. He needed to be around other people.”

“Why would I do that?” Hermione berated herself. “Why would I expose other students to his awful behavior? It makes no sense. God, I was an idiot.” 

Harry swallowed. He’d never really confronted Hermione about something like this before, never seen her question herself. He couldn’t remember the last time she admitted she’d been wrong or made a mistake. Hermione prided herself on living a nearly mistake-free life. 

He put a comforting arm around her shoulders, a half-hug of support. 

“No, you weren’t,” he told her more gently. “ _I_ was the idiot. Remember the ring I gave Draco? The one that used to be a horcrux? It turns out I… well, it seems I accidently packaged the protection my mum put in my blood and gave it to Draco instead, by way of the ring.” 

Hermione flinched, turning to him. Their faces were so close he could count her individual eyelashes. “You mean the magic Voldemort wanted access to? The magic he killed Cedric for?” 

“Sort of,” Harry licked his molars, looking for the most succinct way to explain how they thought the Blood Bond worked. “This was something more. It’s called a Blood Bond. You have to sacrifice something of yourself to make it—to bleed or cut off a part of your body or… in my mum’s case, she gave her life to it. Her Blood Bond changed the way people treated me—magical people, anyway. The Dursleys were still awful to me. But for people with magic, it helped them see what my mum wanted for me… which was love. 

“Her bond made it easier for me to make friends when, rightly, I should’ve been a paranoid and insecure kid. I know I still was,” he readily admitted. “But her bond made it so people would understand, and maybe forgive me more easily. It convinced other people to give me a second chance, even when I didn’t deserve it.” 

He squeezed her shoulder, admitting, “I think this Blood Bond was influencing you and Ron the most, since you were my best friends. Every shitty thing I did to you two, all the times I was an awful friend and you had every right to not wanna be around me anymore… you always came back. I never understood why.” 

“Oh, Harry…” she put her hand on his knee, comforting him back. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d reached out to soothe him rather than herself. But it felt really good to have that connection again. “Because we love you. I’ll be the first to admit that your temper and your propensity for lying are not my favorite qualities. It was usually a lie or your angry attitude that started fights. I can’t speak for Ron, but… I know, for me, in every argument we’ve ever had, I never stopped wanting to be your friend.” 

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Harry blew his hair away from his face, exasperated. It was really sweet when Hermione pushed it behind his ear for him. “Maybe, without the effects of this Blood Bond, you and Ron would’ve walked away a long time ago. 

Her expression was like Minerva McGonagall presented with a very unconvincing excuse of why a student didn’t have their homework. “Harry…” she began, cautionary with a hint of shutting him down. Like Draco, she didn’t want to believe that her actions back then had been anything less than autonomous. No one wanted to believe they were being manipulated or somehow controlled. Just because it was hard to hear didn’t mean the idea didn’t warrant exploring. 

He cut her off. “As soon as the bond was gone—when I turned seventeen—we started drifting apart. Remember? I spent more and more time with Draco. By the time you and Ron and Ginny found out about us, the bond was totally dissolved off of me. All three of you left, because you were mad at me, which I absolutely had coming for being a deceitful pillock… but also because the bond wasn’t holding you anymore. For the first time, you _could_ leave me when I was a horrible friend to you. _That_ was your free will, uninfluenced by magic.” 

She shook her head. She didn’t want to see the logic, even as he laid it out. 

“The same compulsions which you felt to protect and cater to me, you eventually started to feel for Draco instead—because I’d put the Blood Bond from my mum, combined with my own feelings for him, into that ring. The love that you felt for me compelled you to treat Draco the same way you would’ve behaved towards me if I were in his shoes. Because of the bond... it was hard for anyone who cared for me _not_ to see me in Draco, because I gave him a part of myself… the bond from my mum which had been with me all of my life.” 

Hermione looked away. “You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?”

“It’s a piece of the puzzle explaining why I can’t seem to die properly,” he said dryly. “Without this Blood Bond moving from me to Draco, keeping the magic intact, I’m pretty sure I would’ve died. So yeah, I’ve thought about it once or twice.” 

That made her glance back at him—rolling her eyes because he was being mordant. 

He went on. “The more I think about it, the more I believe the Blood Bond effected me too. It made me want to love people, to let them in, even though it was hard at times, and went against every one of my instincts. I should’ve turned out like Draco, or Sirius. After everything I went through growing up, and then being in constant danger at school, being a celebrity, Death Eaters coming after me, being caught between Voldemort and Dumbledore—the two most powerful wizards in a thousand years… I should’ve been royally fucked up. Janus-Thickey-Ward levels of unstable.”

Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but Harry had more to say.

“Seriously. How old was I when I made my first kill?” 

She didn’t like the way he phrased it—like he was a criminal, a serial murderer, some kind of wizarding Hannibal Lecter preying on victims. “You’re not a killer, Harry.” 

He bit back the urge to shout at her that he was, in fact, very much a killer. She was very skilled at lying to herself, crafting her own version of the past; Harry did it too, blocking things out or remaking his memories so they didn’t cut quite so deep. His voice came out heavy through his teeth. “I was eleven, Hermione. _Eleven_. Professor Quirrell was the first person I killed.” 

Her eyes shut, flinching like she’d been hit. “Oh my God!” What struck her was how powerfully their young minds had warped and buried that memory. Harry had therapy to thank for making him recognize the truth of his own past. 

“You shut it out. Just like I did,” said Harry. “That experience alone should’ve turned me into a nightmare kid, should’ve given me behavioral problems and trust issues for the rest of my life. But no—fifteen months later I was making friends with Remus, my defence instructor, after the last _two_ had tried to take me out.” His rigid gaze focused on her face, demanding she provide him with some reason. “How is that even remotely normal behavior? Who the fuck would react that way?” 

She didn’t say anything. Finally, she was listening to him. 

“The only rational explanation is a Blood Bond, actively changing my mental state and influencing my actions. With everything that’s happened in my life I should be the biggest fucking mess the wizarding world’s ever seen. But I’m not. I’m mostly fine. I’ve got Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, some body image issues, and a stupid White Knight Complex—but none of that is even proportionate to what I’ve lived through.

“I know that having you and Ron around helped me; that being close with the Weasleys and my quidditch team, and having mentors like Dumbledore and Remus and Sirius, all contributed to my turning out alright. But you can’t deny that my personality—who I really am, deep down—is a loner. I never felt comfortable having a lot of friends. I don’t like being touched or showing affection unless I know the person really fucking well. I can be generous at times, but I don’t like sharing certain things, especially my thoughts and feelings. I never thought to ask people for help. Every time a problem came up, my instinct was to hide it and try to handle it myself. I really do think this Blood Bond made me accept help and love… even when I didn’t want it.” 

Hermione’s hand went back to his knee—trying to ground herself, to find comfort for both of them. A cloud passed over the sun, making the garden a bit darker. Harry rubbed his hand on her shoulder. He didn’t like what he was saying, either. But he did think it was true. And the truth was always worth chasing, worth finding, worth speaking. 

“Okay,” she said. “You’ve convinced me. It’s clear you’ve taken the time to reason this out.” Her eyebrow went up, asking how he’d come to his conclusions. He could read the question on her face. 

“I run in the mornings. It’s my thinking time,” he explained. “I dunno how much there is to be  learned about this kind of magic from traditional sources. Apparently it’s a pureblood thing which they keep very hushed up.” Draco seemed to know a tiny bit about it; Leon and the Ionescues had provided most of what Harry knew, which was precious little. “We need to be very careful if we dig around. People aren’t going to like it.” 

“I understand,” she agreed to his veiled request for secrecy. For the last two years it had been horcruxes they needed to keep mum about. Now the next puzzle to solve was Blood Bonds, and Blood Sorcery in general. It was a daunting hill to climb, with almost no clues and no guidance. Last time Harry had Dumbledore’s research to start with. This time, they were on their own. 

Harry had confidence in Hermione. With all of them working together, they’d find an answer. And time was on their side—no one was actively trying to murder him whilst they unscrambled this mystery, which Harry found to be a vast improvement.

Hermione squared her shoulders. “What do we know so far?” 

Harry laid back in the grass. A breeze cleared away the clouds, sunlight returning to the garden. He closed his eyes, feeling it against his skin. He’d spend all day in the sun if he could. 

“Blood Bonds require a sacrifice—blood, a body part, a life. I suspect the greater the sacrifice, the stronger the bond’s power is. There’s some kind of ritual involved for elaborate bonds, but we know from my mum that they can be made spur-of-the-moment, too, like when she died protecting me. She didn’t have any warning, yet she managed to do it. Wizards who know what they’re doing can kill a magical creature and use a ritual to bind it to themselves—so they can take its shape whenever they choose, like an Animagus.” 

She looked down at him. “Like the Ionescue brothers. They’re Granians, right?” 

Harry wobbled his hand inexactly. She was partially right. “Their dad forced them when they were young. Dima’s an Aethonan. Misha’s a Granian. Their dad and their older brother were Thestrals. Family tradition.” 

Hermione was quiet for a minute. She seemed to be lost in her own thoughts—memories. Harry remembered she’d seen him ride Misha during one of the first skirmishes of the war, out on the grounds of Hogwarts. She was putting together that Harry hadn’t been riding a creature from the Forbidden Forest, but rather a person—a willing, enthusiastic, fifteen-year-old wizard with a terribly tragic gift in his blood, who’d wanted to put his life on the line to help.

Harry still couldn’t get over how brave Misha was. It amazed him what people were capable of under pressure. 

Softly she asked of the brothers, “Do you know if it’s… painful for them? Their transformation?” 

“Extremely.” Animagi had always fascinated him since learning his father and his mates had managed it while still in school. Harry had asked the brothers one night at the palace, and the answer told him a lot about his friends. “Dmitry says the transition is like having every bone in his body shattered with a sledge hammer, all at once. Misha describes it as getting hit by a bus.” 

Meaning that every time Dima unfurled his wings in human form, he was enduring a pain not unlike his back being broken—sustaining it must’ve felt like being beaten by a gang of street thugs with aluminum bats. His pain tolerance was astronomical. No wonder Dmitry bottomed; compared to his animal form, the discomfort of taking a dick up his ass was literally nothing. Dima was the definition of masochism. 

Harry didn’t tell Hermione that last part; she wouldn’t appreciate the nuance, or the anal sex humor. 

He continued. “My theory is that _why_ and _how_ the sacrifice is made probably has an effect on the resulting Blood Bond. Dima and Misha had to kill the creatures in order to gain their magic. That’s very different than my mum taking a Killing Curse for me. The idea got in my head from the TriWizard, when Voldemort needed my blood to make a new body.” He’d thought about this one for a solid week’s worth of jogging before it made proper sense. “Voldemort used the bones of his father, unknowingly given. The flesh of a servant—Wormtail’s hand—willingly sacrificed. And my blood, forcibly taken. He needed all three to make a body. So I think intent plays a role in this type of magic, as well as whether the person doing the sacrificing is willing or, you know, being forced.” 

Hermione sighed. “I’m with you so far.” 

“The only other thing we know for sure is that Blood Bonds have something called an imperative—basically, what the sacrifice was meant to achieve, how it will effect the person who bears it going forward. For Dima and Misha, the imperative of their bond is mastery over the creature, and possessing its magic. They were involved in the ritual, so they know precisely what it’s supposed to do. In the case of my mum….” 

“She was dying,” said Hermione, looking at her hands in her lap. “She had the blink of an eye to cast her last spell. She was probably so frightened, and all she wanted was for you to survive. I can’t imagine what she felt in that moment.” 

“I can.” Harry washed his hands over his face. He’d lived it. “When you’re dying… when you know that’s the last moment, your last breath, the last thing you’ll ever see…. You’re not thinking about the person who’s killing you. That second can’t be wasted. You think of the people you love.” 

“You were thinking of Draco.”

He nodded from behind his hands. “I let Voldemort hit me in the back—because I wanted to be looking at Draco when it happened. I wanted his face to be the last thing I saw. Which was so fucking selfish of me,” he growled, angry with his own egotism. “I was thinking of myself. My love for him, how much _I_ would miss him. My feelings for Draco were really possessive and unhealthy at times—I think, because of the part of Voldemort’s soul that was in me. That neediness, fear, lack of acceptance, those feelings came more from Voldemort than my own heart. Now that it’s gone… I still love Draco, but what I want for him is to be free, you know? I don’t need to own him. Looking back on how I behaved towards him and what I put him through… I was putting myself first all the time, which made me an awful husband. Being rid of Voldemort’s horcrux has opened me up to a lot I was never able to access before.” 

He let out a breath, arms flopping out over the grass. He felt so much more these days—like his heart was going to explode from all the emotions he carried around. 

“I understand a lot more about what my mum went through, having that shared experience of dying for someone I love. Now, being on the other side of it, I can see what was wrong about my thinking. My love for Draco was selfish in many ways. I had to let that part of myself die with Voldemort, because it didn’t belong in me anyways. Dying for someone you love is about that—love. Only love. You have to give yourself up completely. My mom understood that. For me… it took dying to understand what love really is. 

“The imperative of my mother’s Blood Bond was to love, and to accept love without condition or restraint. Which is why you were trying to help Draco at school—to show him love like you gave to me for so many years. It’s why Draco opened himself up to becoming a big brother to Kieran, even when he’d never been the mentoring type before. And... possibly… the Blood Bond is why we got married.” 

Hermione shook her head, rounding on him. “Don’t say that, Harry. I know you. You married Draco because you love him; really deep down, true and honest kinda love.” The pinched expression on her face said, _Harry, you’re the only person on earth who could love that giant prick_. Literally. Hermione had seen Draco’s cock. Twice. If Draco was a giant prick, then surely Harry was the biggest asshole of them all. They deserved each other. 

Anxious, Harry licked at his lips. “There’s always a voice in the back of my head saying if I hadn’t given Draco that ring… maybe he wouldn’t have rushed our marriage. Maybe the imperative of the ring forced his hand before he was actually ready to get married. Maybe the ring made him love me before he was ready.” 

“Did it force his hand?” she thought out loud. “Or, like you said with Ron and me, was it helping him tap into his own conscience? Maybe it brought out a passion he’d felt for you all along, but was too afraid to express.” 

Harry had to consider that. Draco had flirted with him—hit on him, though he’d been oblivious to it—long before the ring. Their constant fighting in school, the way they dogged each other, relentless, was outside the realms of normal behavior; for lack of a better word, they’d been unhealthily _obsessed_ with each other since first year.

Perhaps he was viewing their relationship through his own skewed, distinctly asexual filter. Hermione had a good point. The Blood Bond might not have made Draco do anything he didn’t want to; but rather, like a good song on the radio when you were in a bad mood, it drew out the desire to dance—to love, and to receive love—which was already living inside him. 

“I definitely prefer your version,” conceded Harry. “Thanks for the shot of optimism.” 

“What’s not to be optimistic about?” 

Harry looked at the endless blue of the sky. “I have to live with the fact that I let this magic loose in the world. I took it out of myself and wrapped Draco in it. I changed the way people behaved around him. I changed how _he_ interacted. I didn’t do it on purpose. My intention was to keep him safe. But my intentions are only a portion of my actions. I’m still responsible for everything that happened after. I need to figure this out so I can make it right.” 

Hermione looked pained. “Harry. I think you take too much on your shoulders, sometimes. Everything that happened—the war—it wasn’t your fault.” 

“Really?” His long breath joined the breeze. “Because I think, for the first time in my life, I’m actually starting to take responsibility for what I’ve done.”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

_The Daily Prophet_

_1_ _July, 2001_

 

Opinion  |  Harry James Potter

  

It is no secret that I have never been a friend of the Ministry. Justifiably, I could be labeled an enemy of multiple administrations. I have strong opinions regarding the wasteful bureaucracy, corruption, and systemic prejudice of our government. From a young age I have been outspoken in my criticism of the Ministry and previous Ministers of Magic. I am and continue to be a vocal dissenter. 

Our government is broken. The Ministry no longer represents the will of its people. Its policies and practices are outdated. Many officials are self-serving, secretive, and owned by outside influence. 

Our Ministry’s presence in London has been burned to the ground. We must rebuild. I believe this is our opportunity as the magical people of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales to demand our government undergo radical reformation.

This must begin with our Criminal Justice System. We must retire the practice of using magical creatures as punishment for crimes, as this only promotes fear of creatures as opposed to understanding, and removes us the citizens from the practice of enforcing punishment for crimes convicted. We must outlaw prisoner isolation as it is proven detrimental to the psyche. The purpose of imprisonment is not to punish but to maintain the safety of our society. It is our responsibility to change our penal system to one of reeducation and rehabilitation, removing cruelty in all its forms.

In our history we have been quick to put to death those who do not look or think like us. Too often we execute our own. With our population reduced by as much as a third, it is imperative that we remove the Death Penalty from all but the most heinous of crimes—genocide, mass murder, serial rape, and violent crimes against children. While we may not personally enjoy the thought of having persons found guilty of certain crimes remaining alive, we must conserve our numbers if our society is to have the strength necessary to rebuild. 

To further support the growth of magical society and culture, we must reform the codes of immigration to allow witches and wizards fleeing desperate conditions in their home countries access to the resources which the British Ministry has to offer, including those fleeing conditions of non-magical causes such as muggle wars, genocide, and discrimination. Further, our Ministry ought to begin searching for talented witches and wizards outside our boarders, people who would like to come to Great Britain to learn, to work, or to raise a family; and for the Ministry to provide services assisting immigrants in their transition and settlement into magical Great Britain. This is our opportunity to create a new environment in which we all want to live. 

We must put an end to barbaric terminology in our laws and reform practices relating to Magical Creatures and Human-Creature Hybrid Beings. To do this, it is necessary that we create coalitions of humans and all sentient creatures working together to advise policy and support various creature groups and cultures. Me must reimagine our laws for the safety and welfare of house elves. We must legislate to protect and preserve creature habitats. We must reform licensing for creature ownership, transport, and breeding. And we must provide education to the public to improve creature-human relations and reduce interspecies crime. 

In this new century, it is time we re-write magical Marriage Law restricting marriage to persons seventeen years or older, or fifteen under special conditions with parental consent. We are no longer dying of Dragon Pox before we turn thirty, rendering the need to get married at age twelve obsolete. It is our duty to protect young witches and wizards from unwanted or forced marriages. Raising the age for marriage to seventeen will allow our kids to have their childhood. 

To further protect young witches and wizards, we must create a new class of laws applicable to students and young adults, ages 10 to 17, allowing for infraction forgiveness and reeducation; because young people do not have the cognitive abilities of an adult witch or wizard, and it is cruel and unfair that they be criminally tried as adults. 

Past reforms to our Educational System have not been beneficial to young witches and wizards, and only served to further complicate our education process whilst limiting access. We must begin by immediately reinstating student exchange programs and making them free of cost, so that children may experience the cultures of other parts of the magical and muggle worlds. Building international relations and magical cooperation starts with the youngest generation. 

We must create and maintain adult study programs for those who never attained OWLs or NEWTs, or who wish to re-take these tests. Exams are administered at a young age, before a witch or wizard has fully developed. Young life experiences can interfere with a person’s test-taking abilities, and a single performance review is often not indicative of a person’s potential. Witches and wizards should have the opportunity to study for OWLs and NEWTs regardless of their age, to study in a school or by correspondence, and to re-take their exams to reflect their current skill level. Education reform is a critical step in increasing access to magical careers and expanding our available workforce. 

For too long our government has acted on behalf of its people without their knowledge or consent. The actions of our officials are often obfuscated or hidden from the public entirely. To this day many witches and wizards have no understanding of what our government does in their name. 

In full transparency, I demand our government produce a weekly report of non-confidential activities across all Ministry Departments, which shall be distributed to every adult member of the magical community without fee or hindrance. So that witches and wizards may be informed directly from administrators and officials what is being done in their name. Further we must introduce public forums where witches and wizards interact directly with officials, including presenting grievances, and the ability for citizens to propose new laws and regulations. 

We must immediately instate and uphold a true Democratic Vote, wherein every witch and wizard of legal age has a say in the function of their government. Abolishment of the autocracy, as elected officials have proven they cannot be trusted to represent the will of the people, and that until trust has been rebuilt the people’s voices must be heard directly. 

Our lack of understanding of muggle culture and technology limits our progress. Most witches and wizard’s are unaware of the non-magical world, as long as Muggle Studies and Relations remain elective subjects rather than an integral part of a well-rounded education. In order to survive and flourish, we must completely overhaul of how wizards interact with muggles, including educational materials for magical people on muggle culture, currency, social norms, technology, and generally how to get by in the muggle world without risking exposure. It is imperative that we change our understanding of and relationship with non-magical peoples, who outnumber us at 6,000:1, or perhaps more. We must accept that muggles are not our inferiors; they deserve to be protected from the dangers of magic, but that can be done in such a way that is respectful, not belittling, and honors their human rights. 

To protect ourselves and to plan for our future, there must be sweeping changes to the way magical law is enforced, including cooperation and in some cases integration with muggle Law Enforcement. Allowing for magical and muggle officials to share information in real time provides the best possible results, so that officers may protect citizens from harm, pursue criminals, and interrupt criminal activities. All witches and wizards ought to have muggle records which conceal and protect their identities as magical people while allowing them to interact with muggle society. Further integration with muggle police forces will allow for Aurors, disguised as a specialized branch of muggle law enforcement, to assist magical people while upholding the International Statute of Secrecy. In this way we can ensure that we are protecting muggles from harm, reducing the need to Obliviate, and reducing our risk of exposure, while magical people receive more efficient and effective service from law enforcement agents. 

 

These changes are sweeping. They are radical. Many will be removed from power, or have their influence irreparably diminished. This demand for change is greater than any one individual: this is our future at stake. Those in power have lost sight of their once-noble purpose, and no longer act on the wishes of their constituents. We must remake our Ministry. 

I am accustomed to being a target for disapproval, confusion, and distrust. In the past I have been ostracized and and even demonized in the media in attempts to discredit me and reduce my ability to impact others. I have persisted: because I believe in Great Britain, and I believe that the majority of witches and wizards agree with me that it is time for massive changes across our government. 

The truth can be difficult to hear, especially when our own beliefs and closely held principles are questioned. I ask you only to read my words, to think on them long and carefully; and if you agree, then to stand with me in demanding change within our government to reflect what is in the best interest of our collective future.

 

A Ministry under Kingsley Shacklebolt is the only Ministry I support.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

It appeared in every paper, not just in England. Every major magical news outlet picked it up. The words were translated and printed in Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, French, Spanish, German, Russian, and a few other languages Harry couldn’t remember. People cut out the article and pinned it proudly to their walls: at home and in shops, at their offices, anywhere they could show their support. 

Harry had wanted to print it from _The Quibbler_ , to help Luna rebuild her father’s magazine by drawing readership using the Potter name. Unfortunately her father’s press was in no condition to run, and Luna herself wasn’t quite ready. “Next time,” she told him by floo. She wanted to be a part of what he was doing, but her health and recovery came first. Harry understood. 

Begrudgingly, he ran it through the _Daily Prophet_. They broke sales records—more people bought the _Prophet_ to read his words than either time Lord Voldemort had been declared dead. 

It was read out loud on various Wizarding Wireless programs. People quoted it to each other on the streets of Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. Arguments broke out over family dinners, young witches and wizards using Harry Potter’s words as means to convince their stodgy old parents it was indeed time for a massive change in governance. His salvo became so popular that Flourish and Blotts started selling a calligraphy version, framed, which witches and wizards bought, wanting to commemorate his every revolutionary word. 

That word—revolutionary—was bandied about more than Harry cared for. In his mind, he wasn’t asking for anything more than decency and respect. Because magical people had lived under a fucking rock for so long, the sunlight seemed blinding. 

Harry and Draco were embarrassingly drunk when they wrote the first draft. They’d downed a tenner worth of beer one night and laid out on the living room floor, ranting about how awful the Ministry was under Scrimgeour and Fudge before him—talking wildly about all the things which Kingsley would have to change to make any real difference. At some point Draco had sat up, Summoned a quill and parchment, and started writing things down. An hour later they had it. 

In the sober light of morning, Harry transcribed a copy. In writing the words, he recommitted himself. This was the right path. He owled their words to Hermione. He didn’t need anyone’s approval to move forward; he did appreciate her opinion and insights. 

 _I wouldn't change a thing_ , she wrote back. 

The words they’d penned included both his and Draco’s names in the by-line. It was Draco who ultimately stayed Harry’s hand, suggesting that more people would be willing to stand behind the words if they were attributed to Harry alone—rather than himself plus his former Death Eater husband. Harry’s heart broke at that. He wanted Draco to have his due credit. Half the words were his. They shared every sentiment expressed in that inflammatory article; Harry never would have been able to organize himself or articulate his beliefs so clearly without Draco’s help. 

They argued about it when they woke up the next morning—Draco’s voice thick from sleep, his accent pronounced, his eyes barely open as he conveyed his opinion whilst totally fucking naked in bed, using Harry’s arm for a pillow. 

“’S okay, _poilu_. This is the best possible way ta get people ter listen. Yer a fucking celebrity—use it fer something good. Tha’s what yeh do, right? It’s good. Let’s put it out there.” 

Surrendering, Harry nodded. “I owe you so much sex for this,” he said sincerely. He wanted to pay Draco back somehow. 

Draco’s voice was a happy sing-song peal. “Yes, Wonder Boy. Indeed yeh do. Best start now.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **POST SCRIPT:** This chapter is too fucking long. They all are. Faff faff faff.


	8. The Only Exception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer draws to a close with a party at Grimmauld Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** alcohol and light drunkenness, mentions of past rape, straight people snogging, something almost like plot

 

_“I’ve got a tight grip on reality_

_But I can’t let go of what's in front of me here_

_I know you’re leaving in the morning, when you wake up_

_Leave me with some kind of proof it’s not a dream_

_You are, the only exception_

_And I’m on my way to believing”_

 

 

“[The Only Exception](https://youtu.be/-J7J_IWUhls)”

Paramore

 

 

 

Harry never had a summer fly by quite like his first summer married to Draco. 

They went to the dragon sanctuary in Romania, where Dima slipped the curators a small sack of gold which allowed them to fly their broomsticks through the Transylvanian mountains and forests, searching out dragons in the wild. Dima and Sia were the worst flyers of the bunch—not terrible by any stretch, but they weren’t about to get scouted to play professionally, either. Both got their tails lit on fire more than once, trying to bolt after getting too close to some nesting mother Ironbellies. 

They threw dance parties at the palace nearly every weekend. Streaming colors and beams of light filled their dreams, to the beat of music Harry had never heard before... and from these gatherings a new era of magical fashion was taking its first shaking steps, freshly born into the world. Harry started to see reflections of their rave styles showing up in garments in the windows of Madame Malkin’s weeks later. More and more people were openly wearing piercings and getting tattoos, or using magic to modify their bodies while out in magical public—changing the color of their skin and hair, enchanting themselves. This culture of visual art was helping everyone; to express themselves, to feel more free, and to get out of the oppressive mindset that they were still at war. The worst was over. And they had control over their futures for the first time in living memory. Putting on glitter, enchanting clothing buttons into flowers, or turning your hair purple were the first small steps in reclaiming a post-war identity for the surviving generation. 

You-Know-Who was dead, and they were _alive_. What followed was a new kind of celebration. 

Harry loved seeing Draco light up. Draco was being exposed to so many new concepts of culture—muggle, foreign, underground. Draco was feeling his way through genuine interest, so the information was never getting jammed down his throat. He sought out new ideas. Draco started asking questions, looking for new experiences. He wanted to go to America and shoot guns with Leon Harper. He asked how Harry’s motorcycle was coming along and whether he could learn to ride it. He talked about renovating Grimmauld Place to have electricity, and to fix the bathroom they’d blown to bits last year. He was increasingly looking outside of himself, interacting with the world, searching out his place in it.

Draco went with Misha to every pro quidditch try-out, supporting him from the stands, cheering louder than anyone. The pair of them would break down Misha’s performance for days after, debating which teams might make him an offer. Harry joined them, staying up into the small hours of the morning, helping Misha plan for the worst while maintaining some hope that an offer would come soon; otherwise his brother insisted he return to Hogwarts in the fall. 

Together they’d screamed, hugging, Misha picking Draco up and swinging him around when at last an owl arrived with an offer: Mikhail Ionescue would be the newest starting Chaser for the Chudley Cannons. 

None of them much cared that the Cannons hadn’t won a League Cup since 1892. Misha’s dream was to play professional quidditch, and at sixteen years old he was Great Britain’s youngest pro player, and the first professional player under age seventeen in almost two hundred years. Even Viktor Krum hadn’t been drafted until he turned seventeen. They had a plan in place to retreat to the Unplottable Ionescue palace when the Cannons made the official announcement, as Grimmauld would instantly be flooded by fan-mail and Howlers. The son of a convicted Death Eater would always be a controversial pick, even for a team like the Cannons without much to lose. But because Misha was also deadly handsome and so God-damned likeable, Harry thought the fan-mail might far outweigh the shouts… especially once they saw what he could do on the pitch. The Cannons might actually win a few matches this year. 

Fortescue’s Ice Cream Shop reopened in Diagon Alley. The owner, Florean Fortescue—who’d always doted on Harry as a kid, whether it was a free scoop or help with his History of Magic homework—was very much alive, and had been in hiding in Denmark. Florean had trashed his own shop with the help of some mates and gone off into seclusion. With the shop back up and running, Harry, Draco, and the lads often popped by for a sweet snack in the early evenings before hitting the bars or a concert. Summer ice creams were a bit of a tradition for Harry and Draco—right up there with tight pants and snogging in cupboards. 

Florean took Harry aside once, saying, “You know… you and blondie,” he waggled his eyebrows at Draco. “You’re a bit of an inspiration for the old queers like us. Gives a bloke a lotta hope to see… well, some acceptance and respect for us, the way we are. I know it couldn’t have been easy. Any of it. You’re a very brave young man, Harry. You both are.” 

Harry suddenly realized why Florean Fortescue knew so much about witch hunts and burnings—because historically they were a thinly veiled persecution of gay people as well as influential women; those with power going after minorities who were struggling to survive as it was. Florean had been educating himself, studying the past in order to learn from it, because he’d have spent most of his life believing he was one false move away from being a Death Eater target if his sexuality was ever made known to them. That was why he’d run to Denmark, where being gay was legally recognized and protected on the muggle side of things. He trashed his shop and ran, knowing the Death Eaters might’ve killed him for being, as he said, “an old queer.” 

Florean refused to take their money for ice creams. He always waved them off, telling them to go out and get a little wild, to make some noise and make a mangy old coot like him proud.

Harry was honored to be a part of it all, though he never considered himself a driving force of culture; especially when it came to art or self-expression. He merely facilitated more creative people, giving them space and permission and in some cases the resources they needed to create. 

One sunny weekend in Romania, Dmitry hauled Harry to the western end of the palace—into his secluded painting studio—to show Harry what he’d been working on. Dmitry had rendered the Potters so precisely and with such lifelike quality that Harry felt he was looking in a mirror, their faces emerging from dark shadows, larger than life; Harry saw his own face painted with a short beard wrapping his cheeks, looking dead ahead, his eyes hard through his glasses, hovering over Draco’s shoulder. And Draco’s chin canted to the side away from Harry like he always did when hiding his emotions, his jaw sharp, his expression simultaneously distrustful and brave. Their eyes shone through the dim, silver and green, almost glowing. Dima wanted Harry and Draco to have the painting, to hang at Grimmauld Place—a memory of how they looked in this moment of their lives. 

Dmitry confessed he was thinking about whether to paint the battle at Hogwarts; there were almost too many images, and he couldn’t pick one. Eventually, if he could ever decide, he wanted the Potters blessing before painting Harry or Draco as they’d been on that night. He understood what it would mean to them—it had been their nightmare come true, the worst night of both their lives, forever preserved through oil and canvas as it hung in their minds. Harry agreed. It felt right to paint it, to commemorate what had happened. Art had the ability to make statements beyond words. Harry wanted to know what Dima’s brush had to say. 

When it came to art through fashion, Draco and Nebojsa were kings. The pair of them started going off to vintage, couture, and specialty shops, looking for inspiration—always putting their heads together at home to figure out everyone’s “looks” for the next party. Harry happily went along with their increasingly untamed, though innovative ideas. They never steered him wrong. They drew their inspiration from everything around them: nature, architecture, magical creatures, even video games. Draco especially gravitated towards the oversized armor, gravity-defying hair and skin-revealing outfits of games like Mortal Kombat and Final Fantasy. Magic made their fantastic creations come to life. 

Harry’s daily fashion didn’t have to be intense—he was happy to finally have a wardrobe which reflected how he felt about himself: exploring, evolving, willing to take a few steps to the side now and then, to try something on and see how it went. His closet began to fill itself with a collection of leather and dragon hide, soft cottons and linen and silk, all in a range of earthy colors. Suddenly the boy who grew up with hand-me-downs had a closet bursting with stylish clothes which truly fit him. 

They tried to teach Harry Potter to play guitar. He was bloody awful—not being able to read music was a hindrance, just as he’d predicted. He had to be taught every song one note at a time; he needed someone sitting with him, humming, playing it for him to repeat it back, walking him through it, adjusting his fingers as needed. They’d never put together a proper set list that way—not with Harry holding them back. But he did try. He begged favors, he hired an instructor from the muggle newspaper and had proper lessons… and he practiced, every day. By inches, he got better. He still wasn’t good. Musically, he was a child mimicking the behaviors and understanding of those around him far more talented. Sometimes, when he wasn’t swearing and pulling at his hair, it was at least mildly refreshing to be terrible at something, and to have his awfulness be okay. 

Draco had progressed far beyond him, and that was exactly as it should be. Harry only wanted to know enough to be able to pick up a four string once in a while and jam with them. 

They got Draco to sing. Only sometimes. The blond kept insisting they ought to rotate who was the front-man of their band, the vocalist; he said they could access a wider variety of songs utilizing different voices and their ranges... which earned him the most epic of all eye-rolls from Nebojsa. 

“Dragon, you have nearly five octaves,” the Serb countered, dead serious. “More if you practice, or quit smoking. And you can imitate _anyone_. Including all of us.” Making Draco’s excuse appear as the absolute bullshit it was. 

Draco was still afraid; he feared he wasn’t good enough, that others may not like him, that if he expressed too much of who he really was, showing his hurt and brokenness… everyone would run away. Because that’s what happened when he tried to show his cut up heart to anyone before Harry. Apparently he couldn’t see their crazy-stupid little family banding around him every time he came out of his shell.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry hummed along as Dmitry strummed a famous old muggle song, “House of The Rising Sun.” They sat, all five of them, on the third floor terrace of Grimmauld Place, watching the sun set in a wash of bloody red over Regent’s Park. 

They were a family, in a sense Harry had never known. He hadn’t felt completely right with the Weasleys; they’d had their own routines and expectations at the Burrow, their own little inside jokes and experiences together, long before he’d come around. They adopted him—for that he was forever grateful. The Weasleys had taken him in. He’d never known love or support before they came into his life. 

But this… this was something different; and somehow, something more. This was the family he’d been reborn into. The people he’d taken into _his_ life, the men he’d jumped over his own mental hurdles for, knocking down walls of prejudice and preconception in order to love. People he’d opened his heart to, shown the worst of himself to, and never had they flinched or turned away no matter how ugly it got. Out of the darkness they’d all chosen one another, freely, wanting to stand side by side. When the worst of it came, they never flinched. It didn’t matter if they were flush or down to their last galleon. It didn’t matter if one of them was banging somebody they shouldn’t or having a nervous breakdown. These were the people who never left his side. No matter what. They had his back—because they understood where he’d come from, and what he’d come through, in order to be the man he was now. 

Every single day was one more day than they’d ever expected to have. And together they lived like it. Harry especially remembered the sensation of returning to life each morning. Every day he got to wake up, roll over, and look at Draco sleeping next to him. Every day was stolen from the hands of fate, which was why every morning he got up and ran with it—sprinting up the heath, his borrowed life in his hands, so that all destiny saw of Harry Potter was his back. 

Dima didn’t feel like singing, but he hummed a steady bass to compliment the music. Nebojsa growled out the lyrics, a combination of deepness and heart from the very bottom of his considerable range.

 

“ _There is a house in New Orleans_

_They call the Rising Sun_

_And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy_

_And God… I know… I’m one._ ”

 

He was singing about being with Dima. About breaking from his faith and breaking the laws of both their countries to be with the person he loved—even if that meant ruin for both of them. And it nearly had. His voice said that following your heart destroyed you sometimes, and you had to be willing to chase, to be ruined, to put an end to everything you thought you were, if you ever wanted to know yourself. That sometimes the fall from grace was worth it. 

Dima was his rising sun—a house which had nearly broken him, cost him his life more times than he could count, and somehow by some miracle he was still here. 

Sia sang of being poor, which he’d been all his life. He sang of drunks and gambling, of using people for sex and personal gain. Those likely weren’t his mistakes, but he had a few under his belt Harry would bet. 

There was a heart-breaking arc to the song. Sia gave it to Draco—taking the blond’s drink away and downing it himself, sitting smugly between Draco and the refill bottle. The Serb throttled his eyebrows, suggesting if Draco sang it out he would hand the bottle over. Nebojsa knew exactly how to edge Draco out of his self-imposed cage… getting him to free himself, and know it was his own doing, always within his own power. Draco had to believe in himself again. 

Draco’s flustered breath filled his stomach. He leaned back against his palms, head back, staring up at the last shadows of clouds in the sky. And with power in his lungs, he belted. 

“ _Oh mother! Tell your children_ _,_ _not to do what I have done…_ ” He closed off the N’s, humming them somewhere in his chest, the sound filling him, a kind of echo inside his body, resonant. Draco sounded so much louder and so much more than what he looked. He held each vowel, his mouth open—in that moment he’d stopped caring. He let his voice loose into the night. 

He changed the lyrics, adding a negative to make it cautionary. “ _Don’t you spend your lives in sin and misery, no, in the House of The Rising Sun._ ” 

He dipped the last—mournful, holding the consonant in his throat. 

He wore a choker of black leather just above his collar bones, as he had the night they’d almost gotten arrested in Constanţa. He wore it because Harry had finally remembered to mention how much he liked that simple bit of conjured jewelry, how good it looked; that hint of blackness interrupting the pale white line of Draco’s skin in the drawing night. The man fucking glowed, his face alive when he sang, unafraid to feel… maybe that was the company, or the liquor, or the music, but Harry loved seeing it. 

On the street below them tottered a few loud-mouthed muggles. Regent’s Park was quite the posh inlet, but there were some bars nearby where they might’ve come from—young people their own age, barely twenty, a mix of blokes and birds, the ladies’ high heels clacking on the pavement. Several of the birds gave appreciative hoots at hearing Draco sing. They all looked around, a little drunk already and trying to figure out where the music was coming from. 

Nebojsa held up the bottle in temptation, and Draco sang one more verse for him. 

“ _Well, I’ve got one foot on the platform, the other on the train…_ ” Talking about his divide between the muggle and magical worlds, and also his separation between his old Hogwarts life versus his life now, with Harry but without the castle. They wouldn’t be getting on the Hogwarts Express in the fall. There were no more trains in their future. “ _I’m goin’ back to New Orleans_ ,” Draco sang of a place he’d never been. His silver eyes fixed on Harry, singing the last. “ _To wear tha’ ball an’ chain_.” 

Harry was the ball and chain—not a prison or a punishment, but a marriage. Hopefully one where Draco felt he could be himself. 

The last part was low. Draco leaned, kissing Harry’s cheek like passing an invisible baton, giving him possession of the last words. 

The Boy Who Lived was becoming a true bass. The note wasn’t even a stretch for him—he’d gone far lower in losing his temper or getting it on with Draco. 

Harry sang when he was drunk, anyway. He sang happy, or in the shower, or cooking breakfasts in the morning. It was becoming increasingly normal for the mostly queer occupants of Grimmauld Place to randomly break into song, and Harry joined in whenever he knew the words. 

Dima’s carefully picking fingers slowed, drawing Harry out, winding down for the end of the song.   

Harry mimicked Draco’s long vowels. “ _There is… a house… in New Orleans_.” 

Down on the street, drunk people cheered this new disembodied voice. “Sing it, baby!” one woman shouted. 

“ _They call the Rising Sun_.” He looked at Draco… his own risen Death Eater son. Neither could quite wipe the smirks off their faces—part embarrassment, a little bit of liquor, and not knowing how to accept this feeling like happiness after so much had gone wrong for so long. They’d never sung together, looking at each other, lost to each other. Harry thought it might be awkward. But it was no stranger than looking at Draco and saying “I love you,” and he’d gotten that one out of the way a long time ago. If he wanted Draco to sing for him, then it was only right Harry get over himself and sing to Draco, too. 

Draco found Harry’s voice in his own throat, imitating The Chosen One, the man he’d saved; singing with him as though they were one person. Harry followed those lips, listening as his own voice came from Draco’s mouth the same as from his own. “ _It’s been the ruin of many a poor boy. And God… I know… I’m one_.” 

The muggles on the street actually applauded, cheering them on. There was a cheeky request for an encore. The muggles had looked up and found the five wizards sitting on the terrace. They waved and hooted from the sidewalk.

Draco popped forward, landing his mouth to connect with Harry’s as Dima gave the last notes to the night. And that really made the muggles scream—the girls, anyway. The sight of two random blokes kissing usually ruffled feathers.

Draco hadn’t done it for them. He did it because he wanted to, because it felt good, and whatever happened next couldn’t be nearly as fucked up as what they’d already been through. 

Misha let out a whimpering sound—because they were happy and in love, and he was glad for them, but he was also the only single person in the house and that had to be getting old rather fast. 

As promised, Nebojsa tipped the bottle of tequila into Draco’s glass. It was the last of the infamous bottle Harry had purchased last year. Silver tequila to match Draco’s eyes. The bottle which, after drinking half of it and passing out in bed together, Draco and Harry had woken up the next morning and gotten together. 

Draco accepted his glass as Nebojsa offered it. “Cheers,” he said. “I owe my life to tha’ bottle, right there.” He lifted his glass. “And the hangover handjob which followed.” His glass went higher, toasting the setting sun, before he took it down in one. 

They’d restocked the house supplies of food and liquor, since witches and wizards would be coming over for a casual sort of gathering. Tomorrow was the big day—wizarding Election Day. Tomorrow they would find out how much more their lives were going to change.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry felt good arriving in Diagon Alley. The Ministry was using a shop-front for witches and wizards to cast their votes. A short line of people snaked out from the door, spilling into the street in an orderly queue, waiting. 

Heads turned at their approach. Street traffic actually parted, giving them a certain reverent berth. 

Harry’s clothes had been laid out for him that morning, waiting without comment. He never purported to understand magical fashion. At school and in quidditch he wore his uniform, and outside of that he’d never much cared. It was only recently that he’d discovered the power of a good suit, or a proper robe, in commanding the right kind of attention.   

When Draco and Sia couldn’t find quite what they wanted, they made it with magic. That was how Harry ended up with a robe so deeply purple it was nearly black. When the sunlight hit him just right, the rich color showed. It was a straight type robe, split up to the hip on each side so that he could comfortably fit a pair of trousers underneath. A scaled black dragon hide pauldron covered his upper arms and shoulders, secured by straps around his chest. It fit him perfectly, since it had been handmade for his body. The dragon leather was shot through with little silver studs which caught the light. They’d made it as part of a gladiator-inspired costume for one of their magical club nights, but Draco liked it so much Harry wore it out in the daylight. He was a soldier, and the leather plating made him look like one. He didn’t care if people stared. 

He felt sharp. And that easy confidence was a part of why people looked. Together, the five of them rather made something to look at. 

Nebojsa wore his monk robes—hood up, his hands buried in opposite sleeves, a peek of his black hair falling down around his pale chin. Draco’s robes were a saturated blood red color, carefully tapered sleeves concealing his Dark Mark. A hint of a starched white shirt poked out at his collar and wrists, separating his creamy skin from the intense garnet color. Misha wore a hakama and loose over-robe in shades of blue. Their family took no issue with men wearing skirts… or perhaps it was one more fervent ‘fuck you’ to their father; Harry wondered how much longer he had to wait for Draco to try on a skirt. Dima paired his brown kilt with a muted gold dragon-scale Auror’s vest—over his huge chest, it conjured images of a metal breastplate worn into battle. Neither of the brothers would have looked out of place with swords at their hips. 

It was far from a uniform. But standing there together… Harry still felt like a team. 

He didn’t care when cameras flashed. He cast his vote for Kingsley with Draco at his side. Dima and Misha were interviewed outside, saying they stood behind Kingsley’s immigration proposals. They wanted to stay in England. And who would say no to their smiling faces? They were photographed standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Potters, featured in the evening’s _Daily Prophet_. 

They made the style section, too.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Draco opened a bottle of wine: heavy red to match his robes, pouring out five generous glasses until the bottle was dead. A pale hand vanished it. 

He sighed at Harry, exasperated. “I canna believe…” he huffed, not finishing that sentence. 

He didn’t need to. Harry could read Draco’s thoughts as his squinted silver eyes cast about Grimmauld Place. The house was clean, at least, and organized. They had food and drinks on tables. They were having people over, and that was the part Draco couldn’t wrap his mind around.

Their house was old and out-of-style. For a wizard who’d grown up defined by appearances and the opinions of others, it was unfathomable to throw a damn party in a house as purely ugly as theirs. Draco regularly referred to their home as “The Black Dump.” 

“We’re not trying to show off,” Harry reminded Draco under his breath. He leaned down until white blond hair tickled at his nose with each inhale. “We’re having a few people over, to celebrate. They’re coming to have this experience with us, to share the moment. Real mates don’t care what our house looks like. Let’s just have fun, okay?” 

Draco had opened another bottle before the first guest arrived. 

People showed up after work, having cast their votes. Slowly the house began to fill with familiar faces from Hogwarts and Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. Classmates turned up. Many brought their boyfriends or girlfriends, making introductions all around. Harry wanted something casual and that was exactly what he got—stripping out of his robes into shorts and a tee, walking around barefoot, hugging people as they Apparated in or came through the front door. Everyone wanted to hug Harry. 

At the top of every hour they would turn on the Wizarding Wireless, crowding around to hear a report of the election results so far. Other than the hourly report there was no set structure—witches and wizards moved from room to room, chatting, eating, saying hello to friends they hadn’t seen all summer. The Potters locked down anything important or sentimental, letting their guests roam. 

So few people had been to Harry Potter’s house before. There was an immediate compulsion to poke around, especially a dark old place like Grimmauld. Their faces said what their lips were too polite to pass—that they couldn’t believe The Boy Who Lived called such a creepy old house his home. 

Dmitry, Misha, and Nebojsa set themselves up in the empty dining room—sitting on their amps but not using them, playing acoustic guitars. They knew a lot of popular wizard songs, though fewer of recent hits, having been out of society the last two years. They could still manage the most popular songs when others wanted to sing karaoke. Otherwise they made pleasant background music, and gave those less socially inclined something to watch and listen to; nursing their drinks, leaning against the walls or in some cases sitting on conjured cushions on the floor.

Draco noticed a recurring track, guiding Misha’s golden eyes across the room. He was looking at Ginny Weasley... and a few times, Ginny returned his long glances. Draco couldn’t quite read whether she was flirting back, or uncomfortable. Feigning that he was requesting a song of the Ionescues, Draco went and told Misha off. 

Hermione caught Draco moments later, taking him aside. 

“What is your problem?” she asked him sternly, her face close. “Ginny fancies him. She hasn’t stopped talking about him all summer.” 

Draco bit his tongue. Instead of losing his temper, he requested of Hermione through his teeth if she would please go get Ginny for him, since he needed to speak with her privately. He would be waiting in Harry’s office.

 

 

 

 

Ginny came in. Draco gestured Hermione away, but she didn’t leave—she didn’t do his bidding and wanted him to well know it. 

Ginny told her, “It’s okay. Really.” And reluctantly, Hermione left them to it. 

A year ago he’d been sorted into bloody Gryffindor in this very room. It seemed as much a joke now as it had been then. That stupid hat had wanted it—ruddy prophetic instrument. Most people still thought of Draco as a Slytherin through-and-through. He’d merely brought a touch of dungeon life to the red tower in his year’s stay… and he’d managed to make off with their Precious Prince Potter as well. 

They were a house full of princely queers now. All except one notable straight lad, whom he was here to discuss. 

Draco turned to Ginny. This was his domain, and he had something important to say. 

Draco told her bluntly whom she’d been checking out all night. “He’s Mikhail Ionescue. His father was....” He wasn’t going to say the dead man’s name because a part of him knew she’d rather not hear it. But the son of a man who raped her was making eyes at her. The situation would make anyone unsettled. It made Draco unsettled, and aside from it happening in his house it had nothing to do with him. He couldn’t see a survivor of horrors made to feel unsafe again and do nothing. That was rather Harry-Potter-ish of him. 

“I know,” she said, acknowledging. “I know who he is. It’s so fucked up but.... He’s funny. He never seems to run out of energy. He’s always in a good mood. And he’s, uh…” she laughed softly. “He’s really quite fit.” 

“Not to mention,” Draco snorted, “descended from royalty. Has a landed title, even. He’s Hospodar of Feteşi, which near as I can understand is something like a viscount. Lives in a bloody palace.” 

Ginny blinked. 

“You didn’t know?” 

She shook her head—either unaware that one of the wizards who raped her had held a duchy in Romania, or not caring. 

Draco arched an eyebrow. “He’s also obscenely wealthy—even by my standards.” When that too failed to get much of a reaction from Ginny, Draco dropped a piece of information which wasn’t yet available to the general public. “And… the youngest-ever Chaser for the Chuddley Cannons.” 

Ginny waved off these accolades like a fly buzzing around her head. “I don’t really give a shit about that. I just... I’m interested, alright? He seems like a genuinely good person. And I’m attracted to him. He’s actually the first bloke I’ve wanted to look at since....” She pressed her knuckles to her mouth, holding back a feeling like she was going to be sick. Draco knew it well—he’d made that face ten times a day when he’d first come to Grimmauld Place. Some nights he still woke in a cold sweat, his hand clamped tight over his own mouth to keep the rising bile at bay. 

“The details are beyond fucked up,” she clarified through the hand over her mouth. “Believe me, I see how weird it is. Of all the blokes in the world, _he’s_ the one I can’t stop looking at. It’s messy to be sure. I do appreciate you checking that I was okay. Thanks for looking out for me.” 

“As long as you’re alright,” Draco agreed, swallowing tightly. He had no objections save for making sure Ginevra knew. The rest was her decision. “I know Misha very well. He’s brilliant. I wouldn’t stand in the way. I wanted to make sure you were fully aware, and that you felt safe. We won’t let anything happen to you.” 

Ginny’s face broke out in a grin, her hand falling away to show her smile. “Draco Potter is defending me. What a mad world we live in.” 

Draco held his arm out, offering to walk her back to the party. “These are mad times we live in, Ginevra. Positively barking. You’d best have a drink with me?”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

When Gin and Draco returned to the party, Mikhail had started playing his guitar. He sang, too. She stood next to Draco, sipping the butterbeer he’d fetched her, listening to this young man’s voice. 

He didn’t sound like his father. He had an emotive voice, packed with feeling and sincerity. He could bring out a rasp of pain and loneliness, a perfect compliment to the slow muggle rock song he was singing, about a girl who didn’t notice him. He looked like his father—the same large nose with a high bridge, the same set of golden eyes, the same straight black eyebrows, the same clearly-defined rectangular jaw line. Even his hair color was identical, such a deep mink brown it looked black until the Lumos-powered lamps lit him. 

He was a totally different person, despite his genetic similarity. Mikhail’s song was passionate, raw, beautiful. He glanced up at her, singing the words. 

He fancied her. That much he made infinitely clear. He sang his song for her, refusing to look away. 

Ginny hadn’t been flirted with in a long time. The last time a man hit on her, she’d ended up spending ten months under the Imperius Curse, forced to do Voldemort’s bidding. Flirting ought to make her anxious. She thought it would. But those amber eyes, that lilting tenor voice... all she felt was warm and safe. And, if she was completely honest, a bit damp in her knickers. 

 

 

 

 

She walked right up to him. Mikhail had finished playing his guitar; he was lifting it off of his shoulder, about to return it to his case on the floor. As he turned, he saw her. 

He froze. Recognition swept over his face. Honey-hazel eyes widened, softened, melted. A breath filled his broad chest as though he were about to start another ballad. The sound of his lyric, pure tenor voice remained in her ears—his slight accent, the way he breathed. His steady gaze followed her as she crossed the room, stepping up to him, unafraid. 

“I know you,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. It was pierced through with a bar and studs. Not a traditional straight-laced sort of wizard. “I believe yoo do.” 

Mikhail leaned his guitar against the wall, abandoning it there, gesturing her away from where his brother was still playing an instrumental piece so they could talk privately. His eyes never broke from her face. 

“I owe yoo an apology,” he began. Contrition made him even more handsome, which was absolutely unfair. 

She cut him off at the pass, spilling the beans. She knew who he was. She also knew _what_ he was. 

“You certainly do! You left me in a stairwell with a Death Eater’s brains in my hair.” Ginny stared him down, curious what he would say next. 

Mikhail was probably six feet tall and built like a tree—wide shoulders, muscular arms straining out of his tshirt, a tapered torso and narrow hips on top of long legs in a pair of muggle blue jeans. Ginny maintained eye contact, daring him to break. He didn’t eyen blink. He did cock his head to the side, soft eyes and hard features, taking her in. 

That head tilt was part owl, part puppy. She remembered it clearly. 

“So I did. This vos wrong of me. Very wrong. I apologize. Your hair looks lovely tonight.” 

She fought the need to bite her lip. Fleur had helped her style her hair in loose waves around her face. “Thank you.” 

“Did yoo know who I vos zhat night?” he asked cautiously, his tone low. “ _Vot_ I vos?”                                                                                                           

“Not then, no.” 

“How did yoo...?” He didn’t finish his sentence. He wanted to know how she figured him out. Not many witches might’ve guessed it was possible for an Animagus to take the form of a Granian. It was supposed to be impossible to transform at will into a magical creature… otherwise everyone would be doing it. 

Ginny had seen enough strange and inexplicable things in her life that a young Slavic man with an Adonis’ face and body turning himself into a winged, flying horse and saving her life seemed more or less on point. 

“Your eyes,” she told him, which was true. His gold-colored eyes were distinctive, and stuck with him in his animal form. She’d felt him watching her every day of those last weeks at Hogwarts, worried she might piece together his secret and bust him. She lifted her hand, tapping the underside of his chin. His black scruff scratched her finger. “And you tilt your head when you’re nervous, so it looks like you’re just listening. You do it when you’re a Granian, too.” 

He closed his eyes, ducking his chin to his chest; bashful that something like nervousness around a girl had given him away. 

Mikhail was a year behind her at school, but he didn’t act like any sixteen year old she knew. With his charisma, his expression, that chiseled body, and sexual energy oozing off of him like snowmelt... he came off much older. 

This was make-or-break. Sure, he was a gorgeous wizard, and he knew how to flirt… but she needed to know his heart. Was it real when he came to her rescue, or was he just a boy with wings? 

She bucked up her own courage, telling him a secret which she barely knew how to live with. 

“You threw a man who raped me out of a fourth story window. He was a duck at the time.” The absurdity made her smile. It was crazy that she _could_ smile, saying something like that. But she wanted Mikhail to know exactly what that night had been like for her. How he had charged in and saved her from her worst nightmare. 

He swallowed heavily. He was so ripped that she could detect individual muscles in his throat as they shifted, working beneath his skin. 

“This vos also very wrong of me,” his timbre dropped to a lower register, almost a whisper. “It should have been the tallest tower, not the fourth floor. I’m zorry.” 

That was the right answer. Mikhail Ionescue wasn’t just a pretty face. He was the youngest person ever awarded an Order of Merlin. A genuine, _bona fide_ , anointed hero. He showed humility, compassion, and bravery. His sense of humor might even be darker than hers. That was a very good sign. 

“You saved my life,” she told him.

A coral-pink blush stole over his cheekbones. He was tilting his head again, nervous. “I can do zome things right, I suppose.” He licked his thick lips. “But I... I’m zorry, I don’t know yoor name,” he admitted.

All that time staring, and he hadn’t bothered to find out? Maybe Draco had kept him away. Maybe it was better meeting this way, after they’d had some time to decompress and process everything that happened. 

They knew deep, dark things about each other. The sorts of things that went beyond names. 

“I’m Ginny.” 

His black eyebrows drew together, understanding that 'Ginny' was a nickname. He wanted her full name. His expressions were so open and easy to read. She appreciated the guts it took to wear his heart on his sleeve. 

“Ginevra Weasley.” 

“Jinevra,” he repeated. He flipped the R, his accent sounding more French than Slavic. Her stomach flipped with his voice, invariably thinking about what _else_ he could do with his tongue. This man was too sexy for his own good. And she thought at least some of his mannerisms had to be unconscious. His behavior was so unaffected. From his pierced eyebrow to the tattoo peeking out under his shirt sleeve, he was so much more than she’d expected. Different, but in a good way. He certainly wasn’t The Boy Who Lived, but his own brand of hero. 

“Mikhail Vasile Ionescue.” 

Hearing his surname should have bothered her. But it didn’t. Mikhail wasn’t his father.

“Draco tells me you’re a viscount?” 

“The Dragon haz a big mouth,” he mumbled. 

She laughed. “Are you?” 

“Somezhing. Ve’re not sure. Not yet.” 

She chuckled; the ways of the aristocracy made no sense to her. “How can you not be sure?” 

“My brozher refuses to take his duchy,” Mikhail explained. “In protest, that gay marriage is not legal in Romania. And I vould not take vot is rightfully his… in protest that gay marriage is not legal in Romania… and because I love my brozher. So ve found a distant relative who agreed to pretend to be our dead fazher for a few years. Until the muggles pull their heads out of their asses... or until my brozher does. I’m not sure who is more stubborn. Zo maybe I’m a viscount. Maybe I am an earl. I vill be a duke zomeday, I think. But for today I am just a man.” 

She gave him the side-eye over her drink. “You’ve never been just a man, Pegasus.” 

He raised his pierced eyebrow at her, liking that she’d given him a nickname. He whispered to her, “Today I am a man, soaring at the feet of a powerful woman.”

Clear eyes the color of gold stared into her own. 

A thought flashed through her mind—and she spoke it before she could lose her nerve. “Quit flirting and kiss me, you idiot.” 

His eyes went so impossibly wide. Did he not believe her? Mikhail leaned closer but didn’t quite close the distance between their lips. 

So she reached up to kiss _him_. She needed a hand to the back of his neck to drag him down. They were so close she could feel his warm breath, count his eyelashes, study the reflections of light in his golden gaze. 

He took her into his arms, twirling her, dancing them into the old fashioned smoking room off of the dining room. Apparently he wanted to snog in private. 

Misha put his own back to the wall, his legs splayed out slightly so that she could stand between them, her face level with his. He positioned her against him with hands at her hips, holding on, giving her permission to get close.

He did see her as powerful, and he treated her as such. He wanted her to put his back up against the wall. In that gesture he gave her complete control, letting her dictate and set the pace. 

She kissed him to her heart’s content—he had the thickest lips of any man she’d ever snogged. She bit at them, sucking, learning the shape of his mouth. 

And then she took his tight shirt off, getting her hands all over him. She’d gone for muscular blokes in school. The way their hard bodies felt under her hands turned her on. Mikhail was on an entirely different level. His whole body was taut, his muscles like bricks concealed beneath a layer of soft skin and dark brown body hair. She twirled her fingers through the path leading from his big round pectorals down his stomach, disappearing under his jeans. She even took a swipe at his crotch that made him moan—loudly. And she liked that, too. 

“Jinevra…” He panted her name against her lips. Then he swore at her in Romanian. Probably because she had her hand over his hard prick. 

She took his lips again. He tasted like… herbs and licorice. He’d been drinking absinthe earlier. 

“Jinevra…” he repeated—a moan, his eyes closed, squeezing her. He was so turned on it was a challenge to remember how to speak English. “ _Draga mea_ ….” 

She gave him a break, her hand returning to his stomach. His hair was so soft; she started petting him absently, feeling his breath beneath her hand. 

“What does that mean?” she asked. 

He swallowed thickly, translating after he’d swallowed a mouth full of spit. “Darling.” 

She went to kiss him again. Somehow he avoided her lips—straightening his spine, getting away in time that her lips landed against the stubble on his jaw. That hair was prickly. He was full of textures for her to learn. She drummed her fingertips against his stomach, waiting to hear what it was he had to say. 

“Dinner,” he choked out. “I am… vot is called old-fashion. I take yoo for dinner.” 

Her eyebrow rose. “I don’t need you to buy me dinner.” 

“I vant to.” 

“Why?” With other guys, Gin never put up much of a fight. Whatever they wanted was fine so long as it was adjacent to her own desires. She’d never cared before. With Mikhail, she wanted to at least understand where he was coming from. 

“Zhis is my friend’s house, vhere I am a guest. And… I have been drinking. More zhan I should.” He admitted to breaking the law—wizard law, anyway. Muggles could have beer and wine at sixteen. He’d been drinking liquor. “I vant to take yoo zomewhere beautiful, to be vith you,” his honey eyes searched for an English word which eluded him. “Vhen I… have not….” 

“Sober,” she supplied. “When you haven’t had anything to drink.” 

He nodded. Then he shocked her, pulling a muggle mobile phone from his pocket—showing her he had one and knew how to use it. With a wordless spell, he conjured a slip of parchment with his contact information. 

“Call me, Jinevra,” he whispered. “Please.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The election was called shortly after one in the morning. Everyone crowded around the radio, listening to the speakers under an Amplification Charm. A hush fell over the room. 

In an historic landslide, the vote went to Kingsley Shacklebolt. 

Everyone hugged, shouted, smiled. Champagne bottles were popped and passed around, poured out into conjured glasses. 

Harry and Draco received their fair share of congratulations for their role in the campaign. Harry had always been influential, politically. In the last few years he’d figured out how to harness it to his advantage. 

“What will you be doing, Harry?” Bill Weasley asked loudly, to loud cries of curiosity. 

Harry let Draco break the news; the smallest nod, invisible to anyone else. He wanted Draco to say it. 

An arm snuck around his waist—the Dark Mark against the smalls of his back. Harry smiled. He’d taken even the mark as his own, accepting who Draco was, warts and all. 

“Harry’s joining the Hit Wizards.” 

His pureblood managed to look smug, even smiling up at him. He was proud—it shone in his eyes, silver reflecting earnest green.

Awed sounds traveled the room. Most people wouldn’t have expected that career choice. Some knew Harry’s father had been an Auror. Most were in some way aware of his role in the violence of the war. Yet they’d not connected the ideas. They expected he’d be in an office behind a desk: that wasn’t Harry.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Most of their guests were retreating to their beds. Neville Longbottom passed out on the living room sofa: Harry helped him up to one of the guest rooms, tucking him in. 

Nebojsa and Dima had managed to pry the portrait of the late Mrs. Black off the damn wall. It took the Serb’s deadly wandless magic combined with Dmitry’s knowledge of art and portrait spells to get the fucking thing down. Mrs. Black was sequestered in the attic, where no matter how shrilly she screamed, she couldn’t disturb their guests. 

Draco bid farewell to the Weasleys. The siblings all left as a group through the front door, using a Public Apparition Point at the nearby Euston tube stop. Ron had taught his sister all about travel cards and the underground and dozens of other muggle inventions. Draco was told their father was obsessed with muggle technology; apparently it ran in the family, the children having some affinity. Draco had struggled mightily adjusting to life with one foot in each world. 

Watching the Weasleys depart was one Mikhail Ionescue. He stared longingly at the spot where he last saw Ginny Weasley. 

Draco had noticed her and Misha duck into the smoking room to snog their brains out. He got Misha’s attention now with nothing but a stern look. 

“Vot?” the Romanian asked, playing innocent. He’d been groped within an inch of his sanity. His mouth was swollen, his hair in disarray, and Draco suspected his plain white tshirt was in fact on inside-out. “She kissed _me!_ ” Misha said, holding up his hands in defence. “You zeem upset. Vot don’t I know?” 

“A lot,” Draco drawled, cynical. “Most of which isn’t mine to tell. What I can say is... she’s Harry’s ex-girlfriend.” 

Misha flinched, baring his teeth. “ _Hopa!_ Zorry. I didn’t know.” 

Draco cocked his head, his eyes boring into the bloke. “Like I said: there’s a lot you don’t know,” he reiterated. “She’s also the little sister of Harry’s best mate from school. And she’s had a very tough time of it the last year.” 

“Understood,” Misha nodded curtly.

Draco wondered if he really did. Draco wondered if Misha could think of anything at all past the tent in his denims which that ginger minx had left behind. 

“You’d best be quite serious,” the blond cautioned. “And prepared for the consequences should you ask her out.” 

Misha’s eyes fixed on the doorway—the last place he’d seen Ginny, as though remembering the shape of her in the space she’d left behind. He muttered in Romanian, making Draco’s head turn. 

“I beg your pardon?!” the blond snapped. 

Misha smiled broadly. “Yoo heard me.” And he walked away, leaving Draco standing there with his mouth slightly open. 

Draco’s Romanian was far from fluent. But, unless he was mistaken, Misha had asked if Ginny would enjoy being a duchess someday.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **POST SCRIPT:** Phew! I've been knocking out zealously large chapters week after week! I’m out of the country the month of February—time to get foxed and fuck abroad as opposed to domestic buggery. I expect to resume posting sometime in March. 
> 
> In the interim… do you wanna punch me for writing so many OC’s into the sequel? Who else do you wanna see get busy? What kink haven’t I written nearly enough about? What would you like to read in upcoming chapters? 
> 
> Can’t wait to read your thoughts when I get back from my three week über-bender....


	9. Whore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lucky accident, with moments of reflection amongst noise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** metal, alcohol, blokes in kilts, rape survivors making rape-adjacent jokes, discussions of polyamory and non-monogamy
> 
>  **AUTHOR’S NOTE:** 25k of vaguely well-worded faff. Because that’s how we roll.

 

 

_So how can this be?_

_You’re praying to me_

_As I look in your eyes_

_I know just what that means_

_I can be your everything_

_I can be your whore_

_I am the dirt you created_

_I am your sin, I am your whore_

_But let me tell you something, baby_

_You love me for everything you hate me for_

 

“[Whore](https://youtu.be/GurkREc-q4I)”

In This Moment

 

  
  


It had to happen eventually. In the middle of practice, the amplifier Draco was using gave a sad little  _fut-fut_  sound and died. Instead of spending their afternoon playing guitar, Harry, his husband, and Nebojsa found themselves poking around the muggle instrument shop, waiting for an estimate on getting their equipment repaired.

“If they can’t fix it right away, I’ll just buy you a new one,” Harry promised Draco. He didn’t want to sound like Lucius Malfoy, bribing Draco with gifts to pacify or control him, so Harry tacked on a more practical thought. “I want you to be able to practice whenever, and not have to borrow stuff. We should probably have an extra amp of our own, anyway.” 

Draco nodded his agreement. His attention kept darting to the other side of the store, eyeing a wall display of two dozen different electric guitars in different body styles and paint colors. Draco didn’t have an electric of his own yet—he wasn’t sure what he wanted, was still figuring out his style and preferences. 

“Go on,” Harry pushed him off. He’d already been thinking about ordering Draco a custom guitar. He wanted to see which types Draco gravitated towards before solidifying a gift idea in his mind. He wanted Draco to have something which reflected his new self… but first, Draco had to tell him who that man was. 

The shop was rather empty on a weekday lunch hour. An old Pink Floyd song pumped through the speakers, and it was nearly the only sound in the shop. When Harry followed Draco, he heard a muggle who seemed to be talking to no one.

Rounding the corner, Harry realized the man was speaking into a mobile phone—in really bad German. It was obvious he was having trouble keeping up with the conversation; frustrated body language, his head of dyed-black hair bobbing, an arm covered in a colorful sleeve tattoo gesticulating inexactly as he struggled to speak the language. 

To Harry’s surprise, Draco walked right over and offered to help. After all, his German was perfect.

“Really?!” the muggle’s eyebrows rose hopefully. They were brown, unlike his shaggy black hair. “Wizard! Cheers, kid. I bombed German in GCSE’s.” Draco wouldn’t know what muggle exams were—the non-magical equivalent to OWL’s. But at least he knew that muggles from Wales and the west often said ‘wizard’ as an exclamation of something good, like ‘brill’ or ‘cool.’ Silver eyes narrowed a bit at being called a kid. 

Draco, who had never touched a cell phone before, accepted it, pressing the black plastic to his ear. It was the first time Harry had ever seen Draco talk on a telephone: a mundanely muggle activity which he presumably knew how to execute for never having done it before. The pureblood had seen plenty of phones in movies and knew the bare basics of how they worked. 

Harry watched—peeking around the corner like the weirdo he was, always spying on Draco, thinking,  _Wow. Th_ _at man right there is_   _who_ _I married. The_ _bloke_ _who walks up to strangers—confident, sexy, a bit_ _mischievous_ _and hands-on_ _, ready to try something he’s never done before_. It was really a turn-on to see Draco put himself out there like he used to. 

Harry felt his face crack into a grin as Draco introduced himself in German; the hard S sound reminding Harry of Parseltongue. To the stranger on the telephone line, Draco identified himself with the phrase, “ _Ich heiße Potter_.” Harry’s cheeks hurt from smiling. 

Draco listened, his head cocked to the side. He spoke a bit more German, understanding and then asking questions, before referring back to the anxious muggle waiting in front of him. 

Harry quickly gathered that the black-haired muggle was the manager of a nightclub where a German band was scheduled to play in four days. The Germans were in a pickle—their opening act had just been busted for cocaine possession on their last tour stop in Paris, and were being detained by French authorities, not permitted to leave the country. The German embassy was involved but the headlining band wanted the club manager to go ahead and find a London band to open for them. 

A stodgy part of Harry gave a silent grumble that Draco knew the German word for cocaine. That was Draco's old life: Harry refused to be the type of spouse who would hold his past exploits against him. 

Draco translated for the guy, conveying his words back to the Germans—that it would be hard on such short notice, but he’d try to get a couple of bands together and hold an audition, so the Germans could pick their new openers when they arrived tomorrow. 

Draco handed back the mobile, not knowing what to do with it in order to hang up. The gesture looked normal enough. The muggle took it back, saying his goodbyes to the band. 

After, he turned to Draco, gushing, “Kid, you saved my fuckin’ arse. Thank you so much.” 

The  _kid_  thing was getting to Draco, making him mad. Admittedly, Draco was short. He was clean-shaven, with very nice skin; scarred, a few freckles visible here and there. He had the tiniest of wrinkles at the sides of his eyes, and they only showed when he laughed. 

Draco didn’t look very happy being called “kid.” His Dark Mark was visible; the sleeves of his silky vintage Hermes shirt rolled up to his elbows. While he didn’t expect a muggle to fear the defunct mark of Lord Voldemort, he did expect the basic comprehension that only legal adults could get tattoos in Britain. Clearly Draco wasn’t underage. But to a muggle nightclub owner in his thirties or early forties, Harry supposed anybody who looked like they were born after 1975 would be a kid. 

“I didn’t catch your name,” said the muggle, sticking out his hand to shake. “Ian Barry, folks just call me Barry.” 

Draco took his hand firmly. “Potter,” he repeated, omitting his first name on purpose. ‘Draco’ was an unusual name even by magical standards, and he didn’t think it wise to draw attention. 

Harry was lurking, eaves dropping on the conversation like back in their Hogwarts days. He just thought it was hot that Draco was putting himself out there and participating in muggle culture, which he’d always been told was beneath him. Harry wanted to be near, to listen and watch. He didn’t think Draco needed him or anything. But he got busted, his position declared when the shop clerk found him, saying loudly. “Hey Potter! Your amp’ll be ready in about ten minutes.” 

Draco turned—knowing “Potter” was his name and responding to it naturally. His brain no longer processed it as an insult, but as his new identity. He inclined his white head at Harry and the shop clerk. 

“You’re in a band?” Barry asked passingly. “What do you guys play? What’s your style?” Barry’s style was obviously punk-infused rock and roll, going by the skull imagery in his tattoos, artfully ripped clothes, and dyed-black hair. 

Draco shrugged. “We’re a cover band. Metal, mostly. Some rock.” His muggle musical lexicon was perfect—Nebojsa and the guys had taught him well. Draco was able to blend in, fooling Barry enough that he never questioned Draco might not have grown up normally.

“Oh thank God!” Barry exclaimed. “That’s perfect! I can thank you by giving you an audition—if you think you can put something together by tomorrow?”

Harry watched Draco chew the inside of his lip—it produced a sour expression, like his mum, which meant he was nervous. He still wasn’t confident in his singing or guitar-playing like he was with his other skills: wandless magic, Potions, Ancient Runes, speaking French and German, and everything else he was really good at... drinking, blowjobs, sex, driving Harry wild. Draco had a lot of inappropriate talents to go along with his posh ones; what tied it all together was his creativity, which was Harry’s favorite thing about Draco since the beginning. Draco had an ability to express himself beyond words which Harry envied greatly. 

Draco had never been acknowledged for his ability to create. He was only ever praised for being destructive and cruel; because it was rewarded, those became his most prevalent actions. That was why he doubted himself so much when it came to his musical abilities. Only his mother had encouraged his musicality, and behind closed doors at that. Whenever Draco’s instrumental talents were complimented, he either assumed the person wasn’t serious, or if they were genuine it served to remind him of his mum, which made him horribly fucking depressed. 

Draco loved music… and like all deep loves, there were thorns in that affection. Sometimes it hurt as much as it provided a balm for the pain in his heart. 

Harry stepped up. “We’ll do it,” he said, getting the club’s address for the next day and exchanging phone numbers with Barry. The muggle wasn’t sure what the timing would be—maybe the band’s flight would be delayed or something. He’d call with the details once they were solid. 

As Ian Barry left the shop with a wave, Sia snuck up between the Potters. He hooked one tattooed arm around Draco’s neck, the other slipping around Harry’s waist, pulling them both close.

Knowing they both had active Translation Charms, he asked in Romanian, “What’s the name of this band we’re auditioning for?” Apparently his clandestine eaves-dropping skills were superior to Harry’s; The Boy Who Lived had spied under his Invisibility Cloak for the last seven years, so concealing himself properly without the cloak was rather a new thing. Nebojsa’s ears had been listening from across the shop. 

Draco supplied, “Blind Guardian. They’re from—”

“Germany,” Nebojsa interrupted, because he knew. He blew out a hard breath, his cheeks hollowing. He more than recognized the name. Blind Guardian were one of the founders of power metal, and wildly famous, he explained. Dima was gonna be thrilled just to have a chance to meet them, let alone performing for them. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity they’d stumbled their way into… all because Draco spoke German, liked showing off, and followed his new, very Potter-like impulse to help a stranger. 

Harry got the impression Dima would be giddy when they gave him the news. 

“Shite,” Draco swore. He chewed his lip some more, stuffing his hands in his tight back pockets. “We need to get home an’ start working on some songs.” And he returned to the muggle at the counter to see about getting his amp back.  

 

~ * ~

 

For the day of the audition, Harry hired a van to transport all their shit to the venue. Looking like proper muggles made it necessary to haul their crap around by car, which meant getting everything organized and all of their butts out of the house with enough time to spare for traffic, unloading, and set-up. Their destination was in Westminster, a solid twenty-minute drive south. Harry tacked on an extra quarter of an hour for lunchtime traffic and finding a place to park. 

Once they made it to the club, Harry took on the role of their roadie. Between himself and Dmitry they made quick work of emptying the back of the rental van. A few times the big Romanian tried to tell Harry not to lift something, to wait and Dima would help him. Harry wasn’t sure whether Dima underestimated his strength or was only being nice, because he had no problem lifting the equipment on his own.

Dmitry just stood there, slack-jawed, watching Harry balance a triple speaker across his shoulders as he schlepped it through the club’s back doors—propped open with a few bricks from the alley where they’d temporarily parked the van to unload. They brought some of their audio gear from the palace in Romania, since the club didn’t have installed speakers, and Blind Guardian’s crew and equipment wouldn’t arrive until the day before the show. It was a good thing the Ionescues had a couple of extra speakers in good condition. Vuk had liked to throw parties while their dad was away. Since the Death Eaters had no knowledge of or use for muggle tech, the speakers had been untouched by the war… save for a few spell marks on the sides, which would look to muggles like a swipe of paint or perhaps ash burns from cigarettes. Inside a dark nightclub, no one would be looking close enough to notice.

Smoking a cigarette himself, Dmitry watched as Harry lifted his dead brother’s things through the open doors. 

“I zhink yoo might be as ztrong as me…” Dima muttered. 

Harry doubted that. Dima was built like the brick wall he leaned against; he was much wider than Harry and significantly heavier even though Dima was a hair shorter than him now. Dmitry easily weighed more than two hundred pounds—making Harry realize he didn’t know how much he weighed anymore. He couldn’t exactly look in a mirror and guess, because he’d never been this muscular in his entire life, and it was rather hard to tell.

Now that he sort of liked the way he looked, he paid less attention to measurements. His clothes fit, and looked good. He felt strong when he ran. His lifts had correct form. If he got taller, so be it. If he gained or lost weight, so be it. His body did everything he needed it to and then some. He didn’t much care how it measured, so long as it made him happy… and Draco, too. 

Harry jerked his chin back at the van—which served the dual purpose of directing Dima’s attention and getting Harry’s hair out of his face. “Don’t let anybody steal the van, yeah?” he joked. “Keys are still in the ignition.”

 

 

 

They prepared three songs to audition with: one American new-metal, one Russian hard rock, and one German punk. Harry was glad Draco would be singing two of the three songs, with Sia taking the middle one. Misha couldn’t be with them; he had to go out to the Cannons for training, and to fill out reams of parchment before his new position was announced. 

Harry dumped the last speaker on the side of the stage, being careful not to set it on top of any of the cords leading back to the audio mixer. Being muggle-born, Harry became the band’s de-facto cordmaster, knowing how everything plugged in and operated. Harry liked having a purpose, something he was good at within the group. 

He stopped at the edge of the stage, looking around the deserted nightclub. It was a strange place in the daylight, seeming somehow haunted—the empty bar, the dimmed neon lights advertising different brands of beer and liquor, the sparkly disco ball overhead and rows of colored lights currently turned off. Somehow this empty bar was a part of his new life—Harry Potter was setting up for his husband to audition for an influential muggle metal band. A year ago Harry never would’ve guessed he’d be here. He hadn’t known whether he’d be alive or not. He took a long breath, letting it wash over him. He thought it was pretty cool the twists his life has taken since he got together with Draco; the places he’d been, the people he met, and the opportunities which came into his life thanks to Draco’s presence and influence. He wouldn’t trade their lives together for anything. 

All of this was happening because a year ago they’d been snogging in bed at Grimmauld, and Harry turned on the radio. When Draco heard metal for the first time and liked it, Harry had taken him out to a show. That was how they met Dmitry and Nebojsa—Misha, underage and drunk, had accidently trod on Harry’s foot while at the bar waiting for drinks. Their lives hadn’t been the same since. 

Harry was so happy for Draco and the guys. This was an amazing opportunity for them to be heard and get some feedback. Harry really wanted Blind Guardian to hear Draco and be impressed—Draco needed the shot to his confidence, to feel like he stood out as more than husband to The Boy Who Lived: stood out for good reasons, not for the Dark Mark on his arm or the fact that his father was a convicted terrorist. 

Draco needed something of his own… which was why Harry withdrew from their jam sessions, and maybe didn’t practice as much as he could have, turning himself into their chief supporter rather than becoming another member of the band.

Draco and Sia were outside having a smoke—for luck or something. Draco was an occasion-specific smoker. The only times he smoked were if they were out partying, or after particularly vigorous sex. He picked up a cigarette now and then, more to keep Dima company. Dmitry was the addicted one. Sia rarely smoked, but he usually had a few on him if only because his boyfriend was forgetful as fuck. 

Draco was on edge: last night Dima would not shut up about how influential Blind Guardian was, how they were considered founders of the metal scene, and the more the big Romanian rambled the more Draco looked like he was gonna barf. Draco hadn’t gotten to sleep until three in the morning—and only after Harry sucked him off in the shower, massaging his hands in bed afterwards until he drifted off, feeling Harry’s fingers pressing steadily against him, warm and soothing. Today Draco was running on a triple espresso and fumes. 

Harry kept Dima busy by asking dumb questions he knew the answers to about what was supposed to plug into where. He wanted to keep Dima occupied so he wouldn’t start up another fanboy rant about the band they were auditioning for and smash what remained of Draco’s confidence. Nebojsa probably had a similar idea, pulling Draco outside while Harry and Dima finished setting up and checking sound. 

Nebojsa was more than capable of keeping Draco steady. Sia was an emotionally in-tune person, naturally good at helping people. His calm rubbed off wherever he went… so long as Dmitry wasn’t around to do something self-centered and set off Nebojsa’s need to correct bad behavior. Dima was the only person who ruffled Sia’s feathers, the only one capable of making him angry… at least, now that the worst of the Death Eaters were dead. The anger Sia showed towards Dmitry was endearing compared to his venom for killers like Bellatrix Lestrange. Nebojsa had no tolerance for psychopaths; he had infinite patience with Draco, a survivor of sociopathic parenting. 

Harry didn’t want to hover over his husband. He wanted Draco to find his own way. He also wanted Draco to learn to lean on his mates, to ask for comfort when he needed it, and Harry’s habit of constant mothering wasn’t teaching Draco to be a better advocate for himself. Draco reacted heavily to influence, a victimizing trait hammered into him by his fucking father—so if Harry wanted Draco to feel capable and start advocating for what he wanted, then he had to back off and give his husband the space and time to speak for himself. Hovering over Draco wasn’t going to do either of them any good, even if Harry only meant well. 

Their little group came onto the stage. They looked like fucking rock stars—like a real band. 

Dima wore all black except for a dangling silver chain holding his wallet, a spell over his Thestral tattoo so it wouldn’t move and alert the muggles. His shirt had the sleeves torn off, showing off his ripped sun-bronzed arms and giving a peek at his chiseled body underneath.

Sia was in his leather pants, so tight they looked painted on, blending right into his heavy boots. His shirt had another bold geometric design in magenta and white. Aside from some extra-heavy eyeliner, it was his everyday look. 

Galina had shown up, meeting the guys outside while they smoked. She looked badass in grey jeans ripped at the knees and a brown leather bomber jacket, her long hair in a ponytail. She wasn’t trying, she just looked cool, the natural downturn to her features making her seem perpetually mad at someone. She had plenty of reasons to look angry.

Harry remembered the first time he met Galina—she recognized Misha in the halls of Hogwarts after the Battle of Ravenwood and ran up to them, asking about friends and people they’d lost. She’d taken Nebojsa’s hand and placed it on her head, insisting he bless her. 

She’d been stubborn and loveable then. Harry saw a hardness in her now—losing her twin brother, then watching Mandy get kicked out by her family and have no where to go… all of that weighed on Lina, compressing her like the earth’s weight turning coal into a diamond. Galina was like himself, after he lost Sirius and found Draco. She had that same steely look in her eye which Harry had when he left Draco at Hogwarts to go to America. Galina would do anything to make sure she and Mandy made it through. Harry had picked up a gun: Galina picked up a pair of drum sticks. She was smarter than him, for sure. 

Harry respected the shit out of this young witch. She was just as tough as he was... maybe more. Being a woman was hard enough, let alone being an orphaned lesbian witch trying to survive in a foreign country. Harry couldn’t even imagine. 

And Draco... fucking hell, Draco. He was undone. Literally his shirt showed half his chest—it was Harry’s old blue plaid, which Draco kept reclaiming as his own every few weeks until Harry finally grew out of it. It was the same shirt he’d worn the night they met Dima and the lads. Draco wore it much as he had a year ago—with the sleeves cuffed up over his elbows, tucked into tight black trousers, a thick belt around his hips. He wore eyeliner again, black rimming his eyes, and a pair of leather boots which gave him an extra inch. He was still as short as Galina. Nebojsa had artfully messed up Draco’s blond hair—Harry knew because Draco was rather vain about his hair. He never let it get that crazy unless they were screwing their brains out, because Draco didn’t care what he looked like when he was trying to get balls-deep in the Chosen One. 

Draco was… happy. He laughed with Sia, speaking animatedly to their friends. Draco talked with his hands, the rings on his fingers catching in the light. He was making fun of himself for a riff he couldn’t master—from a Metallica song they’d wanted to use for the audition but decided against, not wanting to be switching instruments between songs. They were talking about something which had made Draco numb with panic the night before: now, somehow, miraculously… he was fine—making jokes at his own expense, even, as they tromped out onto the stage. 

Harry stepped into the wings to watch their audition. 

The five members of Blind Guardian sat on stools at the bar with Ian Barry. They’d finished some take-away as Harry and Dima did sound checks, and now they were ready to get started. 

Being the one whom they’d spoken to over the phone, Draco introduced them—saying they didn’t really have a band name yet, they were just a group of mates who started playing together over the summer. Harry could tell what Draco was saying just by his tone, his body language. Harry had gotten used to reading Draco’s subtle queues when he repeatedly went non-verbal during sex. He could make out what Draco was saying without having to touch their mental connection, going by the ebbs in his voice or the changing shape of his eyes. Draco could make even a hard language like German sound attractive. Or maybe it was just his Malfoy-trained tongue. 

Draco introduced everyone—his dark haired Slavic mates with their beautiful-sounding foreign names, all taller than Draco. The stage lights shone in Draco’s hair, making it almost glittery white. Harry still found it surreal to hear his husband call himself “Draco Potter” without a second of hesitation. 

The German guys gestured for them to start it up. Galina counted them off in Russian.

They covered an American band, Alice In Chains; a song called “Man In The Box.” It had a heavy bass line, showing off Nebojsa’s skills, and what Harry knew to be a decent guitar solo. Sia and Dima had started teaching it to Draco back in Romania, and the blond worked at it for weeks. It was one of the first hard rock songs he’d mastered before moving on to more serious metal. They wanted to start the audition with something that sounded perfect—to get Draco’s confidence up as much as to make a good impression on Blind Guardian.

The first vocals were wordless, a bright diphthong Æ sound that got lost in the mouth, not really sounding like anything. Sia and Draco echoed it back and forth, introducing themselves to their mics, stepping back and forth. They were both singing it constantly, but the vowel sound was lobbed between them like a tennis ball because of how they moved away from the microphone stands, alternating like that. It was a pretty cool effect achieved only with their voices and a bit of careful movement. They were doing all of this muggle-style, no magic what-so-ever. 

Draco and Dima played guitar; in unison, which was kinda tricky from opposite sides of the stage. Especially when they didn’t bother to look at each other. Dmitry sang the first verse. His sound was really good—classic grunge metal, growly and mad—probably what the Germans were expecting. 

Draco played hunched over his borrowed instrument, his head going. He didn’t seem nervous at all. He was calm introducing them and now he was just playing, having fun like he did at home after a couple drinks. Draco shared a look with Sia, a slow grin turning up both their pointed features. Shit, they were both really pretty—especially when they were happy. Harry knew it would be a bad idea to say that to Draco’s face, of course, but he was allowed to at least think it. 

Draco was gorgeous. He looked like his mum, and Narcissa was a knock-out, too. 

The chorus was a yell, a shout. Draco stepped up to the microphone and took it by the fucking balls.

His head was back, his eyes closed. His voice was loosed, like a dragon let out of its pen. He didn’t need the microphone. He didn’t need his eyes open, knowing where his fingers needed to be on his borrowed electric guitar and rolling his way through it. His voice pulsed—strong, never running out of air. There was a hardness to his voice, echoed in his body, making it impossible to look away. 

Dima sang the second verse, Draco joining him to sing, “ _W_ _on’t you come and save me?_ ” before crashing in with the refrain. “ _Jesus Christ_ ,” Draco sang, which was about right. 

Harry peeked beyond the velvet wing curtains, looking for a reaction from the Germans. Blind Guardian’s drummer was rocking out, his head banging to the beat. Harry couldn’t even see his face past his flying hair. The others had their mouths open, and Barry couldn’t believe what he was hearing, either. The  _kid_  he’d met in the music shop was blowing his mind out through his ears. 

When Draco got going it was pretty unbelievable; fucking incredible, like there was another person living inside that angelic fae exterior. Draco had a dark fire-spitting monster inside him—his name was a warning of what lay beneath. Harry saw it, the beast, when Draco screamed at him and threw things, when they fucked. He knew it was there. He was possibly the first person Draco had shown his true self to. The Dragon was dragging his soul out again, showing his wounds, not hiding from the emotion that rattled his voice as he screamed. 

Draco launched into the guitar solo like he was taking off after a Snitch on the pitch. His fingers flew. Harry was sure he added extra notes just because he could. Sia answered with a short echo on the bass, and then Draco was off into the second half of his solo. His fingers barely had a rest. Those thin digits were literally a blur on the fret board—just the flash of his silver wedding ring on his finger separating the pale color of his fingers from the pearly-white board. 

Holy fucking shit. His husband was a wizard in every possible sense of the word. 

The last sound was Draco’s breath in the microphone—a romantic, sexual, carnal exhale. He wasn’t winded. He was just enjoying himself, and expressing it in his own way. 

Draco looked over to Nebojsa—teeth out, smiling—ready to start the next song. 

One of the Germans held up a hand, stopping them. He spoke a few words. That sounded... good? 

Draco’s mouth was still near his microphone. He answered swiftly, shrugging. Whatever he said made every member of Blind Guardian’s jaw drop. “ _Feir monat_ ,” he’d said. Four months. That was how long he’d been singing. He’d only started in May, when he organized the Hogwarts choir to serenade Harry Potter with his favorite song in front of everyone who mattered in the magical world. Draco hadn’t picked up a guitar until early June, days before his birthday. Draco was telling the Germans he was a novice, barely starting out. That was why their jaws were on the floor. They were starting to appreciate just how special Draco really was. 

Dima added a few quick words, making Blind Guardian laugh. Draco snipped back at him, their banter amusing the foreign band. 

“ _Wir brauchen nichts mehr zu h_ _ö_ _ren_ ,” said the lead singer. Then, turning to Barry, “ _Wir wollen dann_.” 

Harry didn’t speak fucking German. Neither did Nebojsa. Galina gave a whoop. Dima looked like he was so happy he might cry. 

Draco’s head snapped to Harry waiting in the wings. He nodded, mouthing, “They want us. They’re picking us.” A pale finger tapped his chest... they’d picked  _him_. He couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to show how giddy he felt and blow his cool while still on stage.

  
  


 

 

Once properly concealed in the stage wing, Draco jumped up, clobbering Harry in his excitement—kissing him. 

Harry choked. 

No wonder Draco hadn’t been nervous: he was high as a bloody kite. Nebojsa had given him pot to smoke right before the audition, for his nerves. A calculated risk, but it worked. Draco tasted like really good weed, with a hint of coffee on the backs of his teeth. 

Harry wrapped his arms tight around Draco’s ribs, holding him up. It meant everything that Draco would launch himself at Harry, would want to share himself, the giddiness and joy rolling off of him like heat from a fire. Harry felt a spark against his mouth: more than their sexual chemistry, more than the blood rushing through his veins. Draco had magic behind his lips, releasing it into Harry as he jammed his tongue down The Chosen One’s throat. 

 _Do you believe me now?_ Harry asked in his head.  _You’re really good, Draco_. 

The pureblood broke their kiss, hanging in Harry’s arms; hanging around his neck and holding his own elbows, letting Harry bear his weight. Draco pulled back to look Harry in the eye but didn’t speak. 

_They called me a_ _fuckin’_ _prodigy._

Harry bopped his nose to Draco’s, pressing their foreheads together, smiling.  _You are, dummy._  Draco wouldn’t believe it until he heard it from someone utterly impartial, someone who was an outside authority with nothing to gain by reaffirming what Draco maybe suspected was a delusion. 

Harry squeezed him extra tight, burying his face in the curve of Draco’s neck.  _I’m so proud of you._

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry tried to get a whiff off of Dima as they packed away the equipment, wondering if the big Romanian was high, too—for his nerves. All Harry could smell as they brushed by each other in the back of the van was deodorant, smoke, and a liberal amount of woodsy cologne. Maybe Dmitry was high, maybe he wasn’t. Harry wasn’t ready to snog him to find out. 

Nebojsa didn’t seem baked at all; but then again, Harry could never tell with Sia. Drugs and alcohol didn’t appear to effect him: he didn’t get silly, his movements stayed the same, and his winter blue eyes were never blown or glassy. He must’ve built up a tolerance in his past life... or maybe, maybe Nebojsa found religion because of how wild Dima was once upon a time, how many bad paths he’d dragged his boyfriend down before Nebojsa said enough was enough and cleaned himself up. Harry had never witnessed Nebojsa overindulge. The Serbian wizard would drink a pint, sip at a cocktail, or take a toke before passing, but Sia had some type of advanced self-discipline because he never tipped himself outside of control. At least… he never had in front of Harry. 

That careful self-regulation meant something. Especially juxtaposed against Dima and Draco’s hedonistic self-indulgence. Harry couldn’t figure out what. 

There was so much Harry didn’t know about his mates’ pasts. He didn’t feel right asking… not after a whole year had gone by and circumstances brought them to be so close. Harry knew his mates through their shared experiences. The past wasn’t that important. 

Still. Shrouded history nipped at him sometimes, making him wonder.

 

~ * ~

 

They didn’t have much time to rehearse. Harry made himself scarce, giving the guys space to experiment and come up with their set list. They didn’t need his influence. 

Harry only inserted himself into the process once. He wanted someone to come and hear them play—Luna Lovegood. She sat next to Harry on the faded parlor sofa, her hand on his knee so she could see properly, looking their band over. 

“I like your kilt,” she told Dima with a wink of her white eye. The big Romanian treated her to a handsome lopsided grin. Harry couldn’t tell if they were flirting or just being nice… since Dima was very gay, Harry assumed it wasn’t sexual. 

Luna bounced in her seat as they played, humming along as she learned the chorus to each song. She didn’t react when there were mistakes. She smiled when Draco tried out a few songs, having more or less mastered the art of singing and playing guitar at the same time. Thankfully they had two people capable of playing lead, so when Draco needed to back off to concentrate on singing, Dima would jump in. 

Luna gave Draco a hug after. She kissed him on the cheek and told him he’d do great. 

Draco’s eyes stayed on Luna as she went around the room, talking to the guys. Harry knew that Luna reminded Draco of his mum… he watched her like a ghost, a haunting he refused to react to even as phantoms walked through his mind, wiping through him like the cold ghosts of Hogwarts used to walk through students. Draco couldn’t stop looking at Luna. 

Luna was who Narcissa might’ve been without men like Lucius in her life—if she’d been free to follow her own melody.

 

~ * ~

 

Harry pushed his way through a crowded club dance floor. Even with his height it was difficult to see over the heads of so many jumping, enthusiastic people. The club pulsed with house music—roaring vocals and loud drums, shaking the walls around them, banging from the man-high speakers on the stage.

He saw two familiar bodies at the door. Their faces were those of his best friends, but their expressions were something quite new. 

Ron and Hermione looked much the same as when they’d walked in on him and Draco fucking. The pair of them immediately, intrinsically knew they did not belong here. 

Hermione’s eyes raced, cataloguing details, trying to make sense of what she saw. Ron just stared, confronted with a whole room of industrial metal goths—something which he still didn’t believe existed even when Harry explained it to him. Ron probably thought these mad muggles were simulating a Death Eater convention… especially when the lights flashed green and fists flew up in the air, showing a sea of tattooed arms, their bodies wrapped up in black like Death Eaters robes. That sight would spook anyone who’d lived through the most deadly wizarding war in living memory. 

Ron held Hermione’s hand, sticking close in the crush of strange, strange muggles.

Harry raised his arm, waving to get their attention. He turned sideways, navigating around a group of drunk people taking up space, stepping his way up to Ron and Hermione. 

“Hey! Sorry I could only get two tickets,” he said. Fred and George had really wanted to come when they heard Draco was singing. “Apparently the show’s been sold out for weeks. They could only give us three passes according to the fire warden.” 

Hermione protested kindly. “What about Mikhail?” She wanted Misha to be able to see his brother perform. 

Harry shook his head. “Still underage. Don’t wanna jeopardize his pro contract.” 

The club was strictly over-eighteen, and Dmitry didn’t want to risk Misha getting busted; a very real risk to his spot with the Cannons if he got in trouble with muggle law. Misha was steamed—they let Galina lie about her age, but not him? Dima wasn’t the boss of Galina: but according to magical law he  _was_ legally responsible for his little brother, and neither of them could take any more heat without something precious catching fire. 

The sixteen-year-old slammed several doors in Dima’s face, but agreed to stay home. 

Harry remembered that feeling; being walled off from the world because he was supposedly “too young” despite all the very complex, adult experiences he’d already lived through. Misha was already older than Harry had been when he fought in the TriWizard, and only a year younger than when Harry signed up to be an American Field Ops Officer. Misha was far more grown up than any sixteen-year-old chap had a right to be. Harry thought it was stupid Misha couldn’t be here to hear his own band play their very first gig.   

He’d gone up to Misha’s room to apologize, to ask if there was anything he could do. He found the Prince reclining in bed—a rather Draco-esque pose—a Cannons playbook in his lap, lighting up a joint with the tip of his wand.

“Vhatever,” Misha waved Harry off. “I’ve gotta memorize all this zhit by Monday, anyvay. Have fun vithout me.” 

So Harry gave the two extra door passes to his best mates, suggesting they have a “date night” in London. The Grangers weren’t keen on Hermione’s boyfriend sleeping over, so Ron was going back to Grimmauld with the band after the show. They’d all pile in the back of the hired van, holding down the equipment. It would be nice to have an extra set of hands to unload—Ron was in decent shape, and could probably handle any of the four stone amplifiers. 

When asked about the club Harry told his Hogwarts mates to “wear black.” They’d followed through. Ron found dark denims, trainers, and a black tshirt—he was likely unarmed, since his Batushansky wand was too long to fit in his trouser pocket. Harry reminded himself to talk to Leon Harper about fitting Ron with a transfigured wand-glove like the old man used. He didn’t want his friend out in the muggle world without the means to keep himself safe. Most wizards couldn’t even Apparate out of danger without a wand. A worn object like Leon used would allow Ron to do the basics without brandishing his very noticeable wand. 

Hermione wore a short skirt with a few flounces, and a top of black lace and satin, high-heeled shoes giving her a few extra inches. The top of her head was even with Harry and Ron’s noses. She had a purse over her shoulder where Harry suspected her wand was hidden—probably charmed to look like a tube of lipstick again, as she’d done last year when they went dancing. 

Their clothing efforts were enough for them to blend in with the goth-punk-industrial crowd. The yellow paper wristbands on their arms declared they were with the show, getting them backstage any time they needed a break. Harry explained this, pointing to the door beside the stage with a security guard stationed in front of it. 

“The bathrooms are much nicer backstage,” Harry added for Hermione’s benefit. He’d learned that having a safe, clean, and private place to pee was of great importance to women, especially after a few drinks. Harry had a beer in his hand and offered to get them something from the bar. 

He’d never really drank with his childhood friends. It remained a relatively new activity for them. The hint of dichotomy didn’t stop Harry from offering.

Hermione lifted a lace-covered shoulder. “Water?” 

“Oh come on, ‘Mione,” Ron chided her. “Live a little!” 

She leaned against her boyfriend. “Fine. Surprise me.” 

Ron nodded at Harry’s beer, meaning he’d take whatever Harry was drinking. He told his mates to find somewhere they could see the stage and hold a space for him. He’d navigate the bar and find them again. Finally he was tall enough to see over much of the crowd. 

Harry angled himself into the middle point of the bar, his hand raised to snag someone’s attention. It didn’t take long—the staff all recognized him as the roadie for the last-minute openers. Anything he ordered was on the house as part of their payment for performing. He polished off his ale, ordering two more, plus an amaretto sour for Hermione; she had a sweet tooth, so he figured she’d like a fruity sort of drink. 

Leaning against the bar waiting for his drinks, a young woman backed into Harry. Her bum connected with the muscle of his thighs. A rumple of lace skirts wasn’t enough to disguise the heat of her curves suddenly mashed against him. Rather than leap away, she tilted her head back, looking at his bearded chin, then up to his face.

“Oi there, handsome!” she said brightly, probably two or three drinks in. 

“Hullo.” Harry looked down the bar to see how his order was coming along.

The woman kept staring at him. “You have the most beautiful eyes,” she said with a London accent, her expression dreamy as she looked up into said eyes, her face upside-down to him.

“Thanks?” 

“Are they colored contacts? No way that’s your natural eye color.” She turned; her head pivoting like an owl’s, keeping her feet where they were so that when she faced him proper, her breasts ghosted against his upper stomach. 

“Uh…” Harry looked down at her, his brain numb: pretty girl, fair brown hair, big bristols exposed by a corset tied tight around her small waist, silky brown eyes and red lipstick, her hair twisted high on top of her head in an elaborately pinned and curled hairstyle that would make even a witch jealous. Her style was a blend of Victorian goth and the childishly feminine Lolita; complete with lace gloves covering her fingers—which were currently exploring his chest, toying with the zip of his leather jacket. She stared into his eyes, getting lost. 

Oh crap. Flirting. He could  _not_  keep up with regular people when it came to playing pick-up in bars. That part of his brain was missing. He’d never had it, and maybe he never would. 

Harry moved her hand away from his clothes. That was a good place to start, since she didn’t have his permission to touch in the first place. She noted the yellow paper around his wrist, clearly bearing the letters B-A-N-D. All of their wristbands were glow-in-the-dark, and there was a lot of dark in the club. 

“You’re in the cover band?” she asked, not waiting for him to answer because his Surrey accent made it clear he wasn’t German, thereby not a member of Blind Guardian;  _de facto_  cover band. “You’re playing tonight?” 

He was trying to shut down this flirting business before it got out of hand. “No,” he said curtly, realizing how he could get rid of her. “I’m married to the lead guitarist.”

Brown eyes widened, whites glowing in the colored club lights. “You’re married?! But you’re… what, twenty-two? Twenty-five?” 

Harry put his left hand over his heart—showing the silver ring on his finger level with the girl’s face. As long as Draco was alive, that enchanted band would mark who Harry belonged to. They didn’t have to hide it anymore. 

“Bugger,” the girl flinched, her teeth showing behind red lipstick. She had no idea how on-point that curse really was. “Sorry.” She took the appropriate step backwards, getting her tits off of the married guy. “Cool that you have a female guitar player, though! You don’t see that much in metal bands.” 

Harry’s order arrived. He had a five pound note waiting in his pocket, sliding it across the bar—he might drink for free but he insisted on tipping. He wrapped his fingers around the ale bottle necks, picking up Hermione’s drink with his other hand. 

To the woman who’d hit on him, he said blandly, “We don’t—our drummer’s a bird. My husband’s pretty good though. Hope you enjoy the show.” 

As he turned away, Harry could hear the woman who’d hit on him returning to her mates, loudly exclaiming to them how she’d just rubbed her tits on a gay bloke by mistake. She said her “gaydar” must’ve been broken. 

Walking away, Harry smiled and clenched his teeth at the same time. He still didn’t like it when people assumed he was gay because he’d married Draco. But at least he’d found a reliable way to stop people from flirting with him when he didn’t want it. The combination of fucking a bloke and being married to said bloke kept people off of him out of respect for some perceived sanctity of marriage. It ought to have been enough to just say “no thank you,” but because he was a fair-looking bloke no woman or witch had yet to take his refusal seriously. The assumption would always be that because he was a guy, he’d want as much sex as he could get—which might be true of other men, but didn’t suit Harry at all. He didn’t care much about sex unless it was with Draco.

 

 

 

 

The guys and Galina crept onto the stage. No one noticed them—wearing nearly all black, with the house music pounding, lights flashing through the dim space. No one expected the opening act to be creeping around in the dark, picking up their instruments. Harry’s eyes were adjusted to the gloom of the club and knew what he was looking for, and he barely saw. 

Draco’s tshirt gave him away. It was white. Sometimes a stream of light would catch his legs in black trousers, a flash reflecting off of his guitar or the metal on his boots, almost enough to draw attention. Realizing this, he snatched up his electric guitar and moved upstage, away from the lights. 

Harry couldn’t see Nebojsa at all. He must have kept his back to the audience, hiding the glow of his parchment-pale skin.

Harry tapped Hermione’s arm. He’d just refreshed their drinks. He was done drinking for the night, wanting the alcohol out of his system by the time he had to reload the van and drive their crap back to Grimmauld. 

“They’re about to start,” he told the top of her head. 

Ron leaned in. “Wot, mate?” It was hard to hear anything over the music, so Harry just pointed at the stage, then made a round gesture like they did when playing quidditch in the apple orchard outside the Burrow and were trying to round up Chasers to charge the hoops. Ron got the gist, putting his arm around Hermione—moving her in front of his body to be sure she could see the stage. They stood next to the technical booth, where Barry controlled the lights and limited sound board, which included the house music coming through Blind Guardian’s speakers on stage. When the song ended, Barry didn’t queue up another. 

As the music faded, the crowd looked to the stage. A few people cheered, expectant, interested to hear a new band. Some went to the bar for drinks or took off for the loo. An opening band wasn’t all that exciting. There were plenty of ticketholders still arriving through the main door. The club wasn’t quite full, but soon it would be. The opening act was scheduled to play barely half an hour, to get the crowd warmed up and give late-comers enough time to filter in and get a drink before the main act. 

Their method of introduction had been Draco’s idea—The Prince of Slytherin had a flair for the dramatic which was echoed in his Durmstrang mates. They were effective when they applied their finesse to their art. 

It started with an electric guitar in the blackness; distorted, notes repeated, reminding Harry of a muggle car trying and failing to start. It was the opening riff to a creepy, dream-like, haunted sort of song; a fitting introduction, Harry thought, to what the band was about. Things which made people uncomfortable. Things others would rather not see or talk about. Taboo. The inappropriate. The complex and disorienting. 

Galina counted them off in Russian. “ _Odin, dva, tri, chyetyrye!_ ” 

That was on purpose, too—using Galina’s young, feminine voice. No one could see the band, no one knew who they were. Hearing her lyric Latvian voice over the grinding mechanic guitar was jarring, and intriguing. Heads at the bar turned towards the stage, conversations interrupted as attention was captured. 

Drums, bass and guitar together, their audience would recognize the song as “Be Quiet and Drive” by the Deftones. They had one more surprise coming from the dark stage. 

A shadow approached the center microphone, seeming to glide like a Dementor, floating on a nonexistent wind. Long flowing hair, thin limbs with skin as white as cream, and the outline of what Harry knew to be a midnight black kilt; the silhouette of which would look like a skirt to anyone else, giving the impression they were a Russian girl band. At this point no one would know for sure. 

“ _This town… don’t feel mine…_ ” Nebojsa sang in his unearthly, Orthodox-monastery-trained soprano. Even with Draco’s abilities jammed into his ear, Harry couldn’t tell the difference; with his eyes closed, using only his ears and not what he knew, his brain identified that sound as female. Nebojsa had the high, pure range of a woman’s voice. “ _I’m fast to get away_ …” He held that note, tilting upwards, showing his voice could go higher—effortlessly. 

“ _Far!_ ” Sia growled at the opposite end of his vocal chords, a deep and definitively masculine sound that made everyone’s breath catch in their throats. Even Harry, who knew it was coming—had heard them rehearse it a hundred times in three days—felt that rollercoaster-like hitch in his gut when Nebojsa’s voice descended from heaven to hell with a single word. 

Draco’s tricks at work. 

Nebojsa ducked away from the microphone, the outline of him disappearing, hunched over his bass as he played. His hair whipped out, head banging, his stance wide. Harry knew what that looked like even though the lights were out. Barry in the booth followed his queue, bringing up a spotlight over the center microphone. When Sia stepped back into the light the audience would see him for what he really was. He had this last moment, these few bars, to be whatever he wanted to be—anything and everything, male and female—hidden in the shadows. That mystery too was a part of the show. 

He stepped into the light. Kilt, big black boots, his arms and chest exposed by a black leather vest worn open, showing the world his tattoos and his scars, revealing what he was—male, but still so beautiful he could be mistaken for a woman from the neck up, or on the merit of his stunning voice.

Whistles went up from the ladies in the crowd—Harry was quickly learning that a bloke showing a bit of leg in a kilt usually elicited a reaction. Sia’s white skin contrasted against his dark makeup and clothes, and with his naturally black hair. He looked like a muggle’s idea of a vampire. There was still some gauntness to him, some hint of starvation in a Death Eater hole which might never go away no matter how many meals he ate or how much muscle he managed to put on. There would always be an other-ness to his body, the memories written out in his flesh. 

“ _I dressed you in her clothes… now drive me… far…_ ” he sang in that eerie soprano. He showed the audience that it was his own voice, not some trick with multiple microphones under the darkness. 

Standing next to Hermione, the lyrics reminded Harry of Dmitry running around in Hermione’s body, selling mushrooms to survive when the Ministry locked two teenage boys out from their inheritance. In some ways they all had to put on someone else’s clothes to survive—they’d spent the war under Polyjuice Potion and so many disguising charms, driving themselves to the ends of the earth, trying to escape a force which was trying to kill them. “ _Away… away…_ ” 

They all wanted to escape. Draco’s voice joined Nebojsa—he wasn’t supposed to be singing necessarily, but his voice came from the black beyond, nowhere near a microphone—just singing for himself, imitating Sia’s voice. “ _Away…_ ” 

No one could see Draco, which was how he liked it. The rest of the audience probably mistook that second near-identical voice for an echo effect on the mics, an acoustic trick. Draco could imitate anyone, and he’d had a summer’s practice mimicking Sia in order to learn some singing techniques. Of course he could make them sound like one person, one voice. 

Sia threw his head back, screaming, begging, “ _I don’t care where, just far_.”

Draco kept echoing behind him, “ _Away… away…._ ” 

Harry knew that feeling. Every time he got behind the wheel of a car he felt it, the need to get out. It was leftover from the war, from living on the run. None of them had quite shaken it yet. They were trying to learn how. 

From the shadows, Dima and Draco played their guitars and Galina banged the drums. For now, all anyone could see was Nebojsa with that big bass slung across his body. He sang about leaving as their first song—impermanence, misdirection, perhaps another one of Draco’s sly tricks. 

“Wow,” whispered Hermione breathlessly. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” said Ron. “They’re really good.” 

The crowd burst into screams of their own. Hands reached up in fists, or reached for the stage. People at the bar lifted their drinks, hooting. Even Ron and Hermione joined their hands to the noise. 

This was the point where any normal band would take a few seconds to introduce themselves—to announce their names, where they’re from, thank the audience, say how happy they were to be here. Not a crew of exiled, tortured magical folk. They didn’t really want anyone to know who they were, or where they came from. Everyone was better off not knowing: and the band wanted their art to stand on its own, without commentary. 

Sia put his head down, hair covering his face. He pulled from his instrument the low thrum of his next song. People recognized it and screamed again, louder when Dima’s guitar joined in.

“ _In my eyes, indisposed, in disguises no one knows: hides the face, lies the snake…_ ” That phrase had meaning for Nebojsa: Voldemort, the wizard who’d murdered his parents, the only other Parselmouth he’d known. He wasn’t thinking of singing like the famous Chris Cornell—his mind was on his parents who died when he was little, and everyone else who’d lost their mums and dads in these wars. “ _And the sun, in my disgrace_.” His voice dipped low, his head down, shaming himself. Nebojsa’s own war—his disgrace in not coming out—a personal, daily firefight which was far from over. 

His voice was bare, from his chest, his gut. 

When he made it to the chorus, the entire club sang along. “ _Black hole sun, won’t you come and wash away the rain? Black hole sun, won’t you come? Won’t you come?_ ” Like Draco and Dima, Sia had no need to breathe between phrases, falling from one to the next like pouring out water. 

Hermione tugged Harry closer by his jacket. “His voice is really beautiful,” she said. 

“Right?” 

“How does he sing so bloody high?” asked Ron. “His speaking voice is normal, but….” 

“Nebojsa was gonna be a monk,” Harry told them. “He lived in a monastery when he wasn’t at school. He studied most of his life to have those extra octaves—for Orthodox chanting, so he can sing every part.”

In that religious style of blending voices, Draco started singing with Nebojsa. They stayed as one as Draco stepped up to his microphone, into his own empty spotlight, for the first time. 

People reacted—they couldn’t help it. Draco’s look was dramatic, and not just because he’d magically dyed his hair a vivid aquamarine blue. He’d taken the color of the Black Sea in the summer and transported it to London, drawing the shade from memory and flooding his head with it. 

Inspired by the snake of his Dark Mark, Dima had borrowed Sia’s henna, drawing on Draco’s pale skin. From the crook of his left arm, born out of the Dark Mark, was a three-headed hydra spanning most of Draco’s upper body. One head curled suggestively down his stomach—like Draco’s habit of always calling attention with something sexual to distract from what he was really feeling—another long hydra head stretching across his shoulders, dipping down his right arm, snarling over his elbow, showing fangs. The third hydra head ran over his chest, arching back along the side of his neck as though about to take a bite out of him, the beast destroying its host and so destroying itself. 

Dima was able to use magic to imbue a day’s worth of detailed sketches into the work of an afternoon. The orange-brown ink would be on Draco’s skin for a few days before fading away. 

“Blue hair…” Hermione mumbled. “Not many people can pull that off. He looks the part.” She’d found a compliment for Draco’s creativity and eye for style. Harry always reckoned blue was a good color for Draco.

“That hydra is wicked,” said Ron, who’d always been a fan of tattoos. Harry was surprised Ron hadn’t found one he wanted. 

When the spotlight hit Draco’s thin white tshirt it became semi-transparent, showing the snaking lines of the ink drawing under his clothes. That was on purpose, too; a metaphor, Harry thought, for people not always seeing Draco past his surface. Most people didn’t see any deeper than the monster he could be, that cruel Malfoy façade he’d been trained to present. Like the creature on his neck, his upbringing often strangled who he really was. 

Draco’s voice began to split away from Sia’s. Now they were distinct, Draco’s lower, losing that perfectly clear tone for something slightly rougher. “ _Times are gone for honest men_ ,” they sang in harmony, separated by an octave, “ _and sometimes far too long for snakes_.” 

Neither of them were completely honest, snakes of a kind. Each held their own secrets. Each could rightly be called a snake for their Parseltongue… or their shrouded, complexly-layered personalities. While other singers used a plain song like this to show off vocal tricks, Draco and Nebojsa chose to strip it back. They sang lyrics which truly meant something, which reflected their lives. When they sang, they thought back, and they felt. It showed in their faces, their eyes closed. It came through in their voices, a sadness and insecurity leaking out. 

Harry looked around at nearby faces—mouths open, transfixed, hearing Draco’s voice for the first time. He’d felt the same way when they rehearsed it in his parlor. Now a room full of muggles felt that same magic. 

The monk and the dragon looked at each other, singing to each other, “ _Heaven sent hell away, no one sings like you anymore._ ” Draco’s notes were different—they didn’t make sense on their own. They needed each other to make a complete picture. 

The crowd belted out the refrain with them. People loved this song. Most of the room swayed on their feet. Harry leant his own voice, one of the crowd. They sang “ _won’t you come_ ” over and over again, with Draco, as Sia took the higher repetition of the song’s name, “Black Hole Sun.”

Draco had an electric guitar over his shoulder, borrowed off of the brothers. The instrument was a silver SG body which looked like muted steel with a jet black neck. It was tuned to Drop D for some of the impressive solos Draco needed to pull of. The specific tuning of the lowest string meant Draco only needed one finger to play power chords, freeing up his other fingers to play more notes much more quickly. Harry lacked the dexterity, so his playing never got fast enough to benefit from the alternate tuning. 

As the rhythm guitar, Dima played the main riff, Sia backing off his microphone. All eyes were on Draco as he put his thin fingers to the strings. 

Harry knew he’d be fine. It was a good solo; with fast, impressive notes, slides and pulls. There were bends and ghost notes, too—Draco sailed through them. The number of times he had to tap and release against the board was beyond Harry’s limited understanding. But to Draco, who’d played a stringed instrument since he was old enough for his mother to teach him, there was no issue anymore. Sometimes he could learn and execute these solos far easier than simple melodies. Draco used a flick method on the tremolo bar, producing a very different sound than the original solo, making it his own. 

With each note repeated, Draco’s blue-green head started to go, neck loose, finding his rhythm. By the end his hair was flying, standing on one leg like a flamingo, the guitar pressed to his raised thigh. Harry absently recognized elements of balance and core strength identical to executing a Sloth-Grip Roll—except Draco was doing it over his guitar instead of on a broomstick. His narrow body looked about to tumble over his instrument and fall headlong into the crowd. He managed to hold it, rattling off a flurry of bending notes. 

“Bloody hell,” Ron gawped before tipping back his beer. 

Harry heard muggles talking from somewhere behind them. 

“Who’s tha’ fuckin’ kid with the teal hair?” 

“Never seen him before.” 

“He’s cute!” 

“Is he old enough to be in here?” another stranger asked. “Without the ink, he looks maybe sixteen?” 

Right now his naturally youthful appearance annoyed Draco. But in five or ten years, he’d be thankful for his boyish good looks. All of Draco’s relatives had aged gracefully—of those who’d made it to their forties, anyway. Draco was lucky to look so young. After everything they’d been through, he shouldn’t have to grow up anymore… not yet.

“ _Hang my head, drown my fear, ‘til you all just disappear…_ ” Sia found that low note. Away from his soprano, his chest voice was equally powerful. He and Draco sang together, “ _Black hole sun, won’t you come?_ ” 

Harry caught Ron singing along as the lyrics repeated. Most of the club was singing with them, drunk and swaying. Draco gave them a few wailing notes, heavy on the bar, his voice joining theirs while Sia took the higher path. They traded, both sustaining but never strained. 

The audience finally had a chance to cheer when the song ended—they’d been too distracted by Draco’s appearance to realize their relative silence until the music wasn’t there anymore. The people standing behind Harry, Ron, and Hermione hooted and clapped with the rest. 

“They’re good. Where are they from again?” 

“Anyone catch what language they counted off with?” 

From the board, Barry the club owner caught Harry’s eye, giving him a thumbs up. His gesture reaffirmed this was a warm reception for an unknown cover band. There was hardly any traffic at the bar—everyone was up by the stage, applauding or cheering with a fist raised. Harry smiled back. 

Their third song selection was pretty dark. Harry watched Hermione’s face as Dmitry stepped up to the center mic, leaving his guitar behind. People cheered his appearance—it was rare for a band to have dual lead singers, let alone all three guitar players having decent voices. 

Dima’s song was “Greed” by Godsmack, one of his favorite bands. His deep growling bass shocked a few people—especially following Draco and Sia’s harmonies so effortlessly yet precisely tuned that their pitch rang in your ears over the blast of guitars and the bang of Galina’s drums. 

Dima’s voice was a slap in the face; the howl of a very large, very dangerous wild animal, leaning into the microphone. “ _Two-faced! I feel you crawling under my skin. Sickened by your face. By the way,_ _you_ _think_ _that_ _you’re so fucking kind—you ain’t_.” 

Mione flinched when Dima swore. She hadn’t been expecting it. 

The lyrics made Harry think of Dima’s father, of Tihomir’s insane greed and lust for power, which ripped his family apart. 

“ _Hard to find how I feel… especially when you’re smothering me. Hard to find how I feel… please someone help me_.” 

Harry got a lump in his throat. He’d felt the same way… under Dumbledore. Even when he supposedly had the most powerful wizard alive as his mentor, Harry had felt like he was drowning on a daily basis. And he still had no idea how to turn to others for help when it mattered most. Dumbledore encouraged Harry to be a loner; to avoid other authority figures who could potentially help or advise him differently; to keep secrets; to put himself in harm’s way over and over again. Dumbledore had never taken a belt to Harry’s back, but the old man had certainly thrown him into more than one fire not knowing if The Boy Who Lived would rise from the ashes or not. Dumbledore manipulated Harry’s upbringing, influenced his actions, much as Tihomir had done to Dima, or Lucius with Draco. 

Dumbledore hadn’t been quite the level of murdering psychopath as Lucius and Tihomir, but that didn’t get him off the hook, either. A thousand times Dumbledore could have done some real mentoring; occasionally pearls of wisdom or a compliment would trickle through… but sooner or later it was back to obfuscating, misdirection, and the occasional outright lie or hazardous situation to test an underage kid. That was never acceptable, in any circumstance. It took Harry being an adult to see how badly he’d been handled as a kid. 

Mad at himself, Dima gripped the mic with both hands and growled, “ _Hey little bitch! Be glad you finally walked away… or you may not have lived another day._ ” 

That much was true for all of them. Dima’s dad would’ve killed him without a second thought, to prevent him from coming out. And if Lucius and Draco kept on the way they were… well it was a small miracle Lucius Malfoy hadn’t murdered his only son in a rage years ago. They all needed to escape. In retrospect, Harry getting away from Dumbledore’s influence had been a blessing, too. No longer blinded by his mentor, Harry could finally ask himself what  _he_  wanted, for himself, not what Dumbledore or anyone else expected of him. At least now when Harry walked into dangerous situations, it was by his own choice, and armed with as much knowledge and preparation as possible. 

“ _Controlling me every step of the way_ ,” definitely described the undertones of Harry’s relationship with his former Headmaster. 

No wonder Draco disliked Dumbledore so much. Draco could see the manipulative and cold side of the old man, and wanted nothing to do with that. Draco mocked Dumbledore as a way to reduce his power and perceived authority; Draco had been trying to keep his head on all those years, not to get sucked in by Dumbledore’s appearances of kindness and benevolence, because Draco knew that controlling, abusive people like Lucius Malfoy always lured you in with something sweet—quidditch tickets, fancy clothes, the promise of getting laid, or in Dumbledore’s case the promise of love and acceptance—before they sprung their trap, caging you in. Draco knew how to spot a charismatic manipulator. Draco refused to believe the hype surrounding Dumbledore, because he didn’t want to fall for it all over again, to serve two puppet-masters instead of just the one already pulling his strings. 

Harry had to consciously unhook his jaw. He’d been grinding his teeth. 

“Greed” was a good song, and they played it well. Harry didn’t like the memories it dragged up. The lyrics, and the angry tone Dima sang them in, all came together to hit him a little too close. 

It clearly reminded Draco of his father. His face was a dark mask, void of every emotion except concentration as he played. He tipped his guitar, silver like his eyes, knocking out another solo like he’d been playing for years. He made it look and sound easy. Harry both wanted to punch and kiss him. 

The audience loved it. Screams broke out before the song was over. 

Dima held up a hand, acknowledging the applause. He was the only one who seemed to care for the audience. Sia and Draco sang and played for themselves, often closing their eyes, feeling the music. Galina hammered away in her own world, happily separated from everyone else, keeping tempo. Dima the extrovert was the only one who smiled when people cheered for him. 

Galina was like Harry: at the back, not wanting to be noticed, but supporting it all, making everything run. She wanted them to believe she was a machine, immune to pain... that she could do anything to get what she wanted—which was peace and some stability for her and Mandy. Harry had been the exact same way the past year, running off to America and getting himself brought into the war as a trained combatant. 

Draco ignored the crowd because he didn't want to become reliant on external validation, like his father and the Death Eaters had conditioned him. He was still very much affected by public opinion... but he didn't want them to know that, because it gave the crowd power over him. Cutting out the mob of screaming, cheering people allowed Draco to focus, to make his performance all about his art form. 

Dima was so accustomed to the spotlight, he probably didn't even realize he was the only one acknowledging the fact that they had an audience. 

“ _Mulţumesc_ ,” he said into the mic— _thank you_  in Romanian. Thick lips curled into that lopsided smile Harry knew so well. Dima was as good-looking as any movie star and he knew it, milking the audience’s attention. Everyone cried louder; mostly because Dima was so hot, but also because his natural speaking voice was their first indication of the band’s background. Nobody knew anything about them. His single word of acknowledgement felt like a treasure map thrown from the stage. 

“What language is that?” someone nearby asked their friends, who muttered back; none of them knew. Not long ago, Harry wouldn’t have been able to identify the difference between Romanian and Russian, either. 

Ron leaned over, telling the muggles, “They’re speaking Romanian.” 

The muggles noticed Ron’s arm around Hermione, and the yellow bands on their wrists declaring them with the band. Curious, a few people pressed closer to Ron, shouting to be heard over the cheering.

“So they’re from Romania?” 

Harry gave Ron a staying look—asking him to keep things as quiet as possible, not to draw attention. He didn’t want to Obliviate anyone tonight if he could possibly help it. 

Hermione saw Harry’s concern and quickly jumped in. “They’re from all over,” she explained. “Boarding school exchange program. We were all schoolmates.” 

That satisfied the muggles, who went back to applauding. Harry mouthed a  _thank you_  of his own at Hermione for her quick thinking. She lifted her drink, smiling—she’d had a couple already and seemed to like them alright. 

As the audience yelled and hooted and called out, Draco turned to switch out his guitar. Everyone got a look at his long legs and nice ass as he bent over in skin-tight black jeans—or maybe it was just Harry staring, drooling a little, remembering those legs wrapped around him. Draco retrieved a skinny FV Type guitar in hunter green, with a shiny white neck inlaid with mother-of-pearl. This guitar was specially tuned for a particular song. 

Knowing what was coming, Harry’s toes gripped the soles of his shoes. It was like watching Draco fly out for his quidditch match as Gryffindor captain against Slytherin—Harry wanted to be up there, though he was useless as a musician, to lend some kind of support, to… well, maybe not to kiss his husband in front of all these people, or use his blue light to make Draco feel better and expose magic, inevitably landing them both in Azkaban for violating the International Statute of Secrecy, but… standing as one face in the crowd didn’t feel like enough. 

The next song was for their metal-head credentials. They couldn’t open for Blind Guardian and not play at least one truly dark death metal song. This was it… mostly to make Dima happy, which was why the Romanian stood at the mic, smiling at the crowd as Sia’s bass thrummed, quickly re-tuning. 

Harry wiped his sweaty palms against his denims. The pressure was on Draco, though it didn’t look it. 

Nebojsa handed Dima his guitar—he would play the rhythm part again, backing Draco up. Dima had the skill to play and sing at the same time; Draco could, too, when they were messing about at home. They weren’t relying on him to sing and solo at the same time with the pressure of an audience during his first-ever gig. 

Draco had never had a job, never earned money: he never had to. The concept of a gig was something he learned about from Dima and Sia during their financial hardship. They’d played in bars or busked on the street for money while they were on the run. That was how Misha learned to beatbox, why Dima could rap; they earned better tips when they did what was popular, or what turned heads. But their little performances on the lam never went anywhere because it wasn’t authentic… tonight was very different from anything they’d done, too. 

Harry noticed his Gryffindor mates had finished their drinks. “Another round?” 

Both nodded. Harry turned back for the bar, dodging his way through the standing-room-only audience. Nebojsa fired off the opening chords to a song by At The Gates, a Swedish death metal band the guys used to sneak out from Durmstrang to see. Vuk and Dima almost got expelled once coming back from a show—because they were drunk as shit, flying wonky in their winged forms. They tripped a ward around the castle on their way back in. This was before they practiced the cardinal rule of not getting caught: always have one man sober. Flying drunk gave them a major defencive buff, meanwhile the sober person on their back could keep them from getting into a situation where that buff might come in handy. The babysitter played the role of Captain Buzz-Kill, just as Harry had in Romania, getting the drunk wizards home in one piece. 

“Yeah!” shouted a muggle nearby, jamming his fist in the air. 

“Oh shit!” said another. “This solo’s a fuckin’ head-spinner.” 

It would be Draco’s solo. Harry signaled the bartender for drinks. 

Galina’s sticks snicked against the snare drum. She was incredible in that you never noticed her; she kept the beat and held time but was never obtrusive, and never off. She was a professional at sixteen. 

“Cold” was a fast song—faster than Harry could reliably play. Draco and Dima flew through it like it was nothing. 

Harry glanced back at Hermione. She was giving Ron a miserable look. This music was not her taste, but especially Swedish hardcore death metal didn’t tickle her. Her face said,  _we’re doing this for Harry_. Otherwise she’d have been out the door. 

The least Harry could do was bring her and Ron fresh drinks. 

Dima started screaming. “ _To rid the earth of the filth… to rid the earth of the lies. The will to rise above, tearing my insides out_.” The lyrics weren’t half bad… if you could get past the fact that he should’ve been raising a blood-drenched maul on a battlefield, sounding like that. “ _I feel my soul go cold. Only the dead are smiling._ ” 

It was exactly what a stereotypical guy would be into—dark, kinda creepy, lots of head-banging. Especially a butch Durmstrang guy like Dima. Ron didn’t wanna let on to his girlfriend that he was rather enjoying himself. 

“ _Now let the final darkness fall…._ ” 

Harry handed Ron and Hermione their refills. Hermione’s face was pinched into a look of,  _How much more of this do I have to suffer through before I can go home and still be considered a reasonably good friend?_  

Draco played after the chorus, a kind of pre-solo, trading notes with Nebojsa on his bass. They gave Dima a chance to brush his sandy hair out of his eyes and smack a pedal on the floor with his boot, changing the tone of his instrument from death rock to classic guitar. 

Abruptly the tone shifted—Dima picked out a cascading riff which would’ve sounded at home in the bridge of a love song, or in the background of a movie while a couple kissed before the credits. Galina feathered her cymbals. Dmitry really could play beautifully when he wanted to. 

“Oh!” Hermione perked up. “That’s quite nice.” 

Harry swallowed. “Wait for it. Watch Draco.” 

On the stage, Sia looked over to Draco, checking that he was ready. His teal head nodded, fingers on the strings. Some of the crowd knew the song, their heads turning to Draco to see him pull off arguably one of the more technically difficult solos around. Thankfully it wasn’t that long—Draco couldn’t psych himself out half-way through.

Draco had his feet wide, dug in. He was ready. He tipped the neck straight up in the air—because that was how his primary instrument, the pipa, was played. He propped the V of his guitar against his hip socket; it was Sia’s guitar, as big as Draco’s torso, jutting up over the top of his blue head. With the strings vertical, Draco could rattle off just about anything. Talent wasn’t the problem—his nerves and constant self-doubt held him back. 

This wasn’t a quidditch pitch, or Slytherin Common room, or a bed: Draco wasn’t in his element. Nebojsa was looking at Draco the same way Harry was—willing him to know that it was okay to fuck up, that he didn’t have to be perfect.                                                                                                                             

Silver eyes flicked up. Through a fringe of turquoise bangs, he found Harry across the murky room. Harry tried to convey confidence and pride in his expression. 

Draco crashed in on a flurry of high notes—a screaming bend and slide, his white fingers flying. 

When you thought it would stop, to breathe, it didn’t. There wasn’t a millisecond to hesitate, barreling through. Like the way Draco fucked, it didn’t want to stop for air. Once he was in it his eyes closed. His ocean-colored hair moved like waves as his head pumped, a gush of notes up and down the fret board. 

Silence. For a fraction of a second before the entire club screamed. Harry hadn’t heard such a wave of noise since he’d been one of one hundred thousand people watching the Quidditch World Cup. The roar was so loud Hermione flinched, backing her body into Ron’s for comfort. Shouting made her nervous, too, even if it was muggles shouting, or for happy reasons. 

Galina came back, and Draco played the main riff with her, his eyes still shut tight. But he could hear people cheering for him; his mouth almost turned up, the ghost of a smirk was all the pleasure he’d allow himself to show. 

Nebojsa bent low over his giant black bass, echoing much of what Draco had done—pale fingers flying in a similar melody, putting his own stamp on the flurry of deeper notes. 

Sia played bass as a lefty, and guitar right-handed; keeping the similar skills in separate hands. Harry hadn’t noticed his friend was naturally ambidextrous until they all started going out to restaurants more. Nebojsa would switch which hand he ate and drank with based on who he was sitting next to, so they wouldn’t be bumping elbows the whole night. He ate right-handed when seated with anyone but Draco, for whom he seamlessly switched hands.

Harry thought it was too bad Nebojsa was barely passable on a broomstick—ambidextrous wizards made for much deadlier quidditch players, the same as in combat. The ability to instantly switch between lead hands was part of what made Nebojsa such a deadly duelist… and Harry suspected the Serbian was a decent fighter hand-to-hand, too, though he’d yet to see the guy throw a punch. The casual way he used a knife in the kitchen was proof enough of those deadly skills incongruous to his desire to become a pacifist monk. 

Draco had started learning guitar as a lefty at first, being his dominant hand, but he quickly switched to conventional right-handedness as it was similar to the pipa and he felt more comfortable. Right-handed guitars were also easier to come by—that was why Nebojsa only had the one bass guitar which he re-tuned between songs, taking advantage of Draco’s perfect pitch to be sure his instrument was always where it ought to be. 

With his impromptu bass solo, Sia was demonstrating that Draco wasn’t the only one in the band who could play worth a damn. Sia was Draco’s teacher, after all. It showed. They had a similar stance; long legs wide, one foot turned wonky, shoulders hunched with their heads hanging down, the strings directly over their dicks. 

There was something really cheeky and a bit sexual in the way they kept their straps so damn low—like they wanted you looking towards their cocks, or at least thinking about it. Harry never thought metal could be that gay until, suddenly, it was very gay indeed. 

“That’s wicked,” said Ron, nodding his approval for both solos. “They’re both really good.” 

Hermione buried her nose in her drink when Dima started screaming again. “ _Twenty-two years of pain and I can feel it closing in. The will to rise above, tearing my insides out_.” 

They ended on a squeal of Draco’s instrument, quickly drowned out by cheering from the crowd.

Mione was half-way through her cocktail, her hunched shoulders pressed back against Ron, who was clapping madly above his head, hooting and pumping his fist with the rest. 

Ignoring the audience again, Sia took a minute to adjust the center mic stand, dropping it down to chest-height: that was for Draco, who he stepped aside to wave in, putting the Englishman center stage. Draco was back to using his silver guitar. All three of them re-tuned, needing to move half a step. Galina picked up a water bottle, waiting for them. 

When Dima thought he had it, he checked himself with Draco; that teal head shook, his perfect pitch catching one string ever so slightly off. Harry heard it, too, his nose wrinkling. When Dima found it right, Harry realized he and Draco nodded at the exact same time—their shared ear. Draco understood the technicalities of it, whereas Harry only had his husband’s musical instinct without the knowledge to explain that gut instinct, or take his own playing further than that of a novice. 

Seeing Draco in front of a microphone, Ron leaned over to Harry. “He’s singing lead?” Harry confirmed. “Score. My brothers are gonna be so jealous!” 

Harry knew Fred and George were fans. He didn’t know the older Weasley boys appreciated Draco’s singing, too. Bill and Charlie would probably enjoy the music—metal concerts might be the new Weasley scene. Charlie and Viktor would appreciate the eye-candy: where else could you find a room full of blokes half-dressed in leather, beer-ed up and screaming? Maybe a motorcycle rally. 

Hermione glanced up at Harry with thinning patience. “Am I going to like this song?” 

“Maybe? It’s a rock song.” American grunge, technically. It was a repeat of their audition.

Dima used a pedal to warp the sound of his guitar, playing with an extra sense of mute—part style choice, and part a result of his thicker fingers. He put an extra bend in the opening riff, not enough to actually change the notes, but giving it his own lazy, sliding personality to the notes.

Draco sang the lead, holding the neck of his guitar but not playing yet, his focus on singing. He’d only done back-up vocals before now, so the audience didn’t quite know what to expect when he opened his mouth.

“ _I’m the man in the box. Buried in my shit._ ” The crowd went nuts, nearly drowning out the sound of their instruments. The song started out in a lower register and Draco didn’t apologize for having that gravel and depth to his voice. His range was crazy. “ _Won’t you come and save me?_ ” he and Sia sang together, the Serbian not quite an octave higher, adding a harmony not present in the original.

The chorus was easy to play—so much so that even Harry could do it without fucking up. Draco was able to play and sing it at the same time. 

“ _Feed my eyes_ ,” Draco sang. “ _Can you sew them shut? Jesus Christ!_ ” Draco had to lean off the mic—his voice was too much, a hiss in the equipment foretelling a screech if he stayed on. He pulled back but kept singing. Loosed, his voice didn’t even need the damn microphone. The whole club could hear him. Over the screaming, the wail of guitars and pounding drums, Harry wouldn’t be surprised if they could hear Draco clearly from across the street. 

He did it again on the next chorus—stepping back from the mic, throwing his head back and letting himself go. The audience sang with him. 

It was amazing to see Draco being himself, unapologetically and without restraint. On that stage, he was the bloke Harry met last year—the real Draco, the guy he’d gotten drunk with, had sex for the very first time with. The crowd was seeing a fraction of that wizard up on stage, singing, there more for himself than for them but giving this little window into his complicated soul. That was why he was so captivating, why no one could look away. That glimpse hinted at depths which Harry was sometimes granted access to. Draco’s performance was the tiniest view into his soul. 

Grabbing his guitar for the solo, Draco let himself lean into the vibrato of it. Every note had its own wobble, its moment. That was his own style, never apologizing for the space he took up. He bent the shit out of it, making it his. He back-timed like a jazz musician when he played piano and he did it again, falling behind Sia and Galina, a purposeful lag like dragging himself out of bed in the morning without coffee. Harry saw Draco distinctly mouth the words “fuck it” before throwing down a slew of extra notes, fully metal-izing a half-metal rock song. 

The two security guards had trouble keeping people back. They seemed to want to storm the stage.

“ _Feed my eyes…_ ” Draco sang the nonsensical lyric, looking out over the crowd. It had to be surreal to him to have a few hundred muggles screaming for him.

“ _Jesus Christ!_ ” Draco and Sia sang it together—screamed together, their voices making Harry set his teeth in the best possible way. It was a sound like tension, like helplessness. They captured something in that sound… it was art.

Nebojsa went through their show like he cantor’d vespers—in control, seeing to it that everyone had their part and was ready. And also that they held within themselves the significance of the words they sang, the melodies behind them and the muggles who wrote it all. They were wizards who needed muggle music as a filter to begin to speak about their experiences, the same way muggle religion gave Nebojsa some peace and a sense of purpose. Metal wasn't just an outlet for their feelings: it was a filter through which they could safely look back, from a distance and through art, in order to understand what they'd been through and how it effected them now.

They were a band of survivors. In some ways their music was a memorial, a kind of funeral—remembering the past so that they could start to move forward and get on with their lives. 

They sang their last notes, a wail to match their guitars, cutting off as one. 

Hermione plugged her ears, the screams were so loud. The audience loved them.

“Okay. This last one’s a surprise, even for me,” Harry admitted to his friends, clapping himself. 

Dima and Sia had packed into the van two extra instruments Harry had yet to ever hear them play—a violin and a cello. He had his guesses as to who played what, and he was proven right as Dima slipped off into the wings, coming back with both. 

Dima’s cello was painted a matte black, while Nebojsa’s violin was electric and appeared to be made of a lightweight metal rather than wood. It was just the frame of the instrument, completely transparent, with the strings stretched over it. Dima handed him his bow; Sia flipped it comfortably in his thin fingers, playing fencing swords with Dima using their bows, a few parries between them, goofing off. People laughed and cheered more—and Nebojsa stopped abruptly, remembering their audience. For a moment he’d let his true personality shine through. 

Teal head down, Draco started to play. He wasn’t near the mic yet, strumming. There was nothing but his guitar, yet Harry recognized the tune immediately. It was iconic. 

“ _Disarm you with a smile_ ,” Draco sang. Because he knew how to be charming, how to get just about anyone to do what he wanted. He’d learned from his mum, trying to pacify monsters like Lucius. He could make his voice sensual, or powerful, whatever he needed to be to get his way, protecting himself with false charm. “ _And cut you like you want me to. Cut that little child, inside of me and such a part of you_.” 

It was “Disarm” by Smashing Pumpkins; a song about the lead singer’s relationship with his abusive father. It suited Draco perfectly. Harry wondered who’d suggested the song for him—a toss-up between Dima and Nebojsa… or perhaps even Misha. Harry had heard the younger Ionescue brother playing Smashing Pumpkins songs on his acoustic guitar before—pop music was more his speed. Still, Dima knew more popular songs than he’d admit, even if he didn’t care for them. Draco made the tune his own, playing on a borrowed electric guitar, still tuned in the darker Drop D; changing the tone of the song from a slow, sad lament to something like a pending threat. It reminded Harry of Draco’s raised wand before they dueled; guarded, burned, but ready to fight. 

Sia’s bow touched his strings so softly, in time with Draco’s playing, such that Harry barely noticed. Both instruments were a blend of acoustic and electric; it was their own take on the classic song, made darker by their own experiences, their own narrative within the lyrics. Draco had arranged it—Harry knew his husband’s sound, the way he played with silence, and the space between sounds, almost another melody hidden in the moments he chose to remain quiet. They never apologized for those reflective moments, when it was just Draco’s guitar or Sia’s violin echoing through the eerily silent room. 

“ _I used to be a little boy, so old in my shoes_.” Draco’s voice ached. He sang with his eyes closed, Dima’s cello joining them, laying down a sad rising chord. “ _And what I choose is my choice._ _W_ _hat’s a boy to do?_ ” Draco had never truly made a choice for himself until he left Malfoy Manor for good. There had always been some threat or stressor held over him like a knife to his throat, and Draco had been trained to preserve himself above all else. That training kept him stuck in place, doing as others wanted of him no matter what he might want for himself. Being with Harry might’ve been the first real decision Draco made in real independence, outside the influence of his father and the cult-like world he’d grown up in. 

Draco managed to scream and sing softly all at once. “ _The killer in me is the killer in you… my love_.” 

Because he and Harry had both dropped bodies; Harry killed faceless attackers in white masks and black robes. Draco faced down his own very real demons—his father, and Voldemort. 

The killer in Draco was Harry, the part of his soul which had possessed him, giving Draco the faith in himself he needed in order to take a life in self defence. Before Harry, Draco never believed he was worth dying for, worth killing to protect. The part of Draco which had found the strength to kill, to save himself, existed because of Harry. So the killer in Draco was the same as the killer in Harry. Because they were forever a part of each other. They were killers. Draco didn't look it—in the light he glowed, an angel forever young, a halo around his head, his dark lashes against his cheeks as he sang, breaking, showing himself. 

Love had nearly killed him. Both of them. 

“ _Disarm you with a smile_ ,” he repeated, a hint of one on his lips. Draco was often smiling, smirking, when he didn’t mean it, didn’t feel it. He’d pretended to have control, to love what was happening to him, when he was actually breaking from the inside. “ _And leave you like they left me here_.” A ripple of anger in his voice. “ _To wither in denial… the bitterness of one who’s left alone_.” The pain and confusion Draco felt when his father was arrested, repeated when Harry packed him off to Hogwarts alone, leaving him to fight the war. Each time, wizards who supposedly loved Draco did things in conflict with their words. They left him feeling small and alone, powerless, not knowing what to believe—words of love or their contradictory actions which hurt him all the more. “ _Ooh_ _-ho_ _, the years burn_.” 

Galina feathered her cymbals, a romantic sound as Dima and Sia swelled, a high and low balance to Draco’s guitar. 

“ _I_   _used to be a little boy, so old in my shoes…_ ” Draco repeated. “ _And what I choose is my voice. What’s a boy supposed to do?_ ” Draco was saying that, for the first time in his life, he could say what he wanted—use his voice. He worried that no one wanted to listen to him, to hear what he had to say… like that article in  _The Prophet_  which he’d insisted they run under Harry’s name, omitting his own. Even in his new position, Draco understood that his voice was still dangerous, and in some spaces unwanted. Music was what he had left, to express himself behind veils and chords and metaphors, in a room full of people who would listen to his music, his emotion, without having to know about his past. 

“ _The killer in me is the killer in you_.” He meant that they both had to kill parts of themselves, to trap bits of their souls in order to survive this battle, then the next, and the next. “ _My love…_ ” he sighed. Because the plug he felt between his heart and his lips effected Harry, too. “ _I send this smile over to you_ ,” he sang, an acknowledgement between them of the predicament they found themselves in; only Harry could express for both of them, could speak and be tolerated. Even though Draco had done the hardest part. “ _The killer in me is the killer in you…_ ” 

The lyrics repeated, Sia’s violin soaring, an impromptu solo falling from Draco’s fingers without effort. The whole club cheered, caught up in the moment. 

“I’ve got no idea what he’s singing about…” muttered Ron. “But it’s bloody gorgeous, whatever it is.” 

It was their final song, and everyone seemed to know it. Draco and Nebojsa looked at each other, striking the last note in unison. Dima and Sia didn’t have to see each other to know when to lift their bows, leaving only Draco’s guitar and the roar of the crowd—who didn’t want the moment to end. 

The club roared, everyone on their feet, screaming and clapping over their heads. The lead singer of Blind Guardian burst from the wings, a glass of whisky in his hand. He held his free hand out to Draco, wanting to shake his hand. 

The German wore a mic pack clipped to the back of his trousers, a piece of plastic winding around his ear with a tiny microphone near his mouth. After shaking Draco’s hand, he flipped the switch on his pack. 

“They are amazing,  _ja_!?” he asked the crowd, lifting his whisky in salute. Everyone put their drinks up, cheering. 

“I wanna have your babies!” a girl yelled at Draco. 

That made the guy from Blind Guardian laugh. Draco chuckled, though not much, glancing away. He didn’t have to feign embarrassment—it was real. He hoped it would pass, but the front man turned to him, saying, “ _Was denkst du dazu?_ ” 

Draco managed an apologetic shrug. “Not gonna happen,” he said solidly, looking right at the muggle girl who’d called out to him. “I’m married.” And like Harry. he lifted the hand with his wedding ring, using it as a shield to fend off women.

“Lucky bitch!” screamed another girl, catty.

That made Draco smile for real. “Bitch? Yes. Lucky?” He raised his eyebrows, sort of sad but sweet at the same time. Harry knew Draco was thinking that Harry dying for him didn’t make either of them very lucky. Harry coming back from the dead, on the other hand, was about the luckiest thing ever to happen… except, maybe, their falling in love in the first place. Instead, all Draco said was. “Maybe not. I’m rather a nightmare for a husband.” 

The lead singer saw this wasn’t going anywhere interesting and changed the subject. He asked of the whole band, “How do you know each other?”

That was tricky, too. Draco and Dima exchanged a look which Harry knew communicated,  _we’re not going to publically talk about the fact that your brother and I used to get wasted and fuck_. Which meant their connection lay in Draco and Dima’s fathers being convicted terrorists, indirectly responsible for the slaughter of Galina and Sia’s entire families. That wasn’t something one said to a room full of muggle strangers, either. 

Harry watched as each of their faces went through the same truths he had, arriving at the same conclusion—there was no logical explanation for how they were connected; or rather, none which were also even vaguely truthful. 

Galina stood up from her drum set. She had something to say. She leaned into one of the mics Harry had set up over her high-hat cymbals. “Ve all had our lives saved by zhe same man.” 

A statement you didn’t hear everyday… unless you were Harry Potter, anyway. The German singer’s eyes widened. 

“Jesus?” someone in the audience shouted, sarcastic. Everyone laughed; except the band—purebloods who wouldn’t get the religious joke, and Nebojsa who didn’t find jibes about his faith that funny.

Harry blew out a nervous breath he hadn’t been aware of holding. They didn’t think Lina was serious. Muggles talked about being “saved by Jesus” all the time: Harry doubted that Jesus saved anyone from Death Eaters by firing an Italian semi-automatic. 

Looking at Nebojsa, Harry could hear the man’s voice in his head—dry, lilting accent, the corner of his pierced mouth turning up with what wasn’t quite a grin.  _Christ does not shoot a Beretta. Or kiss strange wizards in alleys._ So Harry Potter couldn’t be God. He was a man of this earth, but a Sorcerer; landing him somewhere in-between God and Saviour. 

Hermione elbowed Harry lightly in the stomach. “Don’t let that one go to your head.” 

Because, like muggle Jesus, Harry had died and risen. For whose sins? Probably his own. He couldn’t be sure enough to tell anyone why. He was still trying to unscramble the ‘how.’ Why came later. 

Eyes found him from the stage—Draco, Nebojsa, Dima. They all knew where he was standing in the crowd. Harry drew his hand flat against his throat, the universal gesture for cutting someone’s head off. He did not fancy going on stage tonight. His signal requested they prevent his being called up.

Nebojsa figured out a way to spare him. He leaned into a microphone, saying, “Definitely not Jesus.” 

Dima backed him up. “Yes, he’z actually kind of an asshole.” 

Most of the club was laughing. Through their nervous smiles, all three of them found Harry’s eyes, checking in with him. They needed to be sure it was okay to take the mickey out of him—they correctly thought he’d prefer being made fun of to being pressured into getting up on stage. That night, he wanted the spotlight to be for them… and no where near himself. Everyone needed their space away from The Chosen One. 

Harry gave a slow nod. They could make fun of him in front of a few hundred strangers, plus his Gryffindor mates. As long as he didn’t have to go up there, to play or sing. His ego wasn’t so fragile he couldn’t take a solid ribbing. 

Draco’s eyebrows rose. He mocked Dima under his breath, “Careful, or Our Saviour’ll make you walk home.” Draco forgot he was close enough to a microphone that almost everyone still heard his snarky aside. 

“Your roadie? He’s the one who saved your lives?” 

Sia nodded. His rolling R’s and L’s sounded pretty even as he carved out an insult. “Vhen he’s not trying to get me killed, yes.” 

People laughed—because they thought Nebojsa was kidding. Harry flushed bright red. 

“How’s he tried to kill you?” asked the lead singer, sensing a good story. 

Sia and Dima looked at each other. Draco rolled his eyes, reaching for a bottle of water. 

After thinking, Nebojsa counted on his long bony fingers. “Trapped in zhe cellar of a burning building.” That was the Battle of Ravenwood—technically true, they could’ve died dueling Dima’s dad, or if the Portkeys out had failed and the house inevitably came down on them. 

“Taken prizoner,” Sia counted next. “Two days, no food. Vith hiz in-laws.” 

Draco immediately flinched, his lips pulling back to show his straight white teeth—knowing starvation would be nothing compared to two days under the torturous hands of Bellatrix Lestrange. 

The crowd laughed again, not catching the subtle twist that it had been the in-laws who took them prisoner in the first place. Who didn’t like a good jab at their in-laws? Harry could probably bring himself to laugh at a Lucius Malfoy joke now, but only because that fucker was dead and burnt to a crisp on a mass funeral pyre. The fact that Draco was the one to take him down still made Harry’s chest swell with pride. 

Nebojsa counted a third finger, gesturing out across the club with his violin bow, vaguely pointing to Harry but not really; preserving his preference for anonymity even while roasting him for being The Chosen One. 

Sia was sort-of smiling—happy and sad at the same time, remembering. “Oh… zhe time ve got hit by zhe truck.” 

Dima perked up. “Vhen I vos shot?” 

Sia grinned at him, holding his gold gaze. “Yes. Ve got hit by truck, zhen zhey shot you in zhe back for coming to help us.” He flipped his hair over his shoulder, his long locks shining like a model in a cosmetics commercial. He was too pretty for his own good. “Ah. Memories.” 

Draco cracked another joke, holding up the empty water bottle in his fist. “If you lot are doing war stories, I’m gonna need a real drink.” 

Ron moved closer to Harry in order to ask about Sia. “Bloody hell, mate. Is he kidding?” 

Harry shook his head. “Actually he’s kinda… downplaying it, to be honest.” 

Ron gulped. “Fuck. I woulda died.” 

“I nearly did,” Harry replied truthfully. 

Ron could still read Harry’s eyes, even with contacts on. Maybe he was easier to read without his glasses, even. “Fuck,” he repeated. “Radič… he saved your life, too.” 

Harry grimaced. “A lot more than I ever saved his.” 

Blind Guardian’s singer was revving up the crowd—having gotten what they wanted, some details on who these guys were, now they’d changed tack. 

“How about one more song for us?” The audience loved that idea. Drinks were raised, people hooting and calling out. 

Dima was nodding happily, not asking how anyone else felt about one more song. 

Draco and Sia looked at each other behind the German guy’s back. Draco shrugged—Sia’s mouth canted, biting on his lip ring. He mouthed something Harry couldn’t make out, and Draco nodded back. Sia told Galina the song they’d agreed on as he set down his violin, picking up his bass. He remembered to squat down rather than bending over—otherwise the crowd might’ve gotten a peek up his kilt. Dima’s eyes went to his boyfriend’s ass just the same. It was the smallest flicker of his eyes, and likely no one who was straight would’ve noticed precisely where he was looking. 

The guy from Blind Guardian waved goodbye to the audience, shaking Draco’s hand one more time before switching off his mic and ambling off stage. 

Sia told Dima what song they were doing. The Romanian’s eyebrows went up but he didn’t protest—he just scooped up his cello along with Sia’s violin and disappeared into the wings. He didn’t come back. Apparently Draco and Sia had rehearsed this one without him. Harry had to assume it was one of the earliest songs Draco had learned, if he felt comfortable playing it on the fly. 

Nebojsa adjusted the center mic to a height between himself and Draco, so they could share it, facing each other. A duet. Girls across the club lost their minds. 

“Really?” Hermione groaned at her fellow women. In her opinion, the guys on the stage weren’t  _that_  cute. She knew their personalities, their histories. “Come on….”

Sia playing lefty while Draco played right-handed meant that the heads of their guitars wouldn’t be bumping against each other, allowing them to stand to either side of the mic and get relatively close. The top of Draco’s aquamarine head reached about to Sia’s chin. Blue eyes went down, silver turned up into the stage lights. They took a moment to just look at each other, getting lost in what they were about to do. 

Harry could hardly believe it had been three months since Draco sat at his piano, unable to play a single note. Three months since he’d lain motionless in bed every night, sleepless; barely speaking, doing little more than drink and haunt the house during the day. Draco’s turn-around was night-and-day, darkness-to-light. Nebojsa had been a huge part of that. He was able to draw this side out of Draco, creative and expressive, unafraid of the clamor inside himself. Nebojsa helped him tap into the storm in his head, the fire in his heart, and channel that out into music. 

Draco’s elegant fingers picked out a melody, the broken stone of Voldemort’s family ring on his finger. The entire room once again fell to a hush, realizing immediately the song they’d chosen. A slow, moody, ethereal riff drifted through the club before Galina crashed in with drums and cymbals. Nebojsa’s bass echoed Draco. 

“ _Another head hangs lowly_ ,” Nebojsa sang simply, like he was in church instead of a club. “ _Child is slowly taken_.  _And the violence caused such silence… who are we mistaking?_ ” 

Draco answered, his tone as pure as Sia’s. “ _But you see, it’s not me, it’s not my family…_ ” Draco took that line alone—contemplating his own deep denial, his delusions that his family wasn’t involved in hurting innocent people. He knew better, had seen first-hand the senseless violence his father was capable of, yet convinced himself of his and his father’s innocence because it was easier than admitting the truth. Draco had hurt people, too; because he was afraid, because he didn’t know how to stand up to the Death Eaters and live, and he valued his own safety more than other people’s. That was a decision he’d have to live with for the rest of his life. “ _In your head—in your head—they are fighting_.” The battle was as much in Draco’s mind as it was in the scars on his body. The worst of the Death Eaters’ damage was psychological, and it ran deep. 

The song was “Zombie,” a protest anthem about the violence in Northern Ireland. Sia must’ve taught it to Draco without telling him the history, Harry thought, because when they sang it it was clear they were thinking bout the Death Eaters, the people who tortured them; not understanding what would be in somebody's mind as they hurt another person like that, what would drive them to it, how they lost their compassion and conscience and humanity. 

Skinny fingers were moving as one, inches away, their faces so close they could kiss if it weren’t for the microphone between them. 

“ _What’s in your head? In your head? Zombie…._ ” The rage in their voices.... when they sang together, it made Harry’s skin crawl. 

The hitch in their voices was like a scream, a death cry. Harry had heard it a thousand times, on the battlefield and the torture chamber—the sound of being a thread away from losing your life. He knew it too well. He never thought he’d hear it come out of his husband’s mouth again. Reliving those moments put a hot bubble of rage and pain in Harry’s chest, and he didn’t know how to break it. The pressure against his chest was too much to breathe. 

They were singing about pain, and betrayal, and being a blink away from death. Because they'd both been there, and a part of them didn't understand how or why they made it out alive. 

Harry realized his hands were covering his mouth, and he was crying. 

He didn't understand how he made it out, either.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry left Ron and Hermione in the green room, doing shots with Draco and the band. 

He went to pull the van into the alley, loading out their gear so it would be ready whenever they decided to leave. And to be honest, he wanted to have a few minutes away from all those people and all the noise. London wasn’t exactly quiet at night, but the sounds of late-night street traffic wasn’t much compared to the club speakers blasting metal in his ears for the last hour. 

Harry left his leather jacket in the front seat, working up heat as he packed their equipment. It felt good to lift something heavy, to move around after standing in the same spot for half an hour, having listened so intently. His body was built for motion, for regular exercise. He sincerely hoped the Hit Wizards worked out for him, if it meant less time spent behind a desk than becoming an Auror. He needed a profession which paid him to work out, because he rather loved it, and never seemed to get tired. 

After securing the last of their equipment, he slammed the back hatch shut. Sweaty, he used both hands to lift his hair off the back of his neck. He stretched, feeling the cool night air against his damp shirt and skin. 

Thin fingers traced down his back, trailing around to his stomach. A second later, Draco’s blue-green head was against his chest. Draco was just as good at sneaking up on people as Harry was. Draco pressed up to him, squeezing his husband tight, not worried about being caught hugging in the alleyway. And not giving a shit that he was sweating, either; Draco inhaled against him, open-mouthed, taking him in. 

A rumble coursed through Harry—he couldn’t help it. Not when Draco’s fingers slipped under his shirt, searching out his bare skin. Nails and baby guitar calluses tracked against him. That was Draco’s way of talking sometimes, skin on skin. He needed to be near: Harry was happy to let him have all the proximity and physical comfort he needed. His performance had been beautiful, but being on stage and performing like that had to be emotionally draining. Draco could stand here and be held in silence as long as he needed. 

Harry kissed the top of his blue head. Draco’s new hair was tremendous. It suited him. Harry had fallen in love with a blond wizard, but this new color let Draco be larger than life, something of his spirit sketched on his body, putting the inner fire on the outside. Combined with his hydra tattoo, he was showing a different side of himself which had been locked up too long, shown only to Harry, kept in the dark. Vivid hair and henna tattoos gave Draco permission to stretch his wings. 

“Ssssmall problem, Wonder Boy,” Draco whispered, almost a hiss. 

“Yeah?” 

Draco buried his face against his husband’s chest, hiding. “I may have gotten Granger… drunk.”

Harry’s face fell—a second ago he’d been smiling, which he always did when Draco got close. Now he flinched, wrapping his arm around his husband’s shoulders. “Bugger.”

“Yeah,” agreed Draco. “Sorry?” 

“’S alright. Does this require a Chosen One intervention?” 

Draco shrugged against him. That meant yes.

 

 

 

 

The club’s back door let out behind the stage. Harry fanned himself with the neck of his shirt, moving hot cotton against his sticky skin—it had actually been more comfortable outside. With so many people out front in the club, plus the stage lights, it was blustery hot backstage. 

Draco opened the metal door for Harry, getting them into the stage wing. 

Harry caught Draco’s hand on the door, bringing those sharp knuckles to his lips—a kiss as thanks for getting the door for him. It wasn’t a normal gesture for Draco; pureblood wizards didn’t manually get doors for people. It wasn’t in their social manners. He’d learned that muggle behavior from Harry, from their date nights around London. Draco liked the way it felt to have Harry cater to him, and he was repeating it back, showing he cared in little ways which were quite big for him. 

Harry squeezed Draco’s hand, meeting his silver eyes… letting him know it was okay if he wanted to go stand at the edge of the stage and listen to Blind Guardian. His pureblood slipped off, colored lights in his blue hair, reflecting off his plain white tee, lighting his skin in a riot of colors. 

Hermione was bouncing on the balls of her feet, talking animatedly to Ron and Dmitry. 

“It’s based on Tolkien’s  _The Similarillion_!” 

Dmitry leaned closer. “Vot?” 

“J.R.R. Tolkien!” Hermione repeated. “You know— _The Hobbit_? The Lord of The Rings trilogy?” 

Dima and Ron, both purebloods, looked equally lost. 

Sia helped out. “Muggle books about magic and dragons,” he provided for his partner in Romanian. “Rather wrong about elves, though.” 

Hermione spotted Harry, happily bounding over to him. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt, pulling him down to shout in his ear. “This music is based on Tolkien’s work!” Because anything based on a book was automatically Hermione’s jam. And she jumped to the beat as Blind Guardian launched into an elaborate guitar solo. 

Oh shit. They’d accidentally turned Hermione Granger into a metal head. 

Ron met Harry’s eyes, his best mate looking kinda helpless. He’d never seen his girlfriend drunk before. Neither had Harry. He thought she was pretty cute—having fun, getting into it. To Ron, he shrugged minutely, communicating that they ought to ride it out and let her make some entertaining memories. 

In all his life, Harry never expected to see a blue-haired Draco Malfoy teaching Hermione Granger to head bang in the wings at a German power metal concert. He took it as proof of real magic in the universe. The power of openness, of forgiveness, and giving others room to expand. They’d all come a long way in a year’s time. 

Ron sidled nervously up to Harry, speaking through thin lips. “What’re we gonna do? I promised her mum and dad I’d get her home by midnight.” 

Checking his watch proved it was already 11:20. Ron and Mione would have to hurry to catch a taxi back to Hampstead—if they took the tube they might not make it in time. 

“I have my mobile,” offered Harry. “I’ll take care of it.” 

He went to draw Hermione outside in order to phone her folks. She protested, loosely knocking his hand off of her elbow. She was having a good time and didn’t want to be dragged away. 

Harry insisted, gently taking her by the waist and speaking into her hair. “Mione, it’s nearly time to go. Do you wanna use my phone and ring your parents? Ask them if you can stay out?” 

She took his wrist, checking his watch for herself. “Ugh!” Her eyes rolled. 

Behind them, Harry heard Ron explaining to Nebojsa and Dima that they needed to go outside to make a phone call and would be back soon. Harry tried to draw Hermione back, to get her moving in the right direction. Mildly belligerent, she slipped out of his hands, making for Draco at the edge of the curtains. 

Nebojsa came out of nowhere, snatching Hermione up like a bride. Her startled hand landed on his bare chest. She blinked up at him, held snugly in his tattooed arms. Did she not expect he’d be that strong? Nebojsa manhandled Dmitry in the bedroom; Hermione would be nothing to him. And… well, Nebojsa handled Hermione’s curves in his bedroom, too, with the help of some Polyjuice. That easy familiarity with her body must have been what stole Hermione’s breath. Either that, or the fact that she’d never been swept off her feet by a sexy goth guy before. 

Sia spun her around, his kilt flying out, making her laugh. Her feet kicked like a little girl—Harry worried her high heeled shoes were going to fall off. 

She was looking at Sia like maybe he wasn’t so scary after all. For the first time, she saw who he was. 

“Ve go outside, Princess,” he told her, winking, their faces close. 

As he carried her out, Hermione peeked over his leather-clad shoulder at Ron. Her fingers fluffed Nebojsa’s long black hair, all the while smiling at her boyfriend. She held up her hand, all of her small fingers extended—the universal gesture for  _I’ll be back in five minutes_.

Holding Hermione in his arms, Nebojsa’s boot cracked against the door’s release bar, knocking it open so he could carry her through. Her laugh echoed in the plain hallway leading out to the alley. 

“Damn,” muttered Ron, sheepish, shaking his head. “Looks like I need boyfriend lessons.”

 

\- - -

 

Draco joined them in the alley, waiting until Nebojsa set Hermione right on her feet before pestering the Serb for a fag. There were a couple of utility pockets along the back waistband of his kilt, and sure enough he had a pack of clove cigarettes in one of those pockets. Several guitar picks stuck to the box as he offered Draco a smoke, then Hermione and Harry. The brunettes declined. 

Draco put his back against Sia, using the taller wizard as a shield whilst he lit his cigarette with a wandless, non-verbal spell, a blue-white flame sparking at the tip of his finger. 

Hermione watched with her mouth slightly open. She knew Draco smoked—she didn’t like it, but she was aware. Her shocked expression was for Draco’s budding talent for Sorcery. After a few shots he forgot to hide it—pulling out his wand was an increasing hassle when he could do most magic without it. 

The turquoise dragon released a long stream of smoke. It curled over his lips, the black-papered cigarette loosely held between the joints of his fingers. Harry had to resist the urge to lick Draco’s throat when he swallowed. 

Harry didn’t understand why smoking turned him on… it just did. Maybe because of how Draco’s lips moved, his tongue sneaking out to wet them before he showed off, blowing a smoke ring Nebojsa’s way. The Serb laughed. The two of them had beautiful smiles… because they were rare but true. 

Hermione elbowed Harry to stop gawping and hand over his phone for her to use. She maxed out the volume on his mobile as it rang. 

Nebojsa gestured inexactly, pointing around the van—Harry understood the guy was gonna go have a slash. The Serb disappeared down the dark end of the alley. Harry vaguely wondered how that process worked in a skirt. There had to be certain mechanics involved. Did he reach under and hold the fabric up against his stomach? Or did he unbuckle the whole thing and expose everything just to pee? Harry may never know. 

“Hello?” Harry recognized Mrs. Granger’s voice through the phone speaker. 

“Mom, hi! I’m on Harry’s mobile. Is it alright if I stay out tonight? The concert’s really good.” 

Her mother deliberated a moment with the muffled voice of Mr. Granger. “How late will you be, dear?” 

“I dunno. I’ll just crash at Harry’s, it’s fine.”

“Sweetie,” Mrs. Granger said bracingly. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to spend the night in a house full of boys.” 

Hermione made a face at the phone. She spoke flatly. “Mom. They’re gay.” 

Mrs. Granger spluttered, “They’re what?!” 

“Gay,” Hermione repeated, louder, as though her mother hadn’t heard her properly. “They fancy each other. They’re gay.” 

“Wh…  _all_  of them?” 

“Well not Ron, obviously!” She gave an exasperated sigh. “Come on, mom. You remember—I told you about this. Harry married a bloke last year. And his friends are gay, too. They’re a couple. So there’s nothing for you to worry about. I’m actually having fun and I wanna stay out. So can I?” 

Listening to Hermione beg her mom for permission to stay out past her curfew reminded Harry of what he’d missed out on… having parents. He wondered how much of the trouble he’d gotten himself into over the years would have been averted if he’d had a responsible adult looking out for him instead of the haphazard neglect he received from Dumbledore and the Dursleys. Moments like these made him remember how different an orphan’s life was from their peers. And in a way Harry was jealous, that the Grangers loved their daughter and wanted her to be safe; that they checked up on her and enforced a few basic rules. Harry never had that before the Weasleys. He was building that kind of bond now—making his own family to worry about him if he didn’t come home on time—with Draco and the guys. 

Mrs. Granger considered. “Hmmm. Let me talk to Harry, dear.”

Hermione passed the phone over, rolling her eyes, mouthing an exaggerated  _sorry_. Harry accepted his mobile back, reduced the volume to a non-drunk-person level, and pressed it to his ear. 

“Hullo Mrs. Granger, sorry to be a bother.” 

“Oh! Harry, you’re sober?” Mrs. Granger sounded pleasantly surprised by the level quality of his voice. 

“Of course. I have a van with our band equipment. I need to drive everything back to the house after the show.” 

“That’s good,” Mrs. Granger conceded. “Might Hermione ride back with you?” 

Harry proposed, “Actually, if you want her to be completely safe, she should Apparate to my house with everyone else. I’m not saying I’m a bad driver or that I’ll get into an accident, but… other drivers could be drinking, and I wouldn’t want that. You should let her Apparate with the group. Ron hasn’t had a drink, either; he can take her safely.” The part about Ron being sober was a lie to make his friend look good in front of his girlfriend’s parents. And Ron hadn’t had very much. He was more than fine to Apparate; it was Hermione who might splinch herself. “Hermione can catch a taxi home in the morning, after breakfast, when the streets aren’t full of idiots.” 

Draco had helped him refine his ability to play on people’s emotions. Because Draco had learned it from his father, and Harry picked it up from Dumbledore. He played into Mrs. Granger’s worry for Hermione, a parent’s deep concern for the safety and well-being of their only child. The likelihood of his get into a driving accident was slim-to-none; but by mentioning it, the image was now racing through her head. Her mom-brain did most of the convincing for him. 

“Alright,” Mrs. Granger agreed. “Keep an eye on our girl, Harry. Give us a call when she’s on her way tomorrow.”

He nodded. “Will do. Have a nice night, Mrs. Granger,” and he hung up, sliding the phone back into his pocket. 

Draco still had his cigarette lit. It was only half-spent, leaving Harry to wonder if Nebojsa enchanted them to last longer so his boyfriend wouldn’t go through so many. 

Draco blew his smoke away from Hermione’s face, making another set of rings drift through the air. Both of them were watching Nebojsa come back through the alley. His tattoos swirled across his skin in the dim streetlights, more ink visible than usual with his leather vest worn open, showing the muscles he’d clawed back over the summer. 

It was a hot night. Harry had no idea how Sia wasn’t sweating buckets—canvas and leather weren’t exactly the best materials to wear in the summer, or on a hot stage. Somehow Sia pulled it off without becoming a sweaty monster. 

Hermione squinted at him, trying to figure the man out. 

Draco gestured with his cigarette, speaking softly to Mione. “You know... Nebojsa’s not gay.” 

Confused, her head tilted. “What? I thought… his boyfriend!” her thumb pointed back to the club, indicating Dmitry. 

“Having a boyfriend doesn’t mean a bloke is gay,” said Harry succinctly. He should’ve been proof enough. 

Realizing her mistake, Hermione covered her blushing cheeks with her hands. She sighed. “I guess… maybe I still have a lot more to learn.” Her head turned to Draco, whispering, “If he’s not 100% gay then why’d he pick me up and carry me out here?” Even though he couldn’t see her face, Harry knew her eyes were going wide. 

Smoke left Draco’s nose—he was able to hold back the snorting sound which came naturally to him, knowing Hermione was probably drunk for the first time in her life and cutting her some slack. 

Draco leaned close. They were nearly the same height before Hermione put her heels on, his teal hair blended with her fluffy brunette, his pointed face upturned to whisper in her ear. 

“Because he thinks you’re lovely.” Draco framed it simply, as a compliment. 

Harry had a very different interpretation. Sia had acted because Ron wasn’t about to help. The Serb had a certain familiarity with carting Hermione’s body around if not necessarily Hermione herself. And he was frustrated; it annoyed Sia when Mione didn’t comply with Harry’s more mild-mannered attempts. 

Nebojsa only lost his temper when people didn’t listen to directions; like Harry, after two years of constant war he was accustomed to others following his orders the first time, not slipping out of a leader’s hands, acting cute or bratty about it. In his world, disobedient behavior like that got his friends killed in front of him. So when he witnessed blatant insubordination, his guts kicked in and he fucking handled the situation. 

Nebojsa liked women, but there weren’t a ton of women in his life lately. Hermione was the closest he’d been to an attractive, age-appropriate, straight witch in perhaps several years, and it kinda showed in that moment where he went brute on her. 

Sia hadn’t really walked away for a slash. He was checking himself, pulling back on his instincts in order to separate emotional reaction from logic. Harry did that several times a day. He watched as Sia paused, peeling off his leather vest to reveal more of his body. He folded the cut over his arm, bony fingers dancing over it—casting a charm to clean and condition the leather after he’d invariably sweat in it. He tucked it into the van with Harry’s own leather. 

Sia was a gentle person in his heart. But sometimes, when his buttons were pushed, he could go a bit… for lack of a better word, totalitarian. In the last year Harry had witnessed Nebojsa make split-second decisions about taking lives, or saving them. His priest and soldier sides were constantly at war. Hermione had experienced the tiniest flash of that warrior’s reaction tonight. Maybe because Sia was quiet and “creepy,” unafraid of his feminine side, and not physically jacked like Dmitry, Mione had discounted his killer instincts. 

Underestimating Nebojsa Radič was a mistake most people didn’t live to regret. Hermione couldn’t see the killer in Sia. She refused to see it in Harry, either. 

The drive to kill lived next door to the drive to fuck. Harry knew that all too well. So did Draco, and Sia. Hermione was the only one left out of the loop, standing in that darkened alley. 

“Me? But I have a boyfriend!” Hermione squeaked. “And  _he_  has a boyfriend!” 

“Okay,” Harry shrugged mildly. “So don’t fuck him, then.”

Hermione whipped around, smacking Harry on his stomach for even suggesting such a thing. She had no appreciation for his dirty mind now that he’d grown into it. Her hand stayed on his torso a split second longer than usual—realizing he had abs, and what that felt like under her hand before she yanked her unconsciously exploring fingers away, still level-headed enough to be embarrassed when she realized her drunk hand was feeling up her married best friend. 

“Who izn’t getting laid?” Nebojsa returned to conversational range, picking up the last words he’d heard. 

“You, Sia,” Draco fired back, waving his cigarette, employing a dash of dry Slytherin camp. “No one’s fucking you tonight.” 

Nebojsa snorted, his face dismissive, droning, “Please. No vone has stuffed me zince prison.” 

Which Harry and Draco found to be a hilariously wicked turn of phrase. It took a certain mind to find Death Eater rape jokes amusing, and to appreciate the nuance of all their interrelated situations regarding cocks when they didn’t want them verses cocks when they did. 

Draco made jokes about his past to detract from his very real and present pain. He kept making jokes because he wanted Harry to believe he was over it. Harry knew better. Nebojsa on the other hand… he’d actually come out the other side. He’d found some sort of peace with his past. The memories didn’t keep him up at night, nor did he sometimes wake up in a cold sweat, barely able to breathe, like Draco still did. It wasn’t often, and they didn’t talk about it; but Draco wasn’t done with his past. Nebojsa could actually make a joke about it, and have it be just that—a humorous observation without a hidden cry for attention. 

As the Potters chuckled, understanding on the darkest possible level, Hermione looked mortified. She took a compassionate step towards Nebojsa. 

“You’re kidding….” 

Black eyebrows lifted, making him look younger. His natural expression was slightly downturned, not quite a scowl like Dima’s, but more forlorn-looking. “No.” He wasn’t kidding; the last time someone bent him over had been against his will. 

“Oh, darling! You poor thing,” Hermione sweet-talked him. Two steps and she was hugging his bare chest. Because he’d casually admitted to having been raped, and that wasn’t something Hermione could allow to slide by unacknowledged. She wanted to comfort him. And since he’d established that touching was okay when he picked her up, she now wrapped her arms around him, tucking herself in and really giving him a good squeeze. 

Draco puffed on the last of his cigarette, his eyebrows arching up to disappear under his blue hair. 

Nebojsa was surprised for a second. Then he closed his eyes, allowing his arms to wrap around Hermione’s shoulders. He rested his cheek on top of her head, his eyes falling closed. It had been a long time since a woman had hugged him—especially a beautiful one—and he was enjoying it; so said the soft smile tugging at his lips, and the sigh moving his hunched shoulders. 

It was the worst time for Ron to step outside. He showed up with Dima, the Prince holding an unlit cigarette between his lips. 

“Wot?” Ron said, deadpan. He froze, only moving forward when the door hit him. 

Nebojsa made a helpless face at Ron, shrugging minutely, suggesting the hug was entirely Hermione’s doing. Ron’s girlfriend didn't exactly make a habit of embracing half-naked blokes, so Harry couldn't blame Ron for being thrown off.

Draco knew how to diffuse the situation—tossing his cigarette butt and spreading his arms, moving in to hug Hermione from behind, his arms long enough to wrap around to Nebojsa’s tattooed sides. Suddenly it was friendly, communal hugging. Harry followed Draco’s lead, jumping in. Hermione and Draco’s heads met his chest. One of his hands found the back of Sia’s neck, tentatively touching his hair. It was like chilled silk between his fingers. 

Dima threw a burly arm around Ron’s shoulder, drawing him into the pile. Ron’s forehead connected with Harry’s, a bonking of heads not unlike a quidditch huddle. Harry pressed his head into his mate’s, a pleasant, affable pressure. He’d never really… nuzzled Ron before; but it was cool, to have an excuse to be that close, to feel Ron sigh and give into it, Dmitry’s chest hot at his back, his girlfriend and Harry’s husband against his front, the Serbian wizard sneaking a hand around to Ron’s back to touch his spine, getting Dima’s stomach at the same time. 

They didn’t do this at Hogwarts. Hugging for the sake of being close, supporting one another, affection for pleasure and comfort. Maybe they were too repressed? Despite their reputation for the Dark Arts, dueling and cold manners, Durmstrang people knew what was up when it came to bonding and having good experiences with others. Viktor was that way, too; always inviting, warm and easy to be around. 

It was his friend’s warmth, the easiness they exuded which told Harry so early on that they were safe to be around. That was likely why he and Draco had let go right away—gotten drunk with them, gone out to that alley to smoke weed and… well, it had been an experience, one which Harry had never felt with anyone else in his life. With Dima, Nebojsa and Draco, Harry knew he was understood; he could be himself, could let go, could be drunk or aggressive or lewd, and they would never judge him for it, or rat him out, or expose him. There was something sacred, bordering on religious, in their indulgence; like ancient pagans dancing around a flame and fucking in the woods to welcome the change in seasons, they had a naturalness which was as soothing as it was infectious. Harry felt himself fall under that influence again, holding his friends close, breaths mingling, heat and the smell of familiar bodies as the night air cooled his skin. 

Harry had never concerned himself with being pleasant to be around—he’d been too preoccupied with the war and preserving his own life to worry that he was more often than not unbearable to be near. But he had been. It was a miracle anyone had wanted to be his friend with the way he treated others. The art of companionship was one more thing he hoped might continue rubbing off from his mates, onto himself and Draco equally. They both had a long ways to go towards being bearable company. 

 “At this point,” said Draco, his mouth muffled, smushed against Hermione’s lace-covered shoulder. “Are we goin’ back in for the rest a’ the show? Or Apparatin’ home for an orgy?” 

Ron made a hacking sound like he’d splinched both his lungs. Hermione tutted from inside the wizard-pile. 

“Kidding!” chimed Harry and Draco in unison; Harry apologetic, and Draco back-pedaling from deviousness, realizing Harry’s Gryffindor friends weren’t drunk or sexually liberated enough for his humor to have landed. 

Nebojsa laughed, a soft wheezing sort of sound. Dima chuckled, too, darkly.

 

\- - -

 

Hermione Granger had one more drink before passing out on the living room sofa. The Boy Who Lived covered her with a blanket. The Hogwarts boys—Harry, Draco, and Ron—went up to the third floor terrace to smoke cigars and drink a nice bottle of single malt scotch. 

Nebojsa hung back. He knelt, checking the sleeping witch’s vital signs. Everything was normal—she was simply unaccustomed to drinking much or staying up late. He tucked the blanket around her, studying her face in the low Lumos-powered light. 

Dmitry stood in the doorway, watching in silence. Buff arms were folded over his chest, making his upper body swell. Anyone else would have mistaken the boot tapped across his ankle for a posture of ease. Not Nebojsa. Dima always put on false bravado when he was uncertain. And he wasn’t sure what to think, watching his partner tend to this young woman, tenderly tucking her in. 

“We need to move out.” Nebojsa was the one brave enough to say it. 

Dmitry looked away. “I know... I don't want to.”

Nebojsa looked between his love and the witch sleeping on the couch. “I don’t care what you want. We have to.” Of course he cared. Seeing Dima get his heart ripped out of his chest on an almost daily basis was one of the most glaring reasons why they had to go. 

Dima opened his mouth to protest but nothing came out. He knew Nebojsa was right; but he was human, and he didn't always like what was good for him. 

“Backing off is the right thing to do,” Nebojsa reminded him. “They’ve been together a year— _one year_. Remember what we were like one year in?” He waited, letting the memories flood back. Dmitry had been petrified someone would find out about them—he was cold and standoff-ish in public, and wildly possessive in private. They were fourteen and  _so_  scared. Nebojsa hadn’t much to lose, but for Dmitry getting caught could have meant his death. “They don’t need us sniffing around for scraps.” 

The Romanian bristled. “I am not a fucking dog,” he snarled. “I don’t beg. I’m… curious, that’s all. The signals are mixed.” 

Nebojsa rolled his eyes. It didn’t matter how many confusing messages the Potters put out; words saying one thing, bodies communicating quite the opposite. They were a young couple, and clearly sexually adventurous, but that didn’t imply they were ready for company in the bedroom. Draco had been absolutely clear back in Romania. Harry Potter didn’t share. 

Still kneeling on the floor, Nebojsa took a long breath. “I know Harry checks us out sometimes,” he conceded. The Chosen One wasn’t exactly covert about it. “He flirts. It doesn’t mean he’s ready for anything more. We have to ignore him.”   

Dima’s arms unfolded; his hands flexed, flying out at his sides, frustrated. His eyes flashed. “I can’t ignore  _him_.” 

Right. It wasn’t a reasonable request—asking Dmitry to ignore the two most powerful sorcerers in the world… no one could manage that. Dima had a lot more self control than the average wizard, but he was no saint. None of them were. 

Golden eyes examined the ceiling. Dima’s thick throat flexed, forcing a swallow—forcing down his emotions enough to speak plainly. “I can feel his eyes on me. He’s calling out, like he needs me.” Dima’s eyes closed. He spoke slowly, from his heart. “How do you expect me to ignore a wizard like Harry Potter? When he stares so hard it feels like I’m on fire? Sometimes I can hardly breathe around him. He’s not even touching me and yet I  _feel_  his hand around my throat….” 

Nebojsa sat back on his heels. He felt it too—that pull towards Harry and Draco both. It was hypnotizing. They had to get away; now, while they still had some of their wits remaining… before they fell sway to the Potters’ undeniable powers. 

Deep breaths weren’t enough. He stopped bothering to regulate his breathing. If was fine if Dima knew he was upset. He cast a wandless charm over the sleeping witch beside him, ensuring their argument didn’t wake her. 

“They are  _monogamous_ , Dimka,” Nebojsa reiterated for the thousandth time. “Draco asked us plainly to observe that limit. Leaving is our only option. The longer we stay, the worse it will be.” Their hearts were already tied up in this. If their clothes came off... well, that couldn’t be allowed to happen. They needed a physical barrier before their considerable wills gave out. 

Thick, frustrated fingers forked through Dima’s fawn-colored hair. It always got so light in the summer, nearly blond against his dark tan. He looked to the ceiling again, billowing out a heavy sigh of his own. “I know. It gets worse every damn day.” 

Nebojsa spoke with finality. “We need to cut this off. Now.” They were pushing boundaries. It was already too much. He could feel Harry’s eyes on him too; that lingering burn, that sensuous light behind The Boy Who Lived’s shining green gaze. Harry was looking at him, thinking about him. That was reason enough to get far away. 

His own pent up sexual frustration was already starting to leak out—culminating in his carrying Miss Granger out of the club earlier. That should never have happened; it was a reflex from fucking Dima in her gorgeous virgin body. He ought to have more self-control. And more sense. Dmitry, too. Dima was beginning to rely on Harry as a second touchstone—finally another dominant, someone absolutely worthy of Dima’s respect, someone he would submit himself to. Dima was already giving himself over, one innocuous favor or gesture at a time. Of course he never wanted to leave. Harry made them both feel something almost like safety. 

Harry Potter was just... far too easy to fall in love with. 

God, he wanted to stay. It would be so easy. But it wasn’t right, or fair, or remotely respectful. They needed to take their unrequited hard-ons in hand and go… before it was too late. 

“I refuse to be the foreign hussies who break apart the Potters’ marriage,” Nebojsa spat in self-censure. The idea of public exposure, being outed, would give Dima serious pause. He was adamantly against coming out until they had sufficient legal protection. A part of Dima never wanted to be out; he liked the way the world treated straight men too much to give that up. “I won't do it. I respect Draco and Harry too much to risk dragging their names through the mud.” 

“No one else would have to know. And it wouldn’t exactly be cheating,” Dima protested; because he’d thought about it just as often, tried to find a way to make it alright, to rationalize what he wanted. “If we did it like before—” 

“ _No_ ,” Nebojsa cut him off abruptly, hissing, rising to his feet. “That was one time—one kiss—one momentary lapse in judgment, alright?” Like Dmitry, he thought about it every fucking time he closed his eyes—that night so long ago when, drunk and emotional, caught in a swirl of power neither of them understood, he’d touched lips with Harry Potter. That moment had rearranged him, in ways he still didn’t understand. And it could never happen again. “They weren’t  _married_ back then.” He stared Dima down. “It would be adultery. That door is shut.” 

“Not if everyone—” 

Dima hadn’t grown up with any sort of faith beyond blind fear of his father and a sick sort of worship of power. That was what being the child of a psychopath taught you—to value whatever kept you alive, whatever shielded you from that tyrannical, irascible wrath. Dima wanted to be near Harry for so many reasons… one of which was his palpable, immeasurable power. It resonated in the air around him, a frequency sensed not with ears or eyes but through vibrations of the heart. Harry shook their chests, rattled around in their brains until he took over. He’d remade them both in a heartbeat—granting Dima the ability to understand Parseltongue, and Nebojsa something like immortality. He’d slipped by death’s clutches twice in the last year, and he owed that to Harry Potter. The man was their patron saint, their living martyr. Of course they wanted him. Who didn’t want to be saved? Dima was ready to walk over the laws of God to feel safe in Harry’s embrace. 

Nebojsa wasn’t ready to abandon his sense. That was dominance—refusing the lure of abandon, remaining in one’s right mind even when it killed you not to fall, a death of the spirit to resist temptation. It felt as though every time he’d ever held himself back had been in preparation for this, the greatest challenge of his life: walking away from a chance with Harry Potter. 

“Stop. Right now. Not another word.” Nebojsa raised a hand, crackling with unbidden white light. The more he was around Harry and Draco, the more it threatened to come out. Another reason to get away; he didn’t want anyone else hurt by the shock of pain which now orbited his hand. 

Defiant, Dima’s chin lifted. “I’m not ready to give up hope.”

Selfishness was bred into Dmitry’s blood, pounded into his head, the quality he was most rewarded for in life. His hyper-focus on himself blinded him to the emotional needs of others, always putting himself first. It made him a wanton, boundary-less lover, but right now it also made Nebojsa’s blood boil. 

He spoke through clenched teeth. “Have some respect, Dimka. Harry saved our lives. We’re not going to repay him by ruining his marriage just to get our dicks wet. Do you understand me?” 

This was about more than sex. They both knew it. But phrasing it so crudely drove home his point: marriage was sacred. The Potters’ vows were sacred. The two of them had no right to barge into that holy pact, cocks out, demanding they be attended to. Even when their dicks claimed to be driven by their feelings. Their minds ought to remain guided by logic and some shred of decency. 

At last his words seemed to strike home. Dmitry stuffed his big hands in his pockets, shoulder slumped against the doorframe, resigned. “Fine.” His chin jutted. His sandy-colored stubble glinted in the Lumos light. “What are we going to do about Hermione?” 

 _Touché_. If the Potters were both their problems, then Hermione Granger was a unique hang-up to Nebojsa. 

At least that landmine was temporarily disarmed. Sure, Nebojsa had a small crush on the softly sleeping witch. How could he not? It was impossible not to feel—after he’d taken her virginity pressed up against a castle wall more times than he could count. He knew her curves, her mouth, the tiny brown freckle on her inner left thigh which beckoned to him in Scottish moonlight. 

They really ought to destroy the last of their Polyjuice Potion. The fact that Dima could return to her body, for Nebojsa’s pleasure, at any time, was  _not_  helping his sentiment die. Every time he broke through her blood… it was a painful, emotional, spiritual experience which he shared with Dima, using  _her_  face. So that when he saw her tonight, heard her voice, caught a whiff of her skin—he couldn’t help but fall back. And when she held him… his heart hurt. 

Hermione had people who loved her. She already belonged. Like Harry, she didn’t need him. 

Where he wasn’t needed, he had to move on. 

Nebojsa sighed. “Why don’t you go get Ron? We can give him a proper boyfriend lesson.”  
  


 

 

 

Ron gulped. “I… don’t think I—” 

Dmitry cut him off. “Lightening Charm.” He understood Ron’s worry and of course had a ready solution. 

The chaps were giving him relationship advice—flirting advice, courting advice. Because Ron had no bloody clue how to make Hermione love him. 

They said he ought to carry Hermione upstairs, help her out of her tighter clothes, help her take her makeup off, and then rub her feet in bed until she fell asleep.

Dmitry pointed to the high heeled shoes she’d worn all night. “Zhose zhings hurt.” 

They never suggested he try any funny business. In fact, they subtly advised against it. 

“In zhe morning,” the Serbian wizard told him. “Vhen she iz sober. She vill let you know if she vants to fool around.” 

“How?” Ron whispered. “How will I know? I can never tell.”

Deadly eyes fixed on him with the force of a blizzard. If this chap wasn’t Harry’s new best mate, Ron would’ve fallen back a step in pure terror. He didn’t care what Harry said about how nice or good-hearted the bloke was—Radič still scared the crap out of Ron. But Radič also got a club half-full of women to scream for him, and got Hermione to jump up and hug him shirtless, so maybe Radič knew a few things about romance and sex appeal which Ron could take away. He was willing to listen if Radič was teaching earnestly. His expression said he was serious; the Serb seemed to have a soft spot for Hermione, which extended to teaching her boyfriend how to make her feel like a woman. 

“If she does not zay yes… zhat means no.” Lightning blue pierced him, as though this should have been first year stuff. “Do not try to convince her of her own mind.” 

It was the drinks in his system which allowed Ron to voice his greatest fear. “What if she never says yes? What if she never wants me?” 

Dmitry put a big hand on his back. “Do you love her?” 

Ron nodded firmly—he did. He loved Hermione more than anything or anyone. 

“Zhen masturbate,” the Romanian shrugged. “Sex iz not everyzhing.” 

Nebojsa snorted; like Ron, he didn’t find that advice particularly helpful. He ignored the Romanian Prince; something Ron didn’t quite have the stones to do. Between his big brothers and his dad’s work at the Ministry, he was conditioned to take wizards like the Ionescues very seriously. The fact that Radič could ignore a chap like Dmitry Ionescue meant he was someone to follow. Ron recognized that, too, through the nerves that made his fingers twitch.

A tattooed arm slipped around Ron’s shoulders, counseling him in a soft voice. “It takes time to be comfortable in your own skin,” he offered instead, considering where Ron was coming from. “Learn yourzelf, your own heart. Be respectful. Be patient. Vhen she iz ready, she vill tell yoo, and yoo vill be zhere.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 45k chapter drops next Friday, March 6, because I’m fucking insane. 
> 
> I've been looking forward to doing Draco and his 'band' for a long time. This chapter became needlessly excessive as I worked on the upcoming major events and needed a random, less-plotline-impactful outlet.


	10. Masters of War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A revolutionary Ministry takes its first steps. Parseltongue doesn’t work through telephones. Flights of fantasy. Signals missed. And the return of a bitter nemesis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** language, mentions of torture, PTSD, drinking, violence, a bit of blood, military training, super-super-vague mention of 9/11, accidentally nearly killing a friend, handjobs, anal, light bondage, Catcher Dominant, powerbottom Harry, vaginal birth, and the placenta
> 
>  **AUTHOR’S NOTE:** Had far too much fun writing this over the last four months. It took a while, but the pieces fit together, and the exposition slowly became what I wanted it to be. Needlessly long, as always. Enjoy your 55k of the New World Order.

 

 

_Come you masters of war_

_You that build the big guns_

_You that build the death planes_

_You that build all the bombs_

_You that hide behind walls_

_You that hide behind desks_

_I just want you to know_

_I can see through your masks_

_You that never done nothin’_

_But build to destroy_

_You play with my world_

_Like it’s your little toy_

_You put a gun in my hand_

_And you hide from my eyes_

_And you turn and run farther_

_When the fast bullets fly_

_Like Judas of old_

_You lie and deceive_

_A world war can be won_

_You want me to believe_

_But I see through your eyes_

_And I see through your brain_

_Like I see through the water_

_That runs down my drain_

_You fasten the triggers_

_For the others to fire_

_Then you set back and watch_

_When the death count gets higher_

_You hide in your mansion_

_As young people’s blood_

_Flows out of their bodies_

_And is buried in the mud_

_You’ve thrown the worst fear_

_That can ever be hurled_

_Fear to bring children_

_Into the world_

_For threatening my baby_

_Unborn and unnamed_

_You ain’t worth the blood_

_That runs in your veins_

_How much do I know_

_To talk out of turn_

_You might say that I’m young_

_You might say I’m unlearned_

_But there’s one thing I know_

_Though I’m younger than you_

_Even Jesus would never_

_Forgive what you do_

_Let me ask you one question_

_Is your money that good?_

_Will it buy you forgiveness?_

_Do you think that it could?_

_I think you will find_

_When your death takes its toll_

_All the money you made_

_Will never buy back your soul_

 

 

“[Masters of War](https://youtu.be/KYaEtijdSrg)”

Bob Dylan

  


On the morning of Harry’s first day at the Ministry, he woke to the tips of Draco's fingers inside his underwear. Pale digits dipped below the band, toying with his pubic hair, fingernails softly raking, looking for his skin beneath the hair. A still brightly teal head of hair was wedged in Harry's armpit. Draco was smelling him, a notable boner grinding against Harry's hip. 

 _Can’t be late_ , he thought blearily.  _Shouldn’t be late, not for my first day_. But Draco’s breath ghosted over his chest, lighting up every nerve in his body. And that hot hand exploring, nails leaving tracks, getting a grip on his hair and pulling, insistent. Holy fuck Draco wanted to get busy, wanted to be with him again, and he wouldn't turn that down. 

When Draco’s hand closed around him, Harry let his head fall back, eyelids fluttering. 

“ _You… are…_ ” he couldn’t help his hiss, breathing hard between syllables. “ _The… devil_.” 

Draco bit him, still nuzzling beneath his arm, head tucked in his armpit. The pureblood growled low, rumbly, Harry’s skin between his teeth. And his hand picked up, matching the pace of his own hips as he ground himself on the side of Harry’s ass, a leg thrown over him for leverage—holding Harry’s thighs down so he couldn’t buck into that hand, looking for the pressure and friction Draco was treating himself to. 

When Draco touched him, it made his eyes roll back in his head, made magic flicker between his teeth, made his hips rock and his mouth water. The pureblood ramped it up with a wandless, wordless Warming Spell over his fingers, bringing extra heat to the slide of skin-on-skin. 

“ _Devil…_ ” Harry repeated. Followed quickly by a hand fisted at the back of Draco’s head, gathering his shining blue-green hair, ripping teeth off his chest to connect with his mouth instead. “Kiss me,” he growled against Draco’s lips, taking what he wanted, too. 

He was met with an open mouth, thick pressing lips, tongue quickly taking the measure of his mouth. Draco had to make sure not a single thing had changed since last night, re-mapping his teeth before sucking on his tongue, drawing Harry that much closer. He pressed his knee harder into Harry’s thighs, holding him back, forcing him to strain just to meet that demanding, lush little pink mouth. 

“Keep doing that,” Harry warned his spouse about the sharp knee digging into his quad, “and I’m gonna throw you down an’ blow you.” He wasn’t even kidding. He would slam Draco against the bed if that was what it took. He got his lip bit for that. So he tightened his hands, yanking Draco’s hair until he gasped, pulling his knee back so at least their bodies could lie flush, moving together without restraint. 

Pale skin was on fire. Tiny freckles stood out like pinpricks, but the heat couldn’t escape him no matter how frantically he moved. Draco locked his mouth on Harry’s, driving urgency back into him, groaning. Draco managed to force Harry onto his back, more or less by head-butting him into the mattress between hard-pressed kisses. 

"No," Draco said, flushed from his pecs up to his cheeks—brightly coral-pink as he breathed hard, too. "Wanna fuck you." 

Harry's mouth hung open for a second. He couldn't believe... then his brain genned up. It had been too damn long—months, since Hogwarts at least. "Hell yeah." 

Draco hooked his hand around the back of Harry’s neck, forcing him to come with as the blond sat up, parking himself on top of Harry’s thighs. Harry used the momentum of his sit-up to keep going, sweeping up onto his knees, picking Draco’s weight up off of him. As much as he enjoyed the feeling of Draco sitting on him, he’d just been promised a display of Draco’s skills as a top. With limited time before he needed to be out the door, Harry wanted to take full advantage. 

Getting Draco off of him, he set the pureblood down on his knees, banishing his own underwear with a spell. Thankfully Draco was already naked, his face fully pink now that Harry had picked him up and moved him off so easily. Draco swallowed the perceived insult to his masculinity; since he was about to put his dick in Harry, it didn’t much matter who was strong enough to lift who with one arm. 

They knelt, bodies flush, barely able to catch their breath. 

“Wanna see my face when you fuck me?” Harry asked. They usually fucked face-to-face—since it was Harry’s favorite—but he didn’t want to assume. 

Draco grabbed his beard—not too hard, just pinching hair between his knuckles, holding Harry still. “Why would I wanna see this?” he teased Harry about his facial hair, twisting his fingers… rubbing Harry’s hair against his skin. Draco fancied Harry’s beard, which was why he took the time to tease him about it. If he didn’t care, he would never mention it. 

A thumb canted Harry’s bottom lip, an intimate gesture only Draco could ever get away with. No one else had ever touched Harry’s mouth, ever had their fingers sucked by him. Just Draco. “Show me yer ass, Potter.” 

Harry prepared to get down on all fours. But Draco didn’t release his hold on his face, guiding Harry right back. “Wait,” was all Draco said before swooping in, taking Harry’s mouth again. 

Biting and suction betrayed how turned on Draco was. The hitch of his lungs was bittersweet, a reminder that Draco got light-headed and often forgot to breathe as blood rushed to his prick, threatening to knock him out. He was hard enough to feel faint, stabbing into Harry’s low stomach as they kissed. 

“Yeah…” the pureblood gasped, peeling himself away. His eyes swam, mostly black with a rim of silver. “Yer a terrible kisser, never mind. Go face down.” The blown, lusting look in his eyes said exactly the opposite: Harry was fine at kissing. 

Laughing, Harry got down on his hands and knees, a light arch to his back, ready to find their new angle. Draco positioned himself on one knee, his other foot planted on the bed for leverage, scooting closer once Harry was down. He had one hand holding his long prick, the other on Harry's tailbone—enjoying the hollow of his spine, and the two little dimples where his low back met his ass. Draco liked to put his thumb in one dip, his fingers in the other, pretending to control Harry with his fingertips like he was playing a gu quin made from Harry's spine. Harry might be taller now but Draco’s hand still fit perfectly in those dimples. 

Draco dropped his prick, as though he couldn’t help but run his hand up Harry’s thigh, enjoying the feel of body hair and hard muscle beneath, finding the meat of his backside with a squeeze of warning. 

He did the Stretching Spell—because his cock was a bloody beast—and conjured a bit of lube, stroking himself with a shivering sigh. More wandless magic making Harry's skin break out in gooseflesh, making his cock even harder between his legs. Then Draco was pressing, and Harry's face went down to the bed sheets. He closed his eyes, groaning to keep from crying. 

Draco was huge. Being taller had its benefits: at least now it didn't feel like Draco was gonna kill him with that monster. Harry was still about to take a beating, though. He hadn't been fucked in months. Draco's cock made his eyes water, made him bury his face in his forearms, taking up fists full of sheets and gripping for dear life—his breath coming in unsteady pulls, screwing up his face, hiding his reaction behind his arms. Draco could still feel his whole body tense, a physical scream. At least Draco was taking his time, letting Harry adjust. He knew it had been a while—so said the rumble in the man’s long, talented throat, the caress of his cool fingers against Harry's spine urging him to breathe and relax, to let it happen. Easy for  _him_. 

Draco still couldn’t get all the way in; he was too long, especially in this unforgiving position. Harry's intestines curled eventually, and Draco found the furthest point he could go without his prick having to curve wildly to the side. Draco hummed to himself, a pleased sound, rubbing the top of Harry's ass with his fingertips. “Ungh... so fuckin' tight.” That accent—Westie, slurring, losing control. "Mmmm... so tight fer me, luv.” 

Draco slow-fucked him. He took his time, guiding Harry's ass back, rocking into him, letting him get used to being fucked all over again. A few times he held Harry by his hips just to grind into him, groaning, giving some of his weight—pushing Harry down into the bed when he inevitably pressed forward, looking for that numbing, thought-erasing friction. Harry bit his lip, his eyes in the back of his head, trying so hard not to cry out loud. 

He used to fight it when Draco tried to fuck him slow—that had been desperation, and selfishness, not listening to what Draco was clearly telling him  _he_  needed from the experience. Slow meant Draco wanted to last, to take his time and feel everything, to let sensation build. Draco didn’t want to come too soon: he wanted to make it last, to have this moment last forever. Harry just needed to shut up and let Draco work his magic sometimes. He didn't have to dictate every second—sometimes Draco needed space to breathe, to express what he was feeling. Currently he was feeling Harry's ass, the long line of his spine and the optical illusion of a narrower waist created by his face-down position, leisurely thrusts bringing them both closer by centimeters. 

He missed this. God-fucking-damn-it did he miss this. 

Harry walked his hands up the headboard, bracing. With his arms locked Draco would be able to drill into him, to thrust hard over and over again when he finally picked up the pace. The angle alone put pressure on Harry’s prostate. The first time Draco rammed him, he saw stars. 

“ _Yesss!_ ” he hissed. “ _Harder_.” 

Draco obliged, gripping Harry by his hips hard enough to leave ten finger-shaped bruises—eight in crescent shapes around his hip bones, and two thumb prints jammed into the tops of his arse cheeks.

There was only one thing that could make it better. Harry flicked his fingers, thinking,  _Accio Gryffindor Tie_. It was too perfect not to; the first time they’d fucked in this bed—something like a year and a week ago—Draco had tied his hands to the headboard with this very same school tie. Draco had wanted him restrained, wanted Harry to be his to do with as he liked. Draco got off on being trusted. 

Harry caught the red and gold silk as it approached his face, twisting it a few times around one wrist—before slapping his hands back to the headboard when Draco realized what he was up to and reacted, banging Harry with all his might. Harry needed his hands to protect his face, otherwise his head would’ve hit the headboard with concussion-force. 

“Oh-ho…” Draco moaned, “oh shite… fuckin’ hell, Harry…” 

Harry let his magic guide the knots, tying himself up, stripes of red and gold binding his wrists. He didn’t need a Sticking Charm to hold himself—his elbows were locked, solid and tight, pressing his palms flush just to keep his balance. His wrists took the brunt of the pressure, distributing the impact of each thrust up through his shoulders. Draco could slam into him with zero recoil except for the bubble of muscle padding his arse. The strength of his arms corded, sinew flexing under his skin, giving Draco a show even as Harry did his best to keep still. 

Draco rolled his hips, a staccato rocking thrust. He used his thighs, leveraging off his toes dug into the blankets, needing both hands vice-gripped into Harry’s hipbones. The  _slap-slap_  sound of his lower stomach against Harry’s ass couldn’t cover how hard he was breathing to keep the pace he’d set for himself now that he was going full-force. 

“Fuu-uuu-uuuuuck!” groaned Draco, leaning over Harry’s back. “No fuckin’ fair,” he whined, talking through his teeth as he moved. “You look so damn good like tha’. Tie yerself up fer me—fuckin’ hell, so fuckin’ hot…” Hips beat harder, letting Harry know just how much he appreciated the show put on for him. 

“ _Don’t stop_ ,” hissed Harry. “ _Don’t you bloody stop for anything_.  _Not until you come._ ” 

Draco gave his weight as he leaned forward, getting a handful of Harry's long hair and tugging him up—forcing him to really arch his back. Draco slammed him, a steady smacking rhythm. Gibberish left Harry's lips. He couldn't keep his mouth shut—getting fucked by Draco was absolutely the best pain of his life, and he wasn't about to let it stop. 

“Sorry,” mumbled Draco. “I think yer gonna be late fer work. First day too. Pity.”

 

 

 

Forty minutes after he woke up, Harry tumbled out of their bedroom, stuffing his arms into his open-front robe; a tapered blue dress shirt and green striped tie worn beneath, dark wool trousers, and his white cotton belt with the shiny military buckle. Draco had recommended a pair of leather dress shoes in a weak tea color—floating them over as Harry scrambled into his clothes, desperately trying to gain back time and not be horribly late. 

Harry’s hair was crazy, and his limbs barely cooperated. His knees were wobbly carrying him down the hall. He couldn’t wipe the dumb, telling smile off his face. 

Nebojsa and Dima waited for him in the hallway; they intended to become Hit Wizards, too. The Serb looked moderately annoyed, glancing at his fancy silver watch. He hated being late, thought it was disrespectful. Dima didn’t give a shit—he had a couple pieces of bacon floating in the air before him, one in his hand, munching. A mug of either coffee or tea hovered nearby. Both wore traditional wizards robes. Harry was used to seeing his friends in all black, between the war and funerals thereafter. The color no longer struck him as mournful but utilitarian. 

Dmitry glanced up. Seeing Harry’s appearance, he cracked a joke. “Enjoy your good luck fuck?” 

Harry didn’t even blush. He just smiled more, showing teeth. He and Draco  _had_  been screwing and it didn’t bother him that his mates knew. Not after everything they’d been through together. 

Neither Dima nor Sia seemed bothered by the Potters forgetting to put up a Silencing Charm or Privacy Ward. They probably should, though, for Misha’s sake. 

A barking laugh sounded from Harry’s back—Draco stood in the doorway to their bedroom, having wormed his way into a satin dressing gown which he was clearly naked beneath. The wizard was still flushed in the face and sweaty, his brightly colored hair all kinds of messed up. He leaned against the door frame with an easy élan, arms folded over his chest, watching Harry go… watching the ass he’d been inside, came his brains out pumping into, less than ten minutes ago. 

Draco lifted one hand, waving—coy, snarky, sexual, all in one movement. He was so expressive, so carefree; Harry could fuck him all over again. “Have a good day, baby.” 

Harry licked his lips, grinning even more broadly—he couldn’t help it. Not when he saw Draco’s pale hairy thigh poking out from the dressing gown, his chest bared, and the raunchy, devious smirk on his pointed face. It meant everything to see Draco relaxed, sated… happy. “You know I will.” 

Nebojsa yanked Harry around by the arm of his robe, tutting softly, something about how Harry couldn’t show up for his first day looking well-shagged. “Zhere vill be cameras,” he reminded, which sobered Harry up a bit. He hated attention from the press. 

Sia held his hand over Harry's head, hovering, skinny fingers twitching—wandlessly fixing his hair, making him look respectable… less like he’d gotten his brains fucked out his ass recently. He hadn't had time for a shower. Draco had spelled the sweat off his skin but he still felt it in his armpits—could smell his own deodorant and something on his skin that was distinctly like Draco. The man didn't wear cologne, either. He smelled great naturally. 

Dima sent the remainder of his bacon and hot beverage floating Draco’s way, receiving a regal nod of appreciation from that turquoise head. 

Hooking a heavy arm around each of their shoulders, the Prince Side-Alonged them to their first day of work.

 

 

 

 

They arrived in the lobby of the Oslo Ministry. While his government’s London premises was deemed safe, it was by no means presentable to the press or public, nor were the facilities completely cleaned out and ready for  _all_ Ministry business to resume. They were gathering in Oslo for a meeting of the entire Department of Law Enforcement. 

Harry was expecting a day of introductions and information. After submitting his preliminary application, today he officially became a Hit Wizard Recruit. Interviews were likely on the docket, as well as lectures, perhaps a practical test or two, and the inevitable reams of paperwork. Harry would rather fight the Romanian Ironbelly in Dima’s Gringotts vault than fill out parchments. 

There were quite a few bodies in the familiar light-flooded lobby; witches and wizards coming and going, along with a knot of unmoving, waiting persons, like a cluster of ants around a bit of dropped food. Harry swiftly realized who they were—reporters. Journalists like Rita Skeeter, milling about with their notepads and cameras with huge flash attachments which would blind him if they all went off at once. He had to remind himself there were likely a mix of intentions in that crowd—some wishing to share news and events with their readership, others bent on gossip, and many falling somewhere between altruistic and self-serving. 

The  _pop_  of Dima’s Apparition drew mild attention. A few people did double-takes, seeing him and Sia before noticing that Harry was  _the_  Harry Potter. All three of them were tall, dressed in dark robes. Dima stood out for his sun-blond hair and tan, letting Harry and Sia blend together as the tall, long-haired blokes at his sides. 

They made it ten meters before they were made. Cameras flashed from a distance, knowing Harry would bolt like a fox hearing dogs. Questions were shouted. 

“Fuuuuuuck,” Harry groaned out his annoyance. His feet were already moving, his stride long, but he didn’t know precisely where he was headed except ‘away.’ Dima kept up with him, a hand outstretched to keep people from touching Harry, his other arm still wrapped around Harry’s shoulders from Apparating, now sheltering him from the press. Nebojsa took the rear, shooing, as much good as it might do. Harry shielded his eyes from the flashes, spots chasing each other around his field of vision. 

More than anything, it was embarrassing. He was an eighteen-year-old bloke having his first day at work. Hardly newsworthy. He wished they’d move the fuck on. 

“Oi, Harry!” called a familiar voice. He turned, seeing Ron Weasley. He’d let his mate know what time they were coming, and hoped he hadn’t been waiting long.

 Ron had been sitting on a bench along the wall. He got up, opening the door he’d strategically camped himself beside. It was a stairwell. Ron had seen the reporters waiting for Harry, and set himself up along an escape route. 

“Go,” said Nebojsa, seeing Ron had a path ready. “We catch you up later.” 

Dima squeezed the back of Harry’s neck around his collar, his free arm pushing a reporter aside like opening a doorway so Harry could make a clean break for it. 

“Bloody ridiculous,” Harry muttered, lifting his robes to be sure they didn’t catch under his shoes when he made good on his escape. Then, to his mates, “ _Mulţumesc, fraţi_.” Because it was second nature to thank them without the help of a Translation Charm. 

Ron ushered Harry in like he was guiding an airplane to land—except Ron had no idea what that gesture looked like. More likely he’d seen muggles herding livestock around Ottery St. Catchpole and mimicked the gesture. Harry slipped into the stairwell and Ron slammed the door behind them, leaning bodily against it to make certain no reporters followed. 

The cacophony went on, muted by a layer of metal. The  _clicks_  of cameras and angry words of disappointed reporters made a rhythm in his ears like bugs chirping in the night. Harry pressed his back against the wall a moment, waiting for the dancing white and black spots to leave his vision. They swam around behind his eyelids like fish in a small pond. 

“Thanks, mate,” he repeated, this time to Ron in English. 

“’Course. If being an Auror doesn’t work out, I can always go for a gig as a professional bodyguard, right?”

Harry snorted. “Hell yeah. You’ve got the experience.” He blinked his eyes open, the worst of the flashing gone. The stairwell was painted in white, with pale grey concrete steps going up and up to the rest of the facility. Nothing was underground or hidden here. No shadows, no secrecy. Even the fucking stairwells in Oslo were better than home. He pushed out a sigh. 

“Let’s get going.” 

Ron glanced at the door at his back. “What about the fellas?” 

“Said they’ll catch us up,” provided Harry. “They don’t wanna lead the mob back to me. We’re on third floor, right? The main auditorium.” 

“Yup,” said Ron, and together they set out to find their way to work.

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry’s appreciation for the architecture and design of the Norwegian Ministry only deepened upon entering their auditorium. The space curved around 180 degrees, communal seating looking down a gentle slope to a pale-wood stage at the bottom. Each row was a sleek, simple bank painted white, looking like the curved rib bones of some long-dead dinosaur. In the ceiling were bands of amber glass, suffusing the space with forgiving natural light. 

The construction clearly stated all were equal in this space. There was no grand podium, no elevated seating. Speakers were expected to stand and project, to address their peers from a bare stage. 

Aurors and Hit Wizards were gathered in the rows, some sitting and others on their feet, chatting amongst one another. The black and silver uniforms of the Aurors made them look like so many bats huddled together in the daylight, the blue robes of Hit Witches and Wizards like jewel-bright bugs flitting among them. There were perhaps six times as many Aurors as Hit Wizards; that ratio should have been closer to four-to-one, but the Hit Wizards had seen the most casualties in the war. This year’s recruit class was meant to bolster the ranks of the Hits especially. 

The space was designed that the voices of the audience would be tempered, while any words spoken from the stage became naturally amplified. 

Those on the stage were aware of the effect and kept their conversations to a whisper behind their hands—when they spoke at all. Harry recognized Gawain Robards from his photograph in the newspaper; a tall, willowy man, silvered-chestnut hair touching his shoulders, his face long and drawn, fixed mopey black eyes making him look like a basset hound. With him was Penelope Clearwater, Percy’s ex girlfriend, and an Indian wizard who closely resembled the Patil sisters and was likely their father or an uncle given his age of about fifty. The others remained a mystery to Harry, though he was certain he’d learn their names soon enough. 

A few acquaintances raised a hand to Harry in greeting—faces he knew from battlefields. Sometimes it was hard to recognize them without the stains of mud and fear. He gave a nod here and a wave there as he and Ron made their way down the wooden stairs, his long robe trailing behind him, spilling down the wooden steps after him. He’d never worn fine fabrics before Draco came along. He was getting used to the way they moved on and around his body. He knew the familiar pressure of a necktie around his throat as he forced himself to swallow and smile pleasantly. It was a bit like being back at school—stared at for who he was, the weight of what others expected of him heavy in their eyes, looking to him as their Saviour. Because, as far as anyone knew… he was. 

Tonks waved at him, wearing a plain black robe on account of her pregnant stomach. She pointed down to the front rows, signaling where Harry and Ron were supposed to sit. 

Harry found a familiar face in the front row, empty seats beside her. 

“Alicia Spinnet!” Harry gave her a hug when she jumped up, happy to see him. “How are you?” 

“Harry! Look at  _you!_ ” she countered, pushing their embrace to arm’s length the better to observe him. “You’re so tall—and handsome! Where’s that pip-squeak who used to tear around the pitch?” 

“All grown up, I guess,” he shrugged off her compliment with only the faintest color rising in his cheeks. “What’s new with you?” 

She held her hand between them, showing off a diamond-studded wedding band. “Well, it’s Spinnet-Jordan now,” she corrected, grinning. Harry and Ron gave their congratulations to her and Lee. “We have a little girl, Mia. She’s eight months.” Pictures were brought out. Little Mia had her mum’s large eyes and Lee’s rich umber skin wrapped in fluffy pink blankets, a bow nestled in her tightly coiled hair. Harry couldn’t help smiling at the picture—the thought of his peers and classmates being married and having kids of their own already was wild… and in a strange way, comforting, too. This was the peace he’d wanted, everything he fought for. 

“What’s Lee up to?” Ron wanted to know. 

“He’s a DJ,” she told them. “Muggle music—he’s got a radio show in the afternoon, and plays a couple clubs in the evenings.” 

Harry and Ron agreed that was great, and sounded like a fun job. “Where are you three living?” 

“In Bristol. Lee’s gran passed a few years ago, left him some gold. We used it as a down-payment for a muggle house near my parents—best babysitters we could ask for.”

“That’s great!” said Ron brightly. Harry could tell that Ron was thinking about his own future, his desire get a little place for himself and Hermione soon—away from their parents, to live a grown-up-couple’s life like Alicia and Lee. It might not be terribly long before Ron and Hermione had kids of their own. 

Harry experienced a sharp pang in his chest—something like jealousy wrapped up in confusion and sadness. He and Draco could never decide to have a baby like all of their straight friends. It was just one more thing which made them different, separated them from ‘normal.’ They’d have godchildren, and they could adopt, but… it wasn’t the same as loving your partner so much that you joined your DNA with theirs to make a new person. Even with all their combined powers, he and Draco couldn’t do that. He had to let go of his fantasy sooner or later: the future he’d imagined for himself, the images he kept in his head representing his goals, needed to be updated just as Hermione’s parents did with the photos on their walls. It was time to hang new pictures, representative of reality. The Potters having a baby of their own flesh and blood was forever out of reach. 

That depressing reminder turned Harry’s heart into an anchor in his chest, checking out of the conversation to be alone with the feeling almost like grief. 

Within a few minutes, Dmitry and Nebojsa slipped into seats beside them, meeting Alicia. 

Several people seemed very surprised to see Nebojsa, staring long after he greeted them. Had he changed so much since Durmstrang? It seemed so, the way eyes tracked him, followed by whispers. Harry knew the feeling of people talking about him while he was yet in the room: and they were doing it to him and Nebojsa, both. Possibly Dmitry, too. 

Sliding in at the last second—practically sitting down in Dima’s lap—was Mads Østergaard, drinking buddy to Vuk and Draco during the TriWizard and regular attendee of their summer parties at the palace. Oslo was Mads’ home Ministry, so it was unlikely he’d gotten lost looking for the auditorium. 

“Overslept,” Mads excused himself with an apologetic bob of his head, sitting down properly as Dima and Sia budged up, making room for him. Mads flattened his sleek blond hair. The tired grey circles under his eyes and mouth-shaped bruises on his neck told a slightly different story than his lie about oversleeping. Eyes rolling, Nebojsa cast a quick Glamour Spell to cover Mads’ hickies for him, thinking it unprofessional to show up to work with evidence of sex on one’s person—it was the second time that morning Sia had covered for his friends’ sex-scapades. Mads’ paramour likely wasn’t among them, as he appeared to be the last to arrive in the auditorium. 

As the meeting got underway, Harry heard Gawain Robards’ voice for the first time. He was from Devon, his accent dominated by long O sounds. 

“Roight to it, then,” said Robards, gesturing over the other senior officials and administrators standing with him. “Everyone settle down. We’ve got plenty of new faces. Let’s start with an old one, shall we?” 

A joke, because the first person Robards introduced was his Deputy Director of Law Enforcement, Franklin Cornfoot; a stiff wizard with silver hair, wire-frame glasses, and posture like someone had replaced his spine with a Cleansweep 6. Cornfoot’s eyes were intelligent, but his body-language and the way he glared over the tops of his glasses made it seem as though he were looking down his nose at everyone. 

“Cornfoot?” Harry repeated the surname under his breath. 

Alicia answered the unspoken question. “Stephen Cornfoot from Ravenclaw is his grandson.” 

Franklin Cornfoot said a few words, sounding as much of a hard-ass as he looked. Harry understood why Stephen wasn’t allowed to come back to Hogwarts last year—his overbearing grandfather had forbade it, thinking the castle unsafe. He hadn’t precisely been wrong. Harry hoped he wouldn’t have to work much with Cornfoot in the future, foreseeing some arguments in their future if the older wizard ever got it in his head that he could tell Harry Potter what to do as easily as he bossed around his son or grandson. Their areas of function were far enough separated that Harry didn’t anticipate much personal interaction with his department’s deputy. 

Robards introduced the new Head Auror, a witch called Winifred Hay-Boggis. Harry thought she was stunning: thin but athletic, her skin like a sepia photograph with a coppery sheen—Harry couldn’t figure out whether she achieved the effect with makeup or magic, but her skin glowed as though she were standing in sunlight wherever she went. Her hair was dyed blonde, styled in finger-waves against her scalp. Hay-Boggis was a graduate of Uagadou School of Magic in Uganda. 

Ron whispered in Harry’s ear that her husband, Peter Boggis, once played Seeker for the Kenmare Kestrels. Winifred, or “Freddie” as Robards called her, had been a Beater for the Patonga Proudsticks. In a championship game—back when Harry and Ron were about five years old—Freddie hit Peter with a Bludger, knocking him off his broom, allowing the Proudsticks to capture the Snitch. Peter fell in love with the witch who’d bested him, attempting to move to Uganda to be with her; instead Freddie came to England. Both ended up working for the Ministry after their quidditch careers. Peter Boggis, an Unspeakable, was killed when the Death Eaters took the Ministry last year, leaving Freddie as one more war widow.  

Ron had done his homework on his future boss. He knew a lot more than Harry, who’d spent his summer focused on other things besides his career. Freddie Hay-Boggis seemed competent, and qualified to take over the department after a dozen years in the field. She wore her Auror’s uniform, the black robe and silver fastenings fitting her slim figure with familiarity. 

For her deputy, Freddie Hay-Boggis chose Nathaniel Bones. 

“Any relation to Susan?” Harry whispered to Ron. The physical resemblance was quite strong in addition to the name. 

Ron’s mouth tilted, whispering back, “I think he’s her uncle?” 

Next was a burly wizard in a kilt—muscular, hairy legs sticking out under green plaid. He didn’t wear a uniform, opting for Scottish tartan rather than military regalia. His black jumper with the sleeves rolled up couldn’t disguise the fact that his biceps were as big as the average person’s thigh. Even in his late forties, he looked like a competitive bodybuilder. A shaved head and a deep scraggly scar starting from his temple stretching back over his ear added to the intimidating persona, like his head had nearly been ripped open by some dark spell or enraged creature. Harry wasn’t surprised to see a tattoo of a naked selkie on the Scotsman’s forearm, similar in style to muggle sailors tattooing themselves with mermaids for good luck. 

“Seathan Nash, our former Supervisor of Law Enforcement Training,” Robards disclosed for the new people. “I’m happy to say he’ll be taking over as Head Hit Wizard.” 

A rowdy cheer went up for Nash, coming heavily from the Hit Witches and Wizards in their dark blue uniforms. Nash seemed like one of their own receiving a long-overdue promotion. 

Head Hit Wizard Nash didn’t have a deputy yet. “Gimmat time,” he shrugged in a thick Scotch brogue. That was all Nash had in terms of a speech, stepping back in line. Harry could imagine future rousing speeches or lashing lectures coming his way in that powerful voice. Nash came off as a fair, no-frills sort of leader who’d earned the trust and loyalty of his team over many years in the field. 

Replacing Nash as Training Supervisor was a tidy black man who reminded Harry of a younger, more narrow-shouldered Kingsley Shacklebolt, down to his shaved head and air of calm composure. His name was Luca Bisset, and he couldn’t have been more than thirty. Harry had to account that a number of high-ranking senior Hit Wizards and Aurors had died in the war; those who’d survived would be brought up to leadership roles, and Bisset was one of them. He had a peculiar accent Harry couldn’t quite place—a little French, a little Italian, well-enunciated and exacting in his speech as he thanked Robards for his new position and promised expansion of training modalities as well as the hiring of additional dueling and sparring instructors in the coming days. Bisset represented a team of trainers, meant not just to educate recruits but to keep all of Law Enforcement in top fighting shape. 

Harry was pleased to see the diversity in leadership under Kingsley’s influence.

Also on the stage with the senior officers were the Testing Officials, responsible for the examinations and certifications which authorized Aurors and Hits to work in the field. Their leader was Pavan Patil—confirming Harry’s hunch he was Parvati and Padma’s dad when he smiled. Same facial expressions. Working with Mr. Patil were two blonde witches, Ophelia Summerby and her assistant Penelope Clearwater, supporting Patil in test administration and re-certification. 

Robards hinted at changes to come in testing—but he wouldn’t say what, eliciting more than a few groans of impatience. “And now we have Alastor Gumboil with this year’s recruits.” 

Gumboil was a doughy wizard with a permanent slouch, and the person whom they’d sent their initial applications to weeks ago. Gumboil’s neat script had come back within days, confirming a place in the recruitment class for Harry Potter, Dragan Radić and His Highness Dmitry Ionescue. Dima growled every time his owls were formally addressed, but the Ministry were sticklers for that sort of thing—he was gonna have to get used to it if he wanted to work beside Harry and his boyfriend. At least there would be a gym and regular dueling lessons for him to work out his pent-up aggression. 

Gumboil signaled, and the auditorium applauded politely when the recruits in the front row stood, forming a loose queue as they walked onto the wooden stage. Harry squinted as amber light from the glass set in the ceiling cast a ray down on his face, glinting off his glasses. 

People roared when they realized who he was. Glasses and thick black hair gave him away, though his height had temporarily thrown a few people off. Seeing him in the newspaper was quite different to seeing him in real life, and most magical people remembered him as being short. It was hard to adjust your mental image after so many years of seeing a tiny Harry Potter beside Albus Dumbledore. A lot of people still thought of him as a kid—seeing an adult wizard before them was startling. 

“Here goez zhe circus,” mumbled Dima. 

With quidditch-match-level cheering in their ears, Gumboil loosely organized the recruits by their initial applications—those who intended to become Aurors, and those to declare straight away they sought a position with the Hits. The first six weeks of training were the same regardless, but Hit Wizards were held to higher combat standards and were subjected to further education and testing, while Aurors went on to specialize in areas of law or civil service. The Hit Wizards were the closest the Ministry of Magic had to a standing military, what muggles might refer to as special forces. 

Freddie Hay-Boggis read the names of her potential future Aurors, introducing them to the crowd. 

“Kevin Entwhistle.” He’d been in Ravenclaw, one of Michael Corner’s mates. Harry recognized him, but only only because he’d joined Dumbledore’s Army. 

“Aideen Griffiths,” got a few cheers, recognized coming off of her limited career with the Hollyhead Harpies. Her mother Wilda still played Chaser, and Harry got the impression Aideen felt a bit overshadowed; especially since her great-aunt Glynnis played for the Harpies, too. Aideen was switching career-paths in her mid-twenties. 

“Lewys Jenkins.” Another pro quidditch player changing tack. Jenkins played Keeper for Gryffindor before Ollie Wood, and went on to have a good career with Cork. Jenkins was pushing thirty years old. He pumped a fist in the air, acknowledging those who cheered for him like he was still on the pitch. He had quite a few female fans in the Aurors Office. 

“Roger Malone.” Harry wasn’t surprised to see a few Hufflepuffs going out for Auror jobs. He thought Roger would do alright; he had an athletic physique, though as a muggle-born he’d never played quidditch. At school Harry sometimes mistook Roger for Terry Boot from a distance—they looked terribly alike, except that Roger wore glasses. Like Harry, Roger would likely be trading his glasses for muggle contact lenses once the physical side of their training began.

“Jana Möller.” A blonde witch Harry didn’t recognize. She’d probably gone to Beaubatons, since Dmitry and Nebojsa didn’t appear to know her, either. The sparkly engagement ring on her finger explained her move to England.

“Oliver Moon,” a dusky-skinned, Hispanic chap from Hufflepuff, a friend of Roger’s. 

“Sally-Anne Perks,” was a quiet witch from Ravenclaw. Harry only knew her face because she and Hermione used to hang out in the library together after Ancient Runes classes. 

“Marie Schrader,” probably went to Beaubatons. She kept glancing at her friend, a beautiful brunette witch in the Hits line, and Harry suspected Marie was only there to stay close with her best mate, and perhaps to get away from home, wherever in continental Europe that was. 

“Alicia Spinnet-Jordan.” The Gryffindors amongst the Aurors clapped loudly, remembering her skill on he pitch and pleased she was back in the magical world. 

“Sophie Roper,” was another Ravenclaw witch from Harry’s year. Sophie looked nervous, and Harry couldn’t help but wonder if she was there to stick close to her friend Sally-Anne… or perhaps Sophie was interested in Kevin, Roger, or Oliver. He got the feeling she might not have been on stage completely by her own ambition. 

Last in the Auror line, “Ronald Weasley. Order of Merlin, Second Class.” People clapped enthusiastically, knowing him from his Order of Merlin as much as his relationship to Harry. Aside from Lewys—who was ten years their senior—Ron was one of the largest lads on that side. He stood out… in a good way, Harry thought. Ron looked capable, like he belonged standing with Hay-Boggis and Robards. He just needed the uniform to finish looking the part. 

Seathan Nash introduced those who might be deemed worthy to work for him. 

“Jai Cardoso.” Nash had no problem pronouncing the Portuguese name. Cardoso had a body like Misha Ionescue; compact, highly-functional muscle and whip-like reflexes evident under his pale green robe. The light color complimented the yellow and olive tones in his skin. Harry was jealous of Cardoso’s hair—an elegant natural pompadour wave, making him look like a South American 1950’s greaser. Cardoso had a level, stylish presence, marking him as the Blaise Zabini of Castelobruxo. Harry guessed Cardoso was under twenty, a recent grad trying his hand overseas. 

“Karine de la Salle,” was a stunning brunette. A shout from the audience identified her as Belgian, her countrymen making an effort to stick together and support one another. Karine had a scrutinizing gaze, made sharper by a lack of bangs or hair near her face. She cropped her hair in a short pixie cut, accenting her long neck. She might’ve looked older were it not for a spray of freckles over her nose, belying her to still be in her late teens. 

“His Highness Dmitry Ionescue, Order of Merlin, Thi—.” The level of Dima’s award was drowned out as every Durmstrang graduate in the room let out a unanimous, guttural grunt—like the muggle All-Blacks rugby team about to perform a haka, their sound shaking the floor beneath everyone’s feet. It was a recognition, a deep sound of unity and support, which had nothing to do with titles or social position. Dima nodded, a rumble in his own chest as he made the sound, too, acknowledging them back in the same breath. 

Harry understood the Ministry recruited their elite enforcement agents mostly from foreign schools—chiefly because Hits were authorized and expected to use the Dark Arts in the field if necessary. Hit Wizards were recruited heavily from schools which taught the Dark Arts. As such, the Hit Office was staffed overwhelmingly by foreign-born witches and wizards. Durmstrang graduates made up more than half the Hit Wizards. 

It made sense, too, that those who may have to fight and kill a criminal were best-off being from another country, making them less likely to have some kind of tie or grudge against combatants in the field. Arresting someone like Bellatrix Lestrange would be hard for many British witches or wizards, given how many lives she’d influenced with her crimes; whereas someone like Cardoso or de la Salle didn’t have their feelings so closely involved. Harry was actually the odd duck amongst the recruits, the only Hogwarts student standing on the Hit Wizard side of the stage. 

“Iga Ledinski,” came next, receiving the same heavy tribal shout as Dima, no less enthusiastic for her gender or lack of title. Harry understood the culture amongst the students of Durmstrang to be egalitarian, focused more on the power a person possessed than their gender, social position, or even sexual identity… regardless of what the administrators’ policies might be. Durmstrang students respected power; they didn’t care if you were gay, or a lesbian, or bi, or just experimenting. Harry wondered if that ideal of social tolerance extended to someone’s skin color, as he’d never seen a non-Caucasian person claim to be a graduate of Durmstrang, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist.

Iga looked at Nebojsa an awful lot, her murky green eyes taking him in, trying to piece together clues beyond Harry’s understanding. 

Iga’s braided auburn hair put Harry in mind of a Valkyrie warrior, a practical style keeping her long hair out of her way. She wore her wand on a dragonhide bracer over her wrist, just like Kingsley Shacklebolt and a few other Aurors Harry knew, always wanting to be ready. Clearly she’d survived the fall of Durmstrang; she was Harry’s age, or perhaps had been in the same year as Dima and Nebojsa. The fact she was looking for a job in the UK made Harry wonder how much of her family had survived the war… if any. Iga had an independent, effective aura about her—someone accustomed to looking after herself. Harry knew it well, an orphan’s blend of self-sufficiency, vigilance, and unbending stubbornness. 

“Mads Østergaard.” Mads got the grunting treatment, too. A few witches whispered behind their hands, casting smiles his way. Like Draco, this sleek blond wizard had an unnamed quality which dripped of sex. Even Harry, who wasn’t interested in blokes except for Draco, could sort-of picture Mads naked in his head—even when he didn’t want to. Maybe Mads was part Veela? 

Nash looked up from his list, squinting at Harry. “Who’re you?” 

Everyone laughed, including Harry. 

Nash certainly knew how to keep the mood light. The Scot jerked his thumb at Harry, speaking to the group. “Nobody ken this wee scunner?” 

“Harry Potter!” they all shouted, naming him. 

Joking, Nash raised his eyebrows absurdly, acting surprised. He snapped his bald head back to Harry. “Real-eh?” he asked, to more laughter. Snorting himself, Harry nodded, confirming he was as-accused. “The Boy Who Lived! Blimey! Suppose I can retire.” People groaned, and Nash waved Harry back in line, thinking his silly comments sufficed as introduction. Harry was thankful—Nash’s distraction reduced some of the embarrassment Harry experienced being so widely recognized.

“An’…” swallowing back his laughter, Nash consulted his list one last time. “Dragan Radić, Order of Mer—” He didn’t get the rest out. The Durmstrang alums let out a tribal growl that bounced off the walls, rattling in Harry’s chest. He swore he felt his ribs move, crushed for a second by the power in their voices. Cheers broke out, people on their feet, clapping. A better reception than even Harry Potter had received. 

Nebojsa stood silent. If he was surprised he didn’t let it show. His name carried its own legend; the only wizard to walk out of a Death Eater prison, present at every major battle of the war—Ravenwood, Valaam, Hogwarts—and emerging each time, visibly unscathed, against incredible odds. 

Nebojsa was a mystic, a religious icon to a culture still entwined with muggle religion in a way Harry and other Brits couldn’t grasp; it wasn’t their tradition to believe in anything greater than themselves, anything like a God. To those in the crowd who knew him, or knew of his many accomplishments, Nebojsa was far more of a hero than Harry Potter would ever be… and Nebojsa did it without the fanfare, without anyone rooting for him. He’d been fifteen or sixteen when the Death Eaters snatched him, locking him in a dark cell. Like a black phoenix, the young monk had burned himself up, emerging as the man he was now. 

Harry touched his friend’s side, leaning close, speaking into the curtain of his silky black hair. 

“ _I_  can retire,” mumbled Harry, echoing Nash’s sentiment. “They like you better, mate.”

 

 

 

 

After the introductions and a few announcements regarding Law Enforcement conducting their work split between facilities in Oslo and London, Gumboil gathered the recruits around him. He had several Portkeys to take them back to the London premises, where they’d be completing… paperwork. Harry barely stifled his groan: a few others couldn’t keep it in. 

Gumboil distributed the Portkeys, his jaw set, unresponsive to their low levels of enthusiasm. 

Harry held a pocket watch which would take them back to London. He eyed Dima, Sia and Ron as they each piled a hand over his, touching the metal. 

“Zhis iz great,” Dima muttered, chipper. He actually meant it. “Notzing on fire. No vone vomiting.” 

“No vone zick or bleeding in my arms,” added Sia under his breath. They were joking about the cellar at Ravenwood, waiting anxiously for their Portkeys to activate, to take them from a burning, collapsing building to deserted snowy woods not so far from where they stood now. 

Ron didn’t get the reference. He hadn’t been there. 

Harry raised his eyebrows. “It’s like a bloody holiday, right?” 

The Portkey activated under their hands, ripping them away from a building full of pale, welcoming light. They landed in the darkness of the Ministry of Magic in London—somewhere near the Department of Mysteries if Harry had his bearings. Every hallway looked the same. 

Gumboil escorted the recruits to a sort of library room, with long wooden tables at the center and shelves lined with books ringing the space. There were no windows, just a solid wall of book spines and wooden shelves from floor to ceiling. It made Harry feel a bit shut-in; he’d worry if he or his mates had any claustrophobic tendencies. Though the room was large enough to accommodate them all, it was rather oppressive—utilitarian, without decoration or ornamentation. Even the tables were plain wood with dark lacquer, making the space heavy, like a permanent nighttime study no matter the time of day.

Harry had never seen so many volumes about defensive magic in one place before, including at Leon Harper’s house.

They were instructed to sit, and stacks of parchment were distributed to each recruit. As he was handed a quill and ink pot, Harry’s heart fell, realizing that he was expected to fill in the entire thing. His packet was nearly an inch thick. He looked over the blanks and he would need to fill, the boxes he needed to tick, marching down the page. 

 _Name. Age. Aliases or Alternate_   _Name_   _s_   _. Home Address. Alternate Address. Date of Birth. Hair Color. Eye Color. Height. Weight. Gender. Race. Country of Birth. Countries of Citizenship. Languages Spoken. Wand Description. Emergency Contact Person. Spouse and Children. Education. OWL & NEWT Scores. Additional Certifications. Past Work History._ 

It just kept going, probing, wanting to know every tiny detail of his life. Harry groaned. 

Gumboil reminded the group, “NEWT requirements are waved for applicants through the end of the calendar year. Only OWLs need be reported, though we’d appreciate your NEWTs should you have them.”

The Ministry had lost so many, especially in Law Enforcement, that they were dropping the standard requirement for NEWTs in certain subjects. Their leniency got bodies in the door, attracting not just kids who’d skipped last year at Hogwarts or Beaubatons, but those from Durmstrang who’d missed their last two years’ worth of education: otherwise qualified people like Dima and Nebojsa, Iga and Mads. 

Harry overheard Gumboil mention this was the largest recruit class he’d seen in twenty years… meaning the last war. Gumboil had been a young man back then, probably only a few years older than Harry and his mates. Now the wizard had grey at his temples and a bit of a pudgy physique from sitting at his desk reading paperwork all day. He permanently hunched, his shoulders up around his ears. 

Harry looked at the first set of blanks on the page before him, brushing his white feather quill  against his lips. 

To start with, he didn’t know how much he fucking weighed anymore. Measurements didn’t do  _him_  any good; he’d stopped tracking over the summer, not having a scale at Grimmauld and not attending any traditional gyms or training facilities as he had in America. The less attention he paid his measurements, the better he felt in his own body; the less it seemed like walking around in a stranger’s form by way of Polyjuice or Fred and George’s Dead Relative Deluxe. 

Leon maintained that Harry’s physique looked exactly like James’—which only added to his dysphoria, feeling like his new skin was less his own. He’d never expected his body to match his dad’s in addition to bearing his facial features. He wanted his body to be his own. Sometimes looking at his tattoo helped to ground his mind, or touching the scar on his forehead which had ceased to burn because there was no more danger to warn him of. Even  _I must not tell lies_  on his hand brought Harry a certain kind of peace, though a bite mark on his shoulder leftover from Draco had better memories attached. These familiar markings reminded him who he was despite the extreme changes wrought on his body by Voldemort’s horcrux magic. 

He didn’t like talking about his physical details. And he didn’t care for disclosing the changes in his body on a cold-as-ice, impersonal Ministry form. He was more than a set of numbers, anyway.

He shrugged off the uneasy feeling, dipped his quill and began, writing as much as he could. By the third page his hand began to cramp—it had been ages since he’d had to write this much, perhaps since he’d been a sixth year at Hogwarts. Harry took a moment to flex his wrist, massaging it. He wasn’t the only one around the room taking a break. Others rubbed at their hands, or got up from their seats to stretch their legs, conjuring themselves a glass of water. Presumably they’d be allowed to use the loo, though no one had asked to leave the library yet. 

Mads had a small flask concealed in the breast pocket of his robe, taking a nip when Gumboil’s back was turned. The Beaubatons girls he sat with, Karine and Marie, didn’t seem to care that he was drinking, focused on their quills. 

Ron sat next to Harry. He too hadn’t filled in his height or weight yet, stalling. So Harry bumped his foot against Dmitry’s under the table, whispering in Parseltongue, “ _Is there a quick spell or something to figure out how much I weigh? I don’t know off-hand._ ” 

He was able to glance at Dima’s completed pages, reading upside-down. Dima had very neat, orderly handwriting, the characters marching perfectly level as though he’d learned to write on a ruler—or with one cracked over his knuckles should his script be less than perfection. His Grace had reported himself as five feet and ten inches, his weight an even one hundred kilograms. Harry was about two fingers over Dima when they both stood up straight, but he wasn’t yet as tall as Nebojsa. He tentatively marked himself as five-eleven, giving himself an inch’s growth for the summer. 

Sia heard his hiss, understanding Harry wanted to be discreet. The Serb didn’t pull his wand, reaching across the table to lay his hand over Harry’s. 

A zap of magic like static electricity ran over Harry, lifting the hairs on his arm under his shirt sleeve. Nebojsa’s spell ran through him like an electric current, from his toes through his legs and torso up to the top of his head, then back out his arm in a blink, taking stock of him in a flicker lasting less than a heartbeat. It must’ve been a medical spell, some kind of assessment or diagnostic tool. Sia probably learned it from Misha, or from his time as Durmstrang’s equivalent of a prefect, a mentor and member of the rehabilitation team. 

“Zeventy-eight kilos,” he reported, his voice hushed, attempting to keep Harry’s details private. 

Harry bit his tongue—mostly for not knowing what to say, or how else to react. Apparently he’d gained more than two stone in six months; his newfound height was a likely contributor, as well as jogging and working out intermittently, more-so over the summer. He’d been small and thin most of his life. Marking seventy-eight kilograms on his parchment might’ve been accurate, but it felt as though he were writing about someone else. 

He couldn’t make a sound come out of his mouth, his thoughts too jumbled. He managed to drop his chin as a sort of ‘thank you.’ Nebojsa did it back, glad to help. 

Ron scooted forward on the bench. “Uh, could you do me too, please?” 

Sia gave Ron a tight smile, holding out his palm. Apparently he needed physical contact to do his measurement spell. Harry heard Ron swallow, but he took Nebojsa’s hand without any hesitation. 

Ron’s homophobia ran deep. It came from his childhood, from the other magical families the Weasley boys spent their time with growing up. It must’ve been hell for Charlie to come out; Bill, Percy, and the twins teased him relentlessly at first, and Ron copied his older brothers in everything they did. It took a while for Char to bring the twins around, to see the error of their ways and learn how to be supportive of their older brother’s sexuality. Charlie was asking them to go against prevailing social norms, to adopt an attitude which was more like purebloods than muggle-conscious magical people. The lack of support from his brothers likely contributed to Charlie’s choice to move away and become a dragon tamer. 

Draco told Harry more than once that homophobia was something wizards learned from muggles; that purebloods only cared if you were powerful; that who you slept with didn’t matter in pureblood society so long as you were competent magically. So even Magical Romania would have been less oppressive to Charlie than staying home. 

Ron was supportive of Charlie now—and of Harry, too—but he wasn’t going to be able to unlearn seventeen years of conditioning overnight. It was a huge step for him to hold a queer bloke’s hand and not get squeamish or weird about it. Ron’s recent efforts to be friendly with Dima and Sia were a big fucking deal, for which Harry was grateful. 

Ron shivered when Nebojsa’s spell raced through him. Harry watched goose bumps prick the back of Ron’s neck, looking like so many extra freckles blooming out of his skin. He’d cut his hair short, wanting to look smart on his first day. 

His robes were new as well, since he’d picked up shifts at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes the whole summer, often taking Fred’s place. Ron still planned to work one or two days a week on top of Auror training—the free time he gave Fred was just as valuable as the extra income which Ron filtered back to his parents, helping out at home. Suddenly the Weasleys were a three-income, four-person household, with Ginny about to go back to school and the older kids all moved out. For the first time, money wasn’t tight at the Burrow. A new set of robes was no longer a significant financial burden. Ron had a nice set from Madame Malkin’s in Diagon Alley… the natural shoulder and metal rivet details perhaps inspired by some of Nebojsa and Draco’s creations over the summer, their influence sneaking back around into Malkins’ designs. Ron looked great, especially in clothes which were brand new and fitted to his body rather than tailored to his brothers first and passed down through the ranks. 

“Five feet, ten inches,” whispered Nebojsa, releasing Ron’s hand. “Eighty-five kilos.” 

“Cheers,” Ron said, picking up his quill and marking his details down. 

Harry managed to read Nebojsa’s parchment upside-down. His handwriting was like Draco’s, slanted and narrow, angular like their bodies. Though Nebojsa described himself as six-foot-two, his weight was just sixty kilos, only a few pounds more than Draco. No wonder he’d been so easy to lift. There was nothing to him but bones, organs and muscle, tattoos and the metal pierced through his skin seemingly holding him together. He’d removed his nose stud and lip ring today, his face younger and somehow more pale without them. Black hair poured over his shoulder like a waterfall as his quill moved across the page, scratching out the details of his life for the Ministry’s records. 

Harry set himself to work on a section asking after his strengths and weaknesses. They listed many subjects and skills—Divination, Defencive Magic, Wandless Magic, Potions, and Broomstick Flying among them. Harry had to rate himself on a scale of Low Proficiency, Moderate Proficiency, High Proficiency, or Expert. He gave himself a ‘high’ score for self defence, dueling, hand-to-hand combat, weaponry, and flying on a broom. He could’ve been an expert flyer had he spent his seventh year on the pitch, but as he was now he considered himself rusty. He felt a little arrogant calling his wandless and non-verbal magic skills ‘expert’ level; however, thinking back to the TriWizard Tournament and what people like Viktor and Fleur and Cedric had been capable of when considered the best seventeen-year-olds the world-over, Harry had to admit he’d surpassed their levels and was on his way to Dumbledore status. Draco’s skill wasn’t far behind his own, especially if the guy would practice on more than summoning beer from the fridge when he was too lazy to get off the couch, or too fixated to stop playing his guitar. 

The thought of his husband at home alone, playing guitar as loud as he wanted, put a smile on Harry’s face despite the stack of papers in front of him. 

Harry was able to balance his self-reporting and engage in some humility by giving himself a low rating on a few basic skills: he called himself bad at swimming and mathematics, as well as Arithmancy, Astronomy, and Divination. 

The next questionnaire probed into what muggles called ‘soft skills.’ Did he consider himself charismatic? Inquisitive? A natural leader? Yes to each of those. Patient? Not really. Able to control or conceal his emotions? Sometimes. His temper was something he was working very hard to improve. He still lost it when the people he loved got hurt, but he tried to meter his response to the situation. More and more, he could talk his way out of a serious jam. Part of being a successful Hit Wizard was de-escalating potentially violent or dangerous situations. Hits had to be ready to face hostility and fight back… but it was equally important to be able to prevent circumstances from requiring magical or physical intervention. 

He could see how this section of the paperwork might separate Auror candidates from those who would become Hit Wizards. Hits needed to be decisive, accustomed to performing under pressure in high-risk scenarios, while Aurors required strong investigative skills in addition to being patient, organized, and good with people—not always Harry’s strengths. Aurors didn’t have as many fitness requirements as Hits, either. Harry recognized the other quidditch bodies in the room, especially when they stood or stretched their limbs three times as often as the more sedentary Auror crowd. Like Harry, the other potential Hit Witches and Wizards in the room didn’t appreciate being cooped up and made to sit for hours, filing out parchments. 

A witch stuck her head into the library. “Sorry. Pardon me,” she said, her double apology a quintessentially British manner of introducing one’s self. Her accent was quietly Scotch as she continued, “I need to borrow Mr. Potter.” 

Harry glanced up. Something about her was familiar, but he couldn’t place precisely what. She had wheat-blonde hair styled in a bun at the nape of her neck, balancing her staunch features; a long nose and wide prominent cheekbones, a pair of Dumbledore-like spectacles balanced at the end of her nose for reading and looking at people over, as she was doing to Gumboil, expectantly. Her gaze was intense, a hallmark of a fixated or obsessive personality. Instead of robes she wore a crisply tailored figure-hugging muggle dress in deep burgundy, and a tweed blazer with a little pearl broach on the lapel. It matched a set of pearl bobs in her ears.

Whoever she was, she expertly passed herself as a muggle, down to her penny loafers and coordinated briefcase in camel leather. Harry put her age at mid-or-late thirties. The flat shoes spoke of a no-nonsense personality, while the flattering dress suggested a mature feminine aesthetic, and some personality behind her efficiency. Harry thought she looked the part of a manager, the boss over dozens if not hundreds of people. 

Gumboil seemed to know who she was, and consented to her taking Harry with a nod. 

“We’ll work on your parchments,” Ron whispered to Harry. Dima and Sia’s faces said much the same; they’d fought in the war together, and knew Harry about as well as Ron. They’d have no trouble answering nosy questions about his skills and abilities.

He nodded his thanks. “Don’t make me sound too good,” he joked. 

Harry put down his quill and followed the mystery witch out into the hallway. No matter how many Lumos-powered lights studded the walls, the Ministry always seemed dark to Harry, a deep cavern with no windows or natural light. The muggle in him knew he was far underground and couldn’t shake the sensation no matter how many fake windows were around. The halls were empty, lifeless, the majority of the Ministry’s staff still stationed elsewhere during the continuing cleanup. 

The well-dressed woman offered her hand robotically, as she might to any new acquaintance. “Susan Wood.” Harry shook—her grip was firm, business-like, pumping his hand twice. “You played quidditch with my baby brother Ollie.” 

Bold features. Intense personality. Fair hair. Soft Scottish accent. Of course she was Oliver Wood’s older sister. 

“Yes, Oliver’s an excellent Keeper. Nice to meet you.” 

She gestured down the hall, inviting him to walk with her. She set a purposeful pace, placing the strap of her briefcase over her shoulder so she might have both hands free. 

“I’ve been put in charge of our new Human Resources and Magi-Muggle Integration Department,” Susan said, preferring to say she was ‘in charge’ of something than call herself by her formal, professional title. “I suppose I have you to thank as much as Minister Shacklebolt for the job. You gents put out a very aggressive campaign. Integrating Aurors and the Hit Wizards with muggle law enforcement is going to take a massive and skilled administrative team. Not to mention sourcing and hiring people capable of navigating the cultural divide. I’ve been brought in to bridge the gap, so to speak.” 

Harry glanced sideways, getting a better look at Susan Wood. Her jacket sleeves were tailored, form-fitting like her dress, her briefcase closed securely with a metal clasp. There was no way for her to readily conceal a wand anywhere on her person. Susan was a Squib. She knew so much about the muggle world because she effectively was one.

Harry made conversation. “What did you do before?” 

Her legs were nearly as long as Harry’s. She kept a hand clamped against the side of her briefcase to keep it from knocking against her hip, comfortable talking as they walked—towards the elevators, if Harry remembered the way. Every hallway looked exactly the same.

“I’d just finished my Masters in Business Administration when I got the owl. I worked for the Diplomatic Service. I managed several embassies and consulate offices across Europe,” she explained. “It’s not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. Mostly I made sure they were stocked with pens and loo rolls and such, and had the necessary staff—janitors, gardeners, maintenance. I did manage a staff of over a hundred.” 

“Sounds hectic.” 

She shrugged her free shoulder. “Growing up with three wee brothers, all with magic, and me without— _that_  was hectic. I suppose it’s relative.” 

“Suppose you’re right,” Harry agreed. 

They stepped into the lift. Susan punched a knuckle against the button to the lobby. 

Harry had to ask. “Might I ask where we’re going?” 

“Sorry,” Susan adjusted her briefcase on her shoulder. “I forget it’s your first day. Welcome, by the way. The Minister’s gotten us a meeting on the muggle side. That’s where we’re headed.” 

“Oh…” Harry glanced uncomfortably at Susan. “Why am I invited, exactly? I’m a Recruit. Nobody of significance.” 

A snort left Susan’s long nose. She adjusted her glasses. “You’re on the Integration Advisory Board, Mr. Potter.” 

He turned to stare at her. “I’m on  _what?_ ”

“No one told you?” 

Of course no one fucking told him. Because if given the chance, he’d have refuse. Not telling him until it was too late was how he got suckered into things, not wanting to be rude. It was an instinct which his mentor Leon Harper had shaken off in America, that painfully English desire to be agreeable. Harry was thinking he may need to cut out that part of his English heart, too, for the sake of his professional sanity. 

The lift  _bing_ ed, and the doors grated open to show the lobby. The debris had been cleared away and every stone thoroughly cleaned, the broken statues in the fountain removed. It was left an empty pool of calm water at the center of the great space, which Harry preferred. Mordred knew what they’d decide to replace the statues with.

Susan hitched her bag up before she started walking again. It appeared heavy, or a bit overlarge for her frame. 

Harry offered, “Might I carry that for you, Ms. Wood?” 

“Aren’t you a proper gent? Thank you.” She handed it over, offering an explanation as they walked the lobby. “They make me carry a defencive kit whenever I leave the Ministry premises—potions and artifacts and such to protect myself should I be attacked. I don’t see why I should have to carry it when I have you with me,” she inclined her head at him. “But that’s the protocol we’re testing out. Hopefully they’ll amend that when a non-magic travels with an Auror or Hit Wizard, the arsenal becomes superfluous.” 

Glass potion phials and something metallic rattled around in Susan’s case as it bumped against Harry’s arse. He’d slung it crosswise over his shoulder, the strap across his chest, wanting to have his hands free. 

The few bodies in the Ministry lobby stared blatantly at Harry—because he was Harry Potter in an expensive robe, striding through the place like he owned it. He couldn’t help his gait: Susan walked quickly, and he meant to keep up. 

Harry glared back at every person who stared. He was in no mood to be idolized. “By what inflated, nonsensical rhetoric did I end up on the Integration Advisory Board?” he asked crossly. 

This was precisely the kind of bullshit he didn’t want to be dragged into. Kingsley’s idea for an Ethics Committee was a good one, which was why Harry agreed to be on it. But this… it irked him. He hadn’t so much as been consulted, stuffed on some board he’d never even heard of. It tasted like the same old shit dyed a different color in an attempt to fool him. 

“I’m not qualified,” he barked, not giving Susan a chance to answer. “Until today I was an American Field Ops Agent with a single NEWT on my record.” He’d sat the exam for Defence Against The Dark Arts at Hogwarts, the only subject he felt capable of testing in after seven months out of school. Mostly because they didn’t offer a NEWT in dueling: Durmstrang had, Draco told him. Now Koldovstoretz and Mahoutokoro were the only ones maintaining dueling as a formal subject rather than relegated to a school club. 

Harry was lucky the Ministry was waiving the NEWT requirement for everyone, or he wouldn’t have made the cut. 

He’d told Kingsley that the last thing he wanted was special treatment. This advisory board appointment reeked of it. He was being ushered away while his mates filled out paperwork; he was being treated as more important. He wasn’t, and that was precisely his point in coming as a simple recruit and not some high-ranking council or board member. Harry wanted to earn his place by his own efforts, not be granted a spot by someone else’s perception of his merit. 

Susan stopped in the long hall of fireplaces. Each should have crackled with a permanently green flame, ready to receive anyone flooing in. Every hearth was cold and dead, a uniquely depressing sight, and proof the Ministry was only beginning its recovery. 

Susan’s lips pressed a moment before she told him, “You’re a leader, Harry. Intellectually, morally, and aspirationally. You might not see yourself as such, but many people look up to you—look to you for guidance, as an example of what cooperation between magical and muggle people can be. And your work with the American Ministry, including your extensive active combat experience, render you more than qualified to advise in the creation and structure of our new law enforcement systems. You’re one of only two living British subjects to have served on a North American Field Operations Task Force. Minister Shacklebolt asked Leonidas Harper to join the board, of course. I understand Captain Harper’s response was a Howler which sang rather rudely in Gaelic for about a quarter of an hour before it lit The Minister’s entire office on fire.” 

A time-bomb, jack-in-the-box, musically-cussing, cursed Howler. Harry’s mouth twitched. He didn’t want to smile, but…. “That’s Leon, alright. Closest I’ve ever had to a grandad.” 

“See what I mean, Mr. Potter? You’re perhaps more than you think.” Susan’s eyes flicked upward, to the black ceiling high above them. She cleared her throat pointedly. “I need you to raise your wand and Summon the telephone booth, please. We shouldn’t be late for our appointment.” 

Still feeling vaguely manipulated—like a bishop or a rook in Kingsley’s game rather than the pawn he’d been to previous administrations—Harry didn’t draw his wand as requested. He pumped his angry fist in the air. A bolt of crackling blue light issued from his knuckles, flying up into the darkness. A second later he heard a whistling sound as the red London telephone booth came hurtling towards the ground like Dorothy’s house in  _The Wizard of Oz_. It crashed down beside them with an almighty smash. 

Harry was legitimately surprised the thing didn’t disintegrate on impact, splintering into a thousand pieces of wooden shrapnel and killing them both. Either his magic knew he wasn’t suicidal or the bloody thing was reinforced in the event it was Summoned a mite vigorously. 

Susan backed away, fearing for her safety. She gave Harry a look over the rims of her glasses—because she’d been surrounded by magic-wielders her entire life, and aside from a chance encounter with Albus Dumbledore it was unlikely she’d ever seen someone use wandless, nonverbal sorcery so casually. Harry had argued he was unqualified; yet his frustrated, offhand display of power reinforced her belief that the opposite was true. Her expression said perhaps Harry’s talents were wasted as a lowly Hit Wizard Recruit, and he ought to be aiming at more despite his youth and lack of formal credentials. 

Wisely, she didn’t say another word. 

Harry opened the red door for her. “After you.”

 

 

 

 

He got the phone booth door for her once more on the surface. Susan Wood stepped out into London like she belonged there, sticking her arm up for a taxi. The city was between the morning rush and lunch traffic, and she easily snagged them a car. Harry got the door for her a third time, letting her into the taxi, sliding in after her. He almost missed the address she gave.

“Number Ten, please.” 

“Yes, ma’am!” the cabbie gave a salute before putting his hands staunchly to the wheel. It wasn’t every day someone jumped in his cab and asked to go  _there_. 

Number Ten Downing Street. 

Their driver took off like shot. Harry slid himself back against the leather seat, Susan’s briefcase in his lap. 

“While I have you, Mr. Potter,” Susan said casually. “I wanted to ask your opinion about a certain application for employment on my desk. Hermione Granger. I understand she’s a close mate of yours.” 

“She is.” 

“I’m considering her for my deputy. What do you say?” 

Harry’s brows lifted. “Doesn’t really seem like my place to—” 

Susan cut him off. “Spare me your humility, Mr. Potter. I’m asking for a character reference. You’re her friend, are you not? You’ve known her for years? Tell me about her. What might I get were I to hire Ms. Granger as my right hand?” 

“You’re… remarkably similar, actually,” admitted Harry. He edited his word-choice in case the cabbie was listening. “Hermione’s the brightest person I know, academically speaking. If you need someone to memorize every obscure by-law there is and recite them back to you in any order, even at two in the morning after she’s been through a war; well, she’s your girl. She’s also an actionable sort of person—reasonable, of course, conscious of risk and calculated in her decision-making. A phrase comes to mind: ‘ask for forgiveness rather than beg for permission.’ Hermione’s not afraid to take ownership of a problem and see it through to resolution. Especially when it’s tough, or unprecedented. She performs well when faced with… unusual challenges.” Brewing Polyjuice Potion as a second year came to mind. Organizing Dumbledore’s Army, too. And pursuing Voldemort’s horcruxes, even after Harry poisoned the tranquil, deep well of their friendship by falling so madly for Draco, and insisting his mates fall in line or ship out. Hermione had tried to save their relationship and help stop Voldemort no matter what—even when Harry made it miserable for her. 

Susan wanted to know, “What about her relationships, her dealings with others? Is she a good judge of character?” 

Harry had to be honest. Honesty was a trait he wanted to re-cultivate, to be a man who spoke the truth even when it was unflattering, or what others may not want to hear. Hermione of all people would understand. She’d want him to be truthful more than falsely flattering. 

“Hermione believes in the good in others. She also has a sharp eye in her rear-view mirror,” he made a muggle driving reference. “She doesn’t readily forgive those with a negative history to their names—like my husband, for example. He was our school bully. He teased her mercilessly. He was terrible to her, and hurt a lot of people’s feelings back then… not to mention starting a few fights, which Hermione didn’t approve of one bit. She’s come to see that we’re happy together, that we make each other better men. But I think she’s still skeptical on some level, knowing he has the potential to revert to his old ways and turn on her, or betray me. Hermione has a huge heart. She can forgive… that doesn’t mean she forgets. She’s always learning, always self-correcting, trying to be her best self. I think that’s what I admire most about her. She doesn’t give up. No matter what. She’s always expanding.” 

Maybe that character reference earned Hermione her dream job. Or perhaps he’d tanked her chances. Only time would tell. 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry stood, his pristine size forty-four leather wing-tips against a pattern of black and white checkered tile he’d only seen in films, famous photographs, and history books. He’d stepped over a single white stone step, through a blast-proof steel door made to resemble the original paneled black oak, into the heart of muggle power. 

His name had opened the door to Ten Downing Street. “Harry Potter to see the Prime Minister.” 

Susan said it, not him—his herald, as though Harry were too powerful a man to speak to the constables in uniform standing to either side of that famously plain door. According to rumor, it couldn’t be opened from the outside; someone waited on the other side to open it for scheduled visitors. Harry suspected enough magic could force a way through. Apparently his name was a kind of ‘Open Sesame,’ granting access to even the most exclusive treasures. Heavily reinforced steel swung open before him, without his having to utter a word. 

Back in the phone booth, he’d Transfigured his robe into a suit jacket to match his trousers, editing his appearance from wizard to muggle with that single change. His wand waited untouched in his breast pocket. He twisted his wedding ring round his finger as he waited in the lobby. 

Footsteps on the equally famous stone triple staircase before him. Through the scrolling iron balustrade, he saw a pair of high heeled shoes, then long dark-skinned legs, and a prim pencil skirt. When she stopped half-way down the stairs, peering at them over the railing, Harry recognized her. She was Kate Walker, Auror, former Gryffindor Seeker, friend of Nymphadora Tonks, and member of The Order of The Phoenix. Apparently she’d been assigned security detail on the muggle Prime Minister. 

Even after the war, the Order remained very much a secret society. They’d slunk back into the woodwork, invisible once more. Harry had to either pretend he didn’t know Kate, or come up with a reasonable excuse for their having met. Tonks was of course their logical connection, being Kate’s best mate from school and Harry’s close friend, as well as his cousin by marriage. Their eyes locked, silently communicating. Harry gave a fraction of a nod, which Kate returned; if questioned, they’d go with the story that they knew one another through Tonks. 

“Good Morning, Harry,” she greeted him politely. 

He lifted Susan’s safety briefcase off his shoulder, deciding to carry it in his hand to look more professional… and to give himself something to do with his idle hands. “Kate.” 

Her gaze took in Susan with him. “Welcome to Downing Street. You’re the last to arrive.” 

“Mr. Potter had recruit business to attend to,” explained Susan, starting up the stairs to shake Kate’s hand. “Susan Wood, Director, HR.” 

“Katherine Walker, Private Secretary to the Prime Minister.” 

So far absolutely nothing said aloud had been magical in any way; mostly so the guards invariably stationed unseen on the upper floors wouldn’t catch on that something was very much afoot at Number Ten. These two magic-born women were masters of disguise in the muggle world, blending seamlessly. 

“This way, please,” said Kate, inviting them up the stairs.

Harry and Susan followed through a series of grand rooms, filled with antique furniture and ornate wood trim. Muggles nodded to Kate as she passed. She acknowledged them but kept moving. Harry kept his head forward… but his eyes noted the chandeliers, the decorated ceilings, the priceless antiques and historic paintings on display.

Kate led them through an anteroom framed by white columns, into another room Harry recognized. He thought every muggle would. 

Cream-colored walls, wood floors, and a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows framed in soft gauze curtains. The rectangular room was dominated by a long boat-shaped table, mahogany chairs tucked around it. 

Milling about were witches and wizards in dress robes or Law Enforcement uniforms; clearly they’d Apparated to Number Ten. Harry spotted many important faces from that morning: basset-faced Gawain Robards, his stuffy deputy Franklin Cornfoot, stunning Freddie Hay-Boggis and boring Nathaniel Bones, along with Seathan Nash in his kilt. Harry didn’t recognize the rest, assuming they’d come from various departments, including Catastrophes, Mysteries, and probably someone from the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee. He wouldn’t be surprised if there were an Unspeakable or two among them—an Obliviator if it all went horribly wrong. Magical people were distrustful for a reason: survival. A muggle double-cross was probably at the back of more than one person’s mind even as they met to discuss working together. 

Kate gave a nod of approval, seeing all the magical attendees on her mental list were gathered and accounted for. She backed out of the room, closing the door behind her. 

Harry thought about what Dudley and his goons might have to say if they could see him now. Little Harry, Stupid Harry, the tiny chap they used to knock in the dirt and kick ‘til he bled… standing in the Cabinet Room at Number Ten. Standing in a suit and tie, a wedding ring on his finger and a deadly weapon in his pocket, waiting to be received by the Prime Minister himself. 

“I’ll manage this, thank you, Mr. Potter,” muttered Susan, taking back her briefcase. 

Harry caught Kingsley’s eye across the room. The broad former-Auror-turned-elected-official stood by the fireplace, near the Prime Minister’s chair, admiring the only painting in the room hanging over the mantle. Harry’s history classes wouldn’t allow him to forget whose face was depicted in that grand, gold-framed painting: Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford, regarded as the first Prime Minister of Great Britain. A white wig, bushy black eyebrows, and his double chin dominated the canvas; he might’ve looked at home on the walls at Hogwarts, if only he moved and spoke his mind. 

Compared to Walpole’s likeness, Kingsley looked like a battle-hardened hero… because he was one—the scars on his face, his active stance with chin high and shoulders drawn back, and his simple black eye patch all spoke to his experience in the field. He dressed much the same as before his election, flowing robes embroidered with geometric designs along the edges, his wand and a secondary strapped to his forearms by dragonhide bracers, his head shaved bald, and a gold hoop in one pierced ear. 

Harry lifted his eyebrows, making the universal expression to request a private word. Kingsley flipped his hand, indicating Harry should take the space beside him, dismissing his assistant so that he might speak to Harry instead. 

They hadn’t seen each other since the day they had lunch at The Leaky Cauldron, back when Kingsley was just an Auror running for office. Harry received an owl after the election thanking him for his help, saying Kingsley looked forward to working together. When he became Minister, all communication ceased abruptly. Harry figured Kingsley was busy but… there was reasonable adjustment, and then there was neglect. Harry had been left waiting for next-steps which never came. 

“Sir,” Harry began with a desire to be polite even as he gave the new Minister of Magic a piece of his mind. Kingsley was his friend, a fellow member of the Order, a fellow solider in the war… but in this moment Harry was addressing his boss’ boss’ boss, and he well knew it. He’d played a major role in putting Kingsley in his new position. “Today is the first I’ve heard of the Integration Advisory Board, so you can imagine my surprise to learn—on my first day at work—that I’ve been made a member. An owl would have been nice. I might’ve even agreed to this, had I been asked.” 

He and Kingsley were near the same height now, so Harry had a solid view of the furrow taking shape between his eyebrows. Harry continued in his hushed-but-stern tone, “I never asked for a place on this board, or any other. What I did ask for—the only thing I asked for—was to be treated with respect. 

“I would remind you that my position with the Ministry is that of a Hit Wizard Recruit. That is my full-time job, sir, the one I wanted, the one I came here to do. I’m already on your Ethics Committee. And now this advisory, too. Every commitment you make on my behalf takes me away from my  _job_ , degrades my performance in every arena as my time and attention are split and split again, not to mention the damage to our relationship in having these decisions made on my behalf, without my input. I’m a loyal man. And I believe we share a similar vision for governance and institutional change. But you don’t change things by staying the same, and we don’t improve by making the same mistakes. You’re gonna have a hard time retaining the faith and trust of your team when you ignore our personal goals and trod on our boundaries.” 

Kingsley swallowed. He opened his mouth to speak, and Harry was ready to hear what that deep rolling voice had to say for himself, but he was cut off before he could begin.

“So you’re Harry Potter?” said a voice he knew—from the radio and tele. Prime Minister Tony Blair had apparently caught the tail end of his censure of Kingsley. “I can see what all the fuss is about.” 

Harry made a quarter turn, facing the leader of his muggle country. Mr. Blair looked at Harry, comprehension strong on his face, regarding him as a revered general come home—a man with knowledge of war, who’d seen things he might never understand. 

“Kingsley. Good to see you.” Minister and Minister shook hands. Before the war, Kingsley had been assigned as the PM’s secretary. They knew one another extremely well, explaining how Kingsley could orchestrate a meeting like this. “Congratulations, old boy. After everything I’d heard….” Mr. Blair shook off a melancholy. Kate had kept him appraised of events in the wizarding war, which explained his interest in Harry. “I’m glad you’re well. And delighted to be working together again.” 

Mr. Blair turned to the room. “Please, everyone, take a seat and we’ll begin.” 

Each chair bore a placard with the name of the official who sat there during cabinet sessions. Kingsley signaled with an open arm for Harry to sit between himself and Mr. Blair. Harry blew out a blustery breath before he complied. 

“I’m sorry, Harry,” said Kingsley in a low voice as everyone moved to find a chair. “I’d asked that you be written to. Apparently that didn’t happen. We’re still rebuilding, and my office is short-staffed. It was an oversight, and you have my sincere apology. Your loyalty is appreciated,” he insisted. “In the future you will receive all due respect, I assure you.”

 

 

 

 

After the meeting—after progress was made, projects were assigned, and some preliminary procedure had been laid out—Mr. Blair turned to Harry in the scraping of chairs and gathering of possessions in preparation for departure. 

“Mr. Potter,” said the PM. “I wanted to personally thank you for your bravery and service this past year. Your country owes you a great debt, and her gratitude, though many may never know or comprehend what you’ve done for us. If there’s ever anything I can… that is….” And he stumbled, not wanting to appear to curry favor but wanting to acknowledge Harry with all he thought due. 

“Actually, there is one thing.” Harry didn’t have any papers to collect. But he reached for his wallet, pulling from it a photograph of himself and Draco—a new memento, taken by Misha. It was Draco’s birthday and they were on a yacht in the Black Sea, tanned and relaxed, a fishing pole in Draco’s hand, smiles on both their faces. Clouds scuttled by, wind in their hair as easy waves rolled through the azure sea at their backs. 

“I’m married. We’ll be a year in December.” He handed over the photo. The PM blinked profusely upon realizing that wizarding photographs had moving subjects like a scene from a home movie which could be held in one’s hand… followed by the surprise that Harry was married to a bloke; a jolt which the PM swallowed whole—like a bug flying down the gullet when riding a motorcycle, he had no choice but to let it happen. “That’s my husband, a wizard called Draco. This was his eighteenth birthday. We went fishing off the coast of Romania,” he took that moment to explain, letting the PM wrap his mind around the idea of moving photos and the queer wizards in them before getting to his position. 

“I would point out to you that I fight for this country, and that I nearly died for this country. Yet I cannot be married in my own country. We’re lucky that Draco was born in France, so we were able to get  _pacsé_  papers. Something needs to be done about this, sir.  _You_  need to do something,” he declared. “Otherwise a lot of people, myself included, are going to get very loud about it.”

“I… that is, it wasn’t mentioned….” Mr. Blair stared at the photo, his eyes at last shifting up to look at Harry. He knew that look. He’d seen it a thousand times in the last year. 

“No one told you I’m a poof,” Harry filled in one more blank today. A sardonic brow lifted as he droned dryly, “Oversight, I’m sure.” 

“Possible,” the PM said with an awkward, nervous sort of laugh. “I would never have….” He decided he didn’t want to finish that sentence—which was for the best, as it displayed a certain amount of ingrained prejudice. Because Harry didn’t possess any stereotypically ‘gay’ behaviors or appearances, the PM had assumed he was straight. Everyone did—so much so that even Harry had bought into the conclusion prematurely. 

Harry shrugged, “By a strange twist of fate, neither of us are gay. True love is blind. When you follow your heart rather than your eyes, you’d be surprised at the love you find.” 

Straggling behind were two witches—one an Unspeakable, the other from the infamous Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee, as Harry had predicted their presence today. The two witches were obviously eaves dropping. When Harry spoke of love, their expressions softened, sharing an identical look though they both fixed themselves on organizing their paperwork.  _Why can’t Harry Potter be straight and single?_  the look said.  _I’d let him stir my cauldron anytime._  

Harry explained to the silent, interested PM. “Draco had the misfortune to be born and brought up on the opposite side of our war—brainwashed by a cult-like mentality into becoming a Death Eater at sixteen, under threat of death to him and his mother. He escaped and provided everything he knew in exchange for his safety. He was tortured to the brink of death just before he got out; I was the one who nursed him back to health, and we’ve been together ever since. We’d be the most popular love story of all time if it weren’t for both of us being blokes. Because of that we get death threats.” 

The PM’s forehead wrinkled in genuine concern. “I’m so sorry. That’s dreadful, and cruel.” 

“It is,” agreed Harry mildly. “It’s my life. And it’s not going to change so long as the law doesn’t explicitly state that LGBT people are equal in every way, including marriage rights. The law isn’t going to change people’s minds. Time will. Compassion will. Knowing someone like me is what it takes; having someone like me in your family, or teaching your children, or serving openly in your military. It is not the duty of government to legislate morality. But it is your duty to ensure the safety and equal rights of every citizen under the crown. Without legal protection, we’re not safe, nor are we equal. Something to think about, Prime Minister.”

Harry slipped his photo out from the PM’s loose fingers, rising, tucking it back inside his wallet. 

Mr. Blair rose woodenly after him, the weight of deep thoughts on his mind. “I do hope we meet again, Mr. Potter,” he said. “The time has been… most enlightening. I should very much like to meet your husband someday. He sounds like quite a brave man, er—wizard,” he self-corrected. “Much like yourself.” 

Funny that it took a muggle to see the bravery in Draco’s life. For so long he’d displayed little else but cowardice, self-centeredness, and conceit; those faults nearly overshadowed the good decisions to his name, the progress he’d made, and the changes in his core beliefs which had allowed him to choose his own heart over evil. Draco was not perfect—none of them were. But he was getting better. They were all trying.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Quiet even in dress shoes, Harry snuck back into the Law Enforcement Library, doing his best not to distract from the gentleman from Magical Catastrophes And Disasters who was giving a rather droll presentation on the history of cooperation between their departments. Harry marveled that the wizard could make earthquakes and volcano eruptions and even Veela breeding season so boring. His name could’ve been Binns. 

Harry slid onto a bench beside Ron. 

“What’d I miss?” 

“Not much except lunch. Saved you some biscuits.” Ron handed him a few sweets in a paper napkin. Across the table, Nebojsa passed him half a sandwich. Harry silently mouthed his thanks. 

A good deal of his paperwork had been filled in for him. He saw Ron’s handwriting as well as Dima’s. They’d left a few places blank where they weren’t confident in how Harry would like the questions answered. 

Dima leaned across the table, tapping the paperwork, pitching his voice to a whisper. “Zhey vanted to know how big your cock is,” he joked. “But I vould never betray yoo like zhat.” 

Harry slapped his fist over his mouth to keep from laughing out loud and disturbing the snooze-worthy lecture. He tucked in to his sandwich and biscuits, listening with half an ear until at last the wizard was done and they were permitted a ten minute break to stretch their legs and visit the loo before inter-departmental lectures resumed. 

Harry wondered if this day itself was a kind of test, a measure of a recruit’s tolerance for boring bullshit. 

He did his best to catch up on his significant paperwork. Dima sat on the table, his feet up on the bench, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands, staring off into space. Ron was goofing off with Roger Malone and Oliver Moon; they conjured a Quaffle, tossing it between them. A glance at Nebojsa’s watch told Harry that it was two minutes until they were due to resume. He picked up the last biscuit from Ron and bit into it, chewing, Vanishing the napkin as well as the crumbs left behind. 

Harry’s mouth was full of biscuit, a quill in his hand. That was when the doors flew open, witches and wizards in black cloaks storming in, their hoods up, faces obscured, throwing spells. 

Errant magic hit the book cases, sending volumes and pages flying through the air. Wooden shelves cracked, shooting out splinters as they collapsed. People screamed, surprised as much as scared. The sudden noise drowned out the sounds of spells cast—when their attackers spoke at all. 

Sophie and Sally-Anne were standing near the front of the room, their backs to the door. The Ravenclaw girls didn’t stand a chance. Curses hit their backs and they fell, having barely had the blink of an eye to draw their wands let alone fight back. Theirs had been the least defencible position in the room, utter bad luck. 

Alicia, along with Aideen Griffiths and the Beaubatons witch Jana Möller, managed to upend their table, using it as a shield. Alicia laid down protective charms whilst Aideen and Jana stuck their heads and wands out from either side, firing off an aggressive offensive, keeping attackers away from themselves—but also succeeding in driving attackers further into the room as a result of their blockade. 

Dima had the same idea about creating some kind of immediate physical barrier between themselves and the enemy. He was off the table in a heartbeat, his shoulder smacking into the thick old wood, knocking it onto its side with his considerable strength before crouching his body behind it. He pulled at Harry’s pant leg—The Chosen One was already on his way down, having tossed his quill in exchange for his wand, kicking the bench away. Harry forced himself to swallow the dry biscuit in his mouth before he choked on it. He’d need his voice. 

Ron charmed the Quaffle in his hands; Harry couldn’t tell with what, but the red leather began to drip. One-handed, Ron lobbed the ball at the center of the fighting force, his other hand drawing his long and twisted Batushanky wand like a kind of stiletto knife concealed within his sleeve. 

“ _Incendio!_ ” Ron shouted. He’d enchanted the Quaffle with something like kerosene because it caught fire, exploding into the dark knot of fighters, flames leaping up multiple sets of robes as it flew by, striking someone in the back. The room filled with the smell of burning cloth, paper, and hair. 

Roger Malone hadn’t played quidditch in school but in a fight he was pure Beater, picking up a chair and smashing it across the back of a wizard going after his mates Kevin and Oliver. He remembered to pull out his wand, following his devastating hit with a Leg-Locker Jinx. 

Nebojsa had run forward into the fray whilst Dima mounted their defense. The Serb was in a duel with a robed figure, either a short man or a female. Sia spun to avoid a hex, his robes billowing out around him, twirling like a dance, wand held high above his head. He dropped low, completely in control of his momentum and balance, avoiding the next round of orange sparks. If only he moved half so well on a broom as he did on the ground! He was effortless to watch. His own magic was silent, sneaking out from the tip of his wand to catch the witch off-guard, dropping her to the ground without sound or warning, rendered unconscious. Nebojsa had to be using the Dark Arts, as Harry had never seen any Auror do that before. 

“ _Non-lethal!_ ” Nebojsa hissed, loud enough for Harry and Dima to hear his assessment of the fighting.

“ _It’s a drill_ ,” Harry agreed in Parseltongue, glancing around, noting the lack of deadly green light in the room. No one was using the Imperius or Cruciatus Curses, either. The lack of Unforgiveables was what gave them away. In English, Harry bellowed for Ron and anyone else nearby, “It’s a test! No lethal spells!” 

“Delightful,” muttered Iga Ledinski who’d slid into their shelter beside Dima. Her long auburn hair had come loose from the braid at her back, strands stuck to her head by fresh red blood. Iga and Dima seemed to know each other well, bumping shoulders agreeably. She used the corner of her robe to wipe her forehead before casting a practiced spell at the cut on her scalp. 

No longer dripping blood, Iga stuck her wand around the side of the table, firing spells in aid of Nebojsa as he went to help Mads, who was pinned down two-to-one. Harry bet that Mads regretted the nips from his flask he’d been taking during their paperwork session; he might not’ve chosen to be buzzed for his first exam had he known. 

Firing spells from their cover, Harry heard Dima say something of encouragement to Iga. She arranged her robes so she wouldn’t trip as she ran out, shooting off magic of her own while Harry and Dima covered her movement across the library. Iga raced to back up Mads and Nebojsa, the three of them moving on as a unit, mowing through attackers, working together. 

They obviously knew each other extremely well, had fought or at least practiced extensively together at Durmstrang. Despite speaking different languages and hailing from different parts of Europe—Norway, Poland, and Serbia—their communication was flawless… when they had to speak to one another at all. Nebojsa would give a hand gesture or shout a single word and they’d be off, dropping bodies, protecting each other’s backs. Harry saw Nebojsa throw a man across the room to slam against the wall with only a flick of his hand—forgetting in the heat of battle that he ought to be using his wand. 

Harry fired every time he had a clear shot at an attacker’s back or unguarded flank, falling back on his sniper training. Dima had his wand up, his head bowed, muttering in Latin. Most spells sent their way ricocheted off of the invisible shield Dima maintained, allowing Harry to act as turret while the Prince kept their position secure. 

Another witch fell in beside Dima, catching her breath in the safe shelter of their upended table. Karine de la Salle. Dima didn’t seem to know her but he provided the same cover he had to Iga as she took a second to breathe, slumped against the table. 

“Zees is insane,” Karine muttered, panting, her accent heavily French. 

“I know it seems like a lot,” Harry told her, “but they’re only testing us. It’ll be over soon.” 

It was a terrible idea for a training exercise, considering most of the recruits in the room had survived Durmstrang, or Valaam, or the Battle at Hogwarts, or various other skirmishes. They all had some form of PTSD and this was certainly triggering it. Harry understood the need to test a recruit by throwing them into the fire, so to speak; but even Harry Potter found this excessive, and he’d trained at the hands of Mad Eye Moody, Barty Crouch Jr., and Leon Harper. 

“Right, then,” said Harry darkly, his mind made up. He stripped off his robe and loosened his tie, undoing his top button so he might move and breathe more easily. “I think that’s enough ‘fun’ for one day. Let’s clean up, shall we?” 

Dima and the Belgian witch Karine nodded their agreement. It wasn’t the hardest thing to mount an offense when you had Harry Potter at your side, and you knew you were being tested rather than about to be murdered for real. 

“Ron!” Harry shouted to get his mate’s attention, calling him back. Crouched on the balls of his feet, ready to spring—wishing he’d worn more practical footwear—Harry swiveled his crouch back to Dmitry. “Watch my back?” 

Gold eyes lit with his ready, crooked smile. “Vith pleasure.” 

Ron walked backwards, knowing better than to expose his back as he moved to Harry’s position.

The witches and wizards beneath those black robes had to be Hits and Aurors, their future co-workers, or perhaps hired wands like an American Field Ops Team. They were good. Harry couldn’t make out much of accents or dialects based on the few spells he heard shouted from behind raised hoods. At least they’d had the sense not to use Death Eater masks as a disguise. 

As Ron came level with them, Harry popped out from behind the table, sliding in front of Ron’s feet, kneeling, to have Ron laying down spells above while Harry worked below within the safety of Dmitry’s dark Shielding Spell. Harry managed to disarm two attackers while they dueled, Stunning a third, and locking a fourth in a Full Body Bind. His fellow recruits mopped up in the wake of his and Ron’s rapid spells. Draco had taught him an S&M version of the Body Bind which came with a ballgag—Harry barely resisted the urge to humiliate, sticking to standard spellcasting in case this was something he received marks on. The average Ministry examiner might not appreciate his flair for sexual theatrics, effective though they may be. A bound enemy who couldn’t speak for a rubber ball jammed in their mouth was far less likely to manage a spell, limiting their ability to cause further damage or escape. 

Most magical people were pretty much helpless when their wands and voices weren’t accessible. They rarely trained for that eventuality unless they were high-level combatants; and even then, losing your voice or having your hands broken was enough to throw even an experienced fighter off for a split second, giving an opportunity to strike. 

Harry called forth a flicker of blue light, touching Ron’s shin, letting it flow into him.

Ron’s next Reductor Curse blew a hole in the fucking stone wall. Through it, Harry spotted the kilted form of Head Hit Wizard Seathan Nash along with Law Enforcement Director Gawain Robards; the pair of them seemingly waiting for the test to be over—having returned from the same meeting Harry attended in Downing Street, then authorized this little pop quiz for their recruits. 

The two officials set eyes on Harry as the dust settled, shock plain on their faces. Their recruits were taking the attack seriously, blowing the building apart. In a flippant moment, Harry waved at them, smiling toothy and false-bright, giving Nash and Robards a sarcastic thumbs up as though to say, “Fun test, excellent first day surprise, cheers!”

Lewys Jenkins took a solo charge into the fray. He started off well, coming from behind a downed book shelf with the element of surprise. But he had no cover, hadn’t coordinated with anyone, and was quickly disarmed and Stunned by the remaining attackers who worked in sync, a trained and coordinated team versus one man. Jenkins’ powerful quidditch body fell to the floor, the witch who’d disarmed him now holding his wand. 

Harry waited for her to turn, her side exposed, her gaze in the opposite direction. That was when he tagged her with a Gravity Jinx, quadrupling her perceived weight. Slowed and temporarily confused by the uncommon spell, Nebojsa, Iga, and Mads swooped in, getting both wands from her hands before subduing her. In a real fight they’d have taken enemy wands and broken them immediately, rather than risk a functional wand being picked up and used again. Now they just took wands. Nebojsa had at least five of them sticking out of his robe’s pockets. In his spare hand he’d conjured a knife—just in case anyone was dumb enough to get close to him. He left his cross on his neck, not wanting to expose that particular fail-safe. 

Two wizards were coming for Harry and Ron. Dima lifted their table, charmed it on fire, and threw it at them. The charging attackers were forced to split apart, ducking and rolling to either side to avoid the hurtling, flaming object. It broke apart on impact with the stone floor, sending burning boards everywhere, scattering dueling pairs. Sia and his crew broke to one side of the flaming impediment, Dima and Karine running forward to secure the other side. 

Harry levered to his feet. Their path was clear, and there were only two enemy wizards not engaged in a fight: one each for himself and Ron. 

Harry glanced over his shoulder at his oldest friend. “Do good, okay? Stay safe but… have fun. It’s only a drill.” 

“You too, Harry.” 

And they charged into the smoking wreckage. Harry slipped a bit of blue light into himself through his palm, making sure he’d have what he needed to perform after the day he’d already had. He took on the larger of the two wizards, the man on the right, Ron the body on the left. 

Iga from Durmstrang saw what Harry was up to, laying down a hail of flying books to distract the man Harry was running at. The wizard turned, ready to defend himself from this new threat. Harry was able to slide on torn book pages, getting right up in the man’s box—controlling the hand he had to guard against a hit, pinning it into his chest so he couldn’t physically defend himself, a classic  _pak sao_ trap. 

The wizard’s head jerked back at the contact of Harry’s hand against his forearm. Harry’s left fist had a clear path, connecting straight and true to the man’s nose beneath the black hood. Harry turned his hip into the strike, giving it the power of his new weight on top of muscle and inertia. He heard the break, saw the blood begin to bubble from the wizard’s nostril as a pair of Scandinavian-blue eyes rolled back into his head. A lucky hit—Harry had knocked the bloke unconscious without the use of a single spell. 

His big body tumbled down to the floor, black robe spread out around him like a bat’s fluttering wings, his wand clattering away to be scooped up by a recruit. 

Harry forced himself not to see Sirius falling back into a deathly curtain, or Dumbledore tumbling off the ramparts of the Headmaster’s office at Hogwarts. He kept his mind in the moment, focusing on his own body. He used his own momentum—having given his core weight to the hit—in order to leap over the man’s falling form, turning with his wand raised to track how Ron was getting on. 

His friend was dueling well. That Batushansky wand truly suited him, holding his own. Ron didn’t need much time—just a bit of patience and an iron-clad Light Shield—before he was able to sneak in, disarming his opponent. Ron’s  _Expeliarmus_  was so effective the man’s wand hit the ceiling before falling down into Ron’s outstretched hand. Ron leveled the man’s wand at him as well as his own deadly weapon. 

Wands pointed at him from every angle, one of which was his own, the wizard concealed in black threw his hands up, falling to his knees. He was the last combatant conscious, their leader; protected and thereby the last to fall. 

“I yield!” he shouted, an American accent. “I yield!” 

Harry recognized the voice. “ _Incarcerus_ ,” he incanted anyway, finishing the exercise by subduing the final combatant. Dima, Sia, and the other Durmstrang alums were already cleaning up, conjuring ropes or chains or in Dima’s case handcuffs to control their downed opponents, sweeping up any wands that’d been missed. 

Harry walked up to the kneeling, bound figure. He stopped behind him, grabbing the hood’s fabric in his free hand—but he said nothing yet, letting his actions be a sign of dominance, control over the situation by way of physical control over the enemy leader, Harry’s wand at his throat. He quickly surveyed the room: Dima smiled, Mads gave a thumbs up, Nebojsa and the witches were nodding even as they magically moved unconscious bodies into a neat row against the wall as though to be interrogated or processed for arrest. 

“Hey Johnny,” said Harry, ripping the guy’s hood back after he’d identified him by voice alone. “How the hell are ya?” 

Bright blond, California surfer hair was plastered down with sweat. He’d fought hard. With a few less experienced duelists in the room, Johnny’s crew might’ve gotten the best of the recruits.

“Wassup, Harry?” The American was cool and collected despite being on his knees like a dangerous warrior about to be taken prisoner. His attitude said now that the one-sided war game was over, there was no need to maintain any air of hostilities. He nodded to Ron. “You’ve gotta be Weasley. Harry told me about you, man. Nice wand work. Hard to believe you’re only eighteen.” 

“Cheers,” Ron nodded, accepting the compliment with Johnny’s wand still in his hand, but lowered. There was a good sheen of sweat on Ron’s forehead, easier to see with his short haircut, and he’d torn the sleeve of his new robes. 

Dima swept by, Summoning the pages of Harry’s scattered questionnaire, trying to re-collate them. He repaired Ron’s sleeve as he passed, just a silent flick of his wand which was birch and something like sixteen inches, looking like a switch. 

“So tell me, man,” Harry imitated his former co-worker’s speaking pattern. “How many other ‘friends’ did I lay out, here?” 

“West coast boys,” Johnny said. “I think you know Eli?” he jutted his chin to an unconscious wizard who’d been knocked out early on by Alicia, Aideen and Jana. Harry remembered Eli as an Animagus Doberman who helped out at Arty Lachlan’s Sanctuary, but they’d never seen action together. “Fella you KO’d is Jorn, Rikka’s ex. She’d have loved to see that, man. You got him like he owed you money!”

Outside beyond the destruction, Robards and Nash were joined by Freddie Hay-Boggis. Now that the administrators were assembled, they came into the library. It was rather a waste to use the door, as there was a table jammed part-way in front of it, secured with a Sticking Charm—the Hufflepuff guys’ bright idea to block the entrance so more attackers couldn’t come in… but they’d also blocked the route for their own potential reinforcements, too. Their bosses used the hole Ron had blasted in the wall, charms deployed over their heads to protect from any crumbling or falling stones as they passed through. 

Robards looked around, surveying the damage. The room was probably in worse shape now than how the Death Eaters left it. At least the fires had been put out. Smoke drifted through the air, rippling patterns shifting as people moved about. 

There were surprisingly few recruits injured or down. Harry noted the two Ravenclaw girls who’d taken the canary hits, already revived by Kevin Entwhistle—and by the looks of it, Sally-Anne was his girlfriend, because he checked her over extra carefully, hovering, his arm around her. Jenkins got knocked out because he failed to coordinate with anyone else. Oliver Moon’s robes were smoking and burned-through in places as he’d been near a lot of the fire, but otherwise he looked fine—he had a smoky red-clay tone to his skin to begin with, so that wasn’t a sign of skin burns—and he was already working on repairing his clothing. 

Karine was with her friend Marie Schrader, who looked to have hurt her leg. Cardoso the Brazilian bloke was with them and seemed to know what he was doing, though he spoke mostly Portuguese to their French and Swiss-German. Roger Malone had fucked up his shoulder, probably hit by a bookshelf. It wasn’t very bad, because he was hovering near Cardoso and the girls, letting Marie get patched up first before he bothered the Brazilian to fix him next. And if Nebojsa, Mads, or Iga had been hurt, they wouldn’t let on. The three of them stood with their arms folded, ostensibly guarding their prisoners until given the all-clear. 

In-all, eighteen green recruits had stood their ground when attacked without warning by fifteen trained, experienced North American Field Operatives posing as dark wizards, using any spell short of Unforgiveables. 

Harry didn’t know any of his new supervisors well enough to read the closed, appraising expressions they wore. Thankfully Alastor Gumboil chose that moment to come and check on his recruits, and from his face alone Harry understood what was supposed to have happened. 

The hired Americans were meant to defeat the recruits. It was intended as a lesson that they could be attacked at any time, a lesson in seeing friends hurt, a test of humility, assessing their willingness to bounce back after a crushing defeat. It hadn’t quite gone to plan. Gumboil’s face was pure shock. He’d likely tried the door, found it blocked, and come ‘round the corner to see the giant hole in the wall courtesy of Ron, with a little booster from Harry. In all his years in charge of recruitment, Gumboil had never seen a group of recruits manage to counter the first day gauntlet, let alone end it with the attackers downed and cuffed, ready for theoretical arrest. 

Gumboil looked a few seconds away from a full-on panic attack at the wreckage.

“What a mess…” Robards observed under his breath. 

Nash nodded his agreement, but felt the need to add in his thick Scotch brogue, “Bit ‘o a skite. Braw show, innit?” 

Meaning he thought their fighting was a bit like a couple of lads drunk at a bar, but they managed to put on an entertaining performance. Specifically Nash was looking at Dima, for throwing furniture around with his bare hands—extra bar-fight points; Nebojsa, for throwing  _people_  around with his wandless, non-verbal magic; Ron, for blowing a four meter hole in the fucking wall; and finally Harry, for his two-second, blink-of-an-eye KO worthy of a fight night replay, as it had gone down too quickly for most to have even seen. 

Nash looked pleased with his prospects… as pleased as one could be with a set of sorcerers who’d nearly caved the room in and alerted the magical fire brigade. Gumboil was outside frantically waving away curious onlookers, each of whom had the same wide-eyed-panic look when they set eyes on the “new entrance” to the destroyed library. The recruits had put out the fires and the Americans Field Operators were handcuffed, but the sight was still enough to give anyone a fright after last year. Gumboil did his best to push the gawkers away, saying it was a test for his recruits and no one was hurt. Most of them ignored Gumboil, peeking into the room to see the destruction for themselves. He couldn’t control them all; at least none of them thought to come in, content to gawk from the hall. 

Hay-Boggis walked the edge of the room, collecting her thoughts. She stopped to watch Dmitry righting a whole table and placing both benches before he settled in to reorganize Harry’s papers—as though he took personal responsibility for their disarray, setting them right. The Head Auror observed the determination and quiet passion with which Dima set himself to the annoying task without having to be directed… perhaps considering if he might be a fit for her department. She appeared to remember him throwing a burning table not five minutes ago; Hay-Boggis visibly shook herself out of the notion that Dima would be anything but a Hit Wizard, and moved on. 

Robards stood in the middle of the room, mentally binning the speech he’d prepared about how this was a learning opportunity, how their character was defined by how they responded to this set-back, and so-on. The recruits had  _won_. And he hadn’t so much as considered what he might say should the impossible happen. 

“Well…” the Director of Law Enforcement said loudly, looking around. “Well done, then.” 

Kevin Entwhistle raised his hand for attention like they were still in school. “You mean… we’re not all fired?” 

Harry heard Gumboil mutter, “ _I’m_  fired if this doesn’t get cleaned up….” 

Freddie Hay-Boggis gave a tight sort of laugh. “No, no one is fired,” she assured Kevin. 

To Johnny, Robards said, “Mr. Erdmann, your team performed very well. Thank you for your services. You’re free to go.” 

Ron handed Johnny back his wand after Harry released his Binding Charm, the ropes holding Johnny’s hands and elbows behind his back disintegrating to nothing. Harry and Sia exchanged a nod, and the rest of the Americans were revived, their hands released. The people Dima had cuffed rubbed at their wrists, unaccustomed to the rougher form of muggle restraint. 

Dima ignored everything, chugging along at getting Harry’s papers back in order, not sparing so much as a glance at any freaked-out fellow recruits; to Dmitry, this level of chaos was sort of normal after the war and his Death-Eater-adjacent childhood. He was content to fill out paperwork now that the alternative was surveying the burned-up battle-field of a room; Dima needed something to do with his hands, to be useful… and he’d promised Harry it would get done. Dima was keeping his word. If Nebojsa wanted his boyfriend’s help, he’d ask for it, and he had Mads and Iga doing his bidding, anyway. They seemed to think it was the best use of everyone’s talents if they continued as they were, Harry interfacing with the authorities as he was the least likely to lose his temper after a surprise-fight. Dima had his project to hold his focus: Nebojsa had people to boss around with grunts, pointing, orchestrating them back to something like calm. Within a few minutes of the fight’s end, even Sia was breathing normally again, and he’d fought the hardest out of anyone. 

Johnny rounded up his team, waving a hearty goodbye to Harry. The werewolf offered to buy his crew a round of beers as they left through the hole Ron blasted, chunks of stone falling down before their cloaks had even disappeared around the corner. 

No one seemed to know what to do. Gumboil was quietly hyperventilating, leaning against a busted bookshelf, not entirely trusting his legs. The recruits had healed and tended to one another, and were now looking to their new bosses for guidance. Harry and Ron stood in the center of the room with the Director and Office Heads, the young wizards standing as the unofficial representatives of their groups, future Aurors and future Hits. They all wore the same expression—blown and a bit lost, Harry and Ron rather exhausted. 

“Is this… tradition?” asked Harry into the quiet. It felt like a sort of hazing of first-year students, except on a far grander scale. And, unfortunately, far more dangerous as well. 

“Yes,” said Nash, the tone of that single terse syllable suggesting he’d been against it. 

“It’s a shit tradition,” Harry told his boss flatly. 

Hay-Boggis’ blonde head snapped around, staring at him. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Potter?” Her subordinates likely never spoke that way in front of their boss; she intended to maintain a regimented order in her office. 

Harry explained his position. “Test us all you want. That’s necessary. But don’t risk the lives of another country’s operatives. We could’ve killed them. If we hadn’t realized it was a drill….” He let his hard eyes connect with Hay-Boggis and Nash, then Robards. “I might’ve killed a friend today. Because  _you decided_  you didn’t want us to know we were being tested. That’s not fair, or professional… or even ethical if you ask me.” 

“And he’s on the Minister’s Ethics Committee,” added Ron, pointing a finger at Harry. 

Harry closed his eyes a second, a blustery breath leaving his lips.  _Thanks, Ron_ , he thought, embarrassed and barely resisting the urge to snark out loud. 

Most of the other recruits were with Harry, nodding their agreement, their eyebrows raised. They waited to see how their superiors would respond. They were pushing back against tradition—something their generation would be doing for a lot longer, until things changed. 

“We’ll take that under advisement, Mr. Potter,” said Robards stoically. 

“Oh, I’m zure you vill,” muttered Nebojsa. He’d come up behind Harry without a sound, his arms crossed over his chest, wand in his hand—as though he needed it to look menacing. 

Hay-Boggis gave Nash a stern look, as though to say,  _Control your boys_. Nash just shrugged; outspokenness was precisely the quality he looked for in his staff. So said the little wink he shot Harry and Sia’s way. As much as he could, Nash would make sure their request was honored in the future. 

“W-who’s gonna clean all this up?” asked Gumboil from the corner. Obviously he didn’t want to be left with the responsibility. The room was wrecked, and would take hours for even a magical person to put back to rights. Some of the books and furniture were permanently destroyed, burned up or cursed out of existence. 

Robards spread his arms. “I reckon the recruits ooought to help you,” he said brightly. “Clean up, and then you’re free to go.” 

Most of them groaned. Worn out—physically and emotionally spent—the last thing they wanted to do was reorganize the library and put furniture back together. 

Harry locked eyes with Nebojsa over his shoulder. 

“ _Sia…_ ” he hissed. “ _Let’s just… deal with this, so we can go home._ ” 

“ _Of coursssssse, brother_.” 

Nebojsa was hesitant when it came to demonstrating his abilities in public—he didn’t want to be interpreted as a show-off… but also drilled into his psyche was the very real worry that others would try to take advantage of him if they knew what he could do. The Death Eaters targeted and ultimately kidnapped him in part because he was gifted, and they wanted to exploit that somehow, or at least keep him from participating in the resistance. He was punished for so much more than being with Dima. It still made Sia very uncomfortable to perform powerful magic in front of strangers. For Harry—for the sake of cleaning up and getting the fuck out of here—he was willing to put aside his unease. 

“ _Time Sssssyphon_?” he suggested as a means. 

Harry had heard of it before—a spell in the branches of neutral magic regulating the flow of time and matter within space. It was at the core of time-stopping magic used by Unspeakables and Obliviators to clean up magical accidents, as well as in the creation of Time Turners. Hermione had loaned Harry a book about time-related magic after their third year; he’d wanted to better understand Time Turners, that fantastic object they’d used to rescue Sirius and Buckbeak. But the text had been horribly theoretical, and Harry’s fourteen-year-old brain quickly lost interest, giving the book back to her at the Quidditch World Cup, mostly unread. He’d never attempted to perform time-related magic, and wasn’t certain how to go about it. 

Nebojsa seemed to know. Icy eyes flickered down, looking at Harry’s hand. He was apprehensive as fuck, but he said, “ _Ussssse your light on me, and I can do it_.” 

Sia was sure he could. He’d seen what Harry’s influence did to Ron’s Reductor Curse. He was confident that, with Harry’s help, they could get the library cleaned up in short order. 

Before that day, Harry had never used his sorcery powers on anyone but Draco. In the heat of battle, he’d wanted Ron to be safe, to be able to defend himself. This was different. He had the time to think, to consider the ramifications of his actions. And Nebojsa was saying it was okay. Harry didn’t know precisely what the sparking blue light in his hands did to other people, presuming it helped them tap into their own power and abilities. Maybe he was wrong about it. Maybe it did other things, too. They had no way of knowing for sure if they didn’t test it. 

Nebojsa was willing, putting his back to Harry, pressing their equal shoulders, standing back-to-back as brothers-in-arms. 

People were watching them—staring as they hissed back and forth in Parseltongue, clearly plotting something. Neither sorcerer raised a wand. 

Harry reached back, under the cover of their robe sleeves, to grab Sia’s hand. Like his assessment spell, Harry figured that skin contact might help. Thin fingers wound together with his own, palms echoing the connecting pressure of their shoulders and backsides jammed together. 

A  _zap_  of magic fired through his hand like they’d both been rubbing their shoes against an old carpet before they touched. A single second of focus, barely the length of a breath, brought Harry’s magic to the surface, flowing into Nebojsa—lighting up the man’s pale skin with a faint-but-growing bluish glow. Nebojsa lit from the inside out, like a wizard light bulb, almost crackling with electricity. Sia’s head tipped back, touching Harry’s, and he heard a gasp: not pain and not surprise, something he couldn’t read. 

Nebojsa squeezed his hand tight. Then the contents of the room around them started moving like a muggle VHS tape on rewind, zooming back where they ought to be, where they’d started before this mess. Books bound themselves back together. Shelves unsplintered, wood chips becoming solid boards again, reassembling against the walls as books flew back where they belonged on their shelves. Paper unburnt, giving off a faint crinkling sound as parchment and pages reconstructed in the air. Two tables reconstituted themselves from piles of ash. Bricks rose up from the ground, the dust of mortar coalescing as the wall put itself back together like magical Humpty Dumpty. 

This was the magic Albus Dumbledore and Horace Slughorn used to fix the damage to the muggle house Slughorn had been hiding himself in two summers ago. It was that magic on steroids, every object in the room jumping to attention, vibrating with intent before reverting back to their original states, willing to pretend that their battle had never taken place. Every spell and action of that battle reversed itself, as though removing the concept of consequence. Together, Harry and Nebojsa influenced the very molecules around them, exacting their will on the world. It was an intoxicating feeling, to be able to set things right, to see the world made whole around you. 

People jumped as the debris under their feet came to life. They ducked furniture and stepped out of the way of flying objects, watching as the room re-knit itself around them, guided by Nebojsa’s magic, Harry helping everything along. 

When the books were shelved, the furniture repaired, and the last shards of broken glass returned to the Lumos-powered lights in the ceiling, Nebojsa’s spine gave a violent twitch. It felt as though he’d been shot, his body jerking at some unseen impact, the force ripping through him. Harry felt him fall, felt the Serbian’s knees crumble as he threatened to go down. With a soldier’s reflexes, Harry spun, catching him; releasing Nebojsa’s hand to fling both arms around his chest, taking his weight as he would have otherwise gone right to the ground. He weighed nothing. 

Sia’s eyes were in the back of his head, glowing white sclera and fluttering black lashes as he fought to stay conscious. He looked… green: not in the  _I’m about to vomit_  way, but an animated-Inferi-corpse color green, a dead and decaying veil cast over his tattooed skin.

Harry had his share of experience with dead bodies, and Nebojsa looked like he’d shuffled off about twenty-four hours ago. Except that he was still breathing. The ghosts of syllables sounded from his lips, breath against Harry’s cheek. “Создавый мѧ Господи, помилѹй...  помилѹй мѧ грѣшнаго… Господи, помилуй….” 

Harry recognized only some of the words; they weren’t Romanian or Serbian but Church Slavonic. Sia was praying—saying he was a sinner, begging God for mercy. A last right. He thought he was dying. 

His lips stopped moving, his body going limp in Harry’s arms. 

“ _NO!_ ” Harry screamed, hissed, his voice ringing against the stone. Nebojsa was a feather in his grasp, unable to draw a breath. His skin was cold. He was Sirius all over again. 

They weren’t alone. Ron yanked at Harry’s shoulders, Dima trying to wrestle Sia’s body out of his arms. 

“Harry, let go!” Dima seethed at him. “Yoo’re killing him!” 

Hands still sparking with blue lightning, Harry released his friend, giving him over to Dima. As soon as Harry’s hands and magic were off of him, Nebojsa’s eyes popped open. Air rattled in his lungs but he was able to breathe again. He leaned on Dima, conscious but barely, as though he’d woken up from a coma and had no business standing. 

Fear, which had made Harry’s voice loud a moment ago, now gave him a tremble. “ _What happened? What was that?_ ”

Blue eyes met Harry’s. The death pallor hadn’t left Sia’s skin; he was like a breathing, speaking, completely-aware Inferi. A sorcerer zombie. “ _Perhapsssss… our magic issss… not compatible?_ ” 

Dima seemed to know what was going on—as though he’d seen Nebojsa like this before; if nothing else, he knew that as scary as it might look, his love would pull through. Perhaps it happened at Valaam? Or was some kind of Dark Arts Harry didn’t understand because he hadn’t grown up steeped in it like Dima? Harry didn’t want to think he’d caused the near-demise of his friend but… evidence was staring him in the face. Nebojsa couldn’t even stand on his own—Dima was still holding him up, Iga and Mads hovering around them, wanting to help but not knowing how. They looked as freaked out as Harry felt. 

Why? Why did this happen? What caused it? His magic had never caused an adverse reaction in Draco. And nothing bad had happened to Ron. It only made them stronger, more confident in their spells, able to do magic more easily. Why would it hurt Sia? Harry didn’t understand. 

A few cautious glances went Harry’s way. His former classmates from from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw looked at him just as they had when everyone learned he spoke Parseltongue, back when they’d thought Harry was the heir of Slytherin opening the Chamber of Secrets to hurt people. Again, he was suspected of causing harm to others when he’d only been trying to help, to  _fix_  the problem and keep everybody safe. Once again, his efforts had succeeded in making the situation worse. 

“Everyone alright?” asked Ron, loosening his hold on Harry but not quite releasing him. He maintained the appearance of holding Harry back, giving his mate half a hug at the same time. Ron was trying his best to be supportive, to be there, even if he didn’t understand what was going on. 

A few years ago it had been Remus Lupin holding Harry back—holding him screaming, fighting, after Sirius was murdered. Before that it was Dumbledore pulling him off of Cedric’s corpse. 

 _Not again_ , Harry told himself. No one was dying this time… not if Harry could help it. He sagged into Ron’s embrace, reminding himself that Ron was his friend, there to support him rather than hold him at bay. There was nothing to fight anymore. The battle was over—he had to get his mind and the fire of adrenaline in his blood to agree with that rational assessment. 

Nebojsa was nodding at Ron’s question. Dima had conjured a cane for him—how, Harry wasn’t sure, because Dima’s wand wasn’t in his hand anywhere that Harry could see. Maybe he’d been working on his sorcery, too, and was able to create that aid out of thin air? Maybe he’d had to conjure it last year, while Nebojsa was recovering. Harry was sure the Serb had tried to hobble around after Valaam without his cane only to hurt himself and need help. Nebojsa had still been using the aid at Harry’s wedding. Dima was able to get the simple black walking stick into his boyfriend’s hand and get him more-or-less upright, leaning heavily on it. But Nebojsa was standing on his own with the cane, looking like a corpse crawled out of a swamp. Strangely, his hair was still perfect. 

Harry supposed everyone had great hair compared to his. 

“… _Alright?_ ” Harry repeated after Ron. It was hard to talk past the Snitch-like lump in his throat but he forced sound out anyway. 

Sia nodded again. And when Dima saw that, he nodded, too. Neither of them were mad at Harry… just scared. 

Robards found his way through the recruits gathered around them. The director had to bodily move Oliver and Roger out of his way. When he saw Nebojsa, he balked.   

“Radic?” He asked, both after Nebojsa’s well-being and if he was pronouncing his name correctly. 

“RAH-ditch,” Dima provided the phonetic. The last letter of Sia’s surname was unique to Serbian and Cyrillic, pronounced as a swishing  _ch_  sound as in ‘chocolate’ and ‘chance.’ 

“What happened here?” Robards wanted to know. Everyone did. But between Harry and Nebojsa—the two involved—neither were up for talking, nor had any answers to give. 

Mads bit the bullet for them, stepping forward. “Looks like feedback from the Time Syphon.” 

That sounded reasonable. Mads had the confidence to make anything sound good, tho. He could be jerking Robards’ chain; even so, Harry was thankful. 

Nebojsa agreed. “Yes. Feedback. I… vill be fine.” His knuckles were white gripping his cane, suggesting he may need more than a few minutes to catch his breath, but Harry did believe he would be better in a day or two, provided he got some sleep and skipped his workouts.

“Feedback of what?” Robards questioned. 

It was Iga who provided an answer, thinking Robards was perhaps not as good at his job as he should be if he didn’t know what half the Russo-Slavic world seemed privy to. She stated what, to her, was obvious. “Radić was a Death Eater prisoner.” 

In Harry’s limited understanding, Time Syphons were supposed to only effect locations and objects, not people. So if you were doing the dishes and broke a glass and cut yourself on a shard, casting a Time Syphon Spell on your kitchen would repair the glass, and your dishes would become dirty again, but your finger would still be bleeding. 

That was why they suggested ‘feedback’ as the culprit; when you dropped food into a pan of hot oil, some of it splashed back at you. Mads and Iga were proposing that effecting the fabric of time to remove so much spell damage to the library had opened some kind of loop, or a wormhole back to the last time Sia was around so much time magic—when the Death Eaters used it to make his year of torture feel like centuries. Exposed to that rift, Nebojsa’s body became convinced it was back with the Death Eaters, being tortured to death, that he was dying all over again. 

That seemed explanation-enough for Robards, who looked between Harry and Nebojsa, neither of them steady after everything they’d been through. “Alroight, then,” Robards said carefully, eyeing them both. “If you’re well… then you’re free to go.” 

“Thanks,” mumbled Harry. Nebojsa just leaned on his cane, looking drained to death. 

Harry turned, getting his arm around Ron to return the hug he’d been standing in. He didn’t need to say anything—Ron just hugged him back. 

“That was mad,” said Ron against the side of his head. 

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. They had plans to get a beer after their first day of work, but he could tell Ron was shaky and probably not up to it, either. “Rain check on drinks?” 

A big sigh ruffled Harry’s hair. “Some other time. I just wanna go home.” 

“Me too.” Harry bucked him on the shoulder as they separated. “Say hi to your mum and dad for me. And good luck to Ginny.” She’d be leaving for Hogwarts in a few days. 

They separated, Ron walking over to Roger Malone to thank him for his help in the fight. 

Near the door, Nash was speaking with two wizards Harry didn’t recognize—both tall and dark-haired, with strongly Slavic features, their wands on bracers on their arms. One wore a Hit Wizard’s deep blue robe, the other in Auror black. They spoke in hushed voices, discussing what had happened. The trio of official-looking wizards eyed both Harry and Nebojsa, clearly talking about them. 

Nebojsa led the way out, relying on his cane for balance but determined to get the hell out of the Ministry. He’d had enough for one day. Harry and Dima followed—Dima’s arm loosely around Harry, to show there were no hard feelings. Harry truly appreciated that warm gesture, the heat and weight of his friend’s arm like a blanket over him. Nash and his Russian advisors gave the three of them suspicious looks as they passed, indicating they could leave for now but Nash would have words for them later.

 

 

 

 

In the lift, Nebojsa leaned against the wall, his eyes closed, conserving his energy. He still looked like death at room temperature. 

“ _Ruminia?_ ” Dima suggested they go back to the palace. 

“ _Da_ ,” Sia answered. “I need to rest.” 

“ _Îmi pare rǎu_ ,” Harry muttered. He was pretty good at apologizing in Romanian. 

Sia reached a ghostly hand across the distance between them. He trusted Harry to touch his hand, trusted that nothing else bad would happen. Harry placed his hand under Nebojsa’s green, clammy fingers, supporting their non-existent weight. He was cold—like he’d been outside in the winter without gloves on—but there was strength in his hand once more as he flipped it over, connecting their palms, squeezing Harry. He was miserable and could barely keep his eyes open, and still he tried to bring Harry some comfort. 

“Get some rest,” he told his friend. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry’s first day as a Hit Wizard made the front page of  _The Daily Prophet_. Someone standing out in the hallway had a camera on them, and managed to snap one hell of a photo, which they sold to the newspaper. 

Harry had to say—much as he disliked being the primary subject—it was a remarkable shot. 

Harry Potter stood in the wreckage of the Law Enforcement Library, plumes of smoke around him, holding Johnny’s hood with a wand to his throat as Robards, Hay-Boggis, and Nash looked on. Ron looked like a real badass; a wand in each hand, his sleeve ripped, a hard look on his face. Sia was whispering with Mads and Iga in the background, smoke obscuring them from ready recognition.

 _Harry Potter Trounces Training Exercise On First Day At Ministry_ , the headline declared _._  

Harry didn’t care to read the article, sliding it across the kitchen table to Draco without a word. 

The pureblood picked up the paper, his coffee cup in his other hand, blowing over the rim. “I say, I do fancy the French blue,” he said mildly, using his posh tosspot Malfoy aristocrat voice which once grated on Harry’s schoolboy nerves. Draco was talking about the dress shirt Harry wore in the photo. “It suits you.” 

Classic Malfoy, reacting to something totally innocuous rather than the violence of the image which would stun anyone else silent. That was how Draco’s brain worked, how he managed to get through tough or stressful situations: he focused on some meaningless detail so he didn’t have to think about the bigger picture. 

Harry had told Draco about the staged fight—and his surreal experience of almost killing Nebojsa by accident. It was all he could talk about when he got home yesterday. They’d fucked on the living room floor, Harry needing the burst of sexual activity to set himself back to rights, and Draco wanting to prove to him that the power in his hands wouldn’t hurt his spouse. It didn’t hurt Draco at all: it just made him come. Twice.

 

 

 

 

After fucking themselves sweaty, they’d gone out for drinks, eventually making their way back to Ian Barry’s club where a local rock band was playing. They tried to find the club where they’d heard MSI the year before, but the place had closed, so they settled for Barry’s in the end. 

On the streets of Soho, walking from the swanky cocktail bar Draco fancied to the tube station, Harry pulled out his mobile and dialed Sia’s number. It took a couple nerve-tightening rings but finally his Serbian mate picked up. 

Harry wrapped his hand around the microphone, not wanting anyone on the street to hear his Parselmouth whisper. “ _How are you holding up?_ ” 

“Vot?” Nebojsa sounded confused. 

“ _How are you?_ ” Harry repeated. “ _Are you okay after…?_ ” 

Harry heard a strange static sound, like a radio tuning. “Sia? Can you hear me?” 

“It vould appear snake tongue doez not vork through muggle telephones,” Nebojsa quipped in English. “Odd.” 

Harry dropped his hand, relieved. “You sound like you’re alright.” 

“ _Da, draga_.” 

Harry didn’t know what the nickname meant, but Nebojsa sounded happy about it; he wasn’t even upset after Harry nearly killed him by mistake. Nebojsa just… knew it was an accident, accepted the part they’d both played in it, and moved on. He saved his grudges for those who acted with bad intent; understanding Harry had only tried to help, he wasn’t about to let himself be mad over a genuine accident.

“Okay, then. I… just wanted to check on you.” Harry heard Dmitry’s voice in the background, speaking Romanian, probably asking if it was Harry on the line. “Tell Dima I said hi. And get some rest, yeah? I’ll see you at work tomorrow.” 

“ _Da da. Aj ćao_.” 

“Uh, yeah… ciao,” Harry echoed back awkwardly. 

The line went dead and he was left standing in the middle of the sidewalk, his finger on the red button to hang up… realizing he’d never actually said a normal, casual goodbye to Sia before. They’d always parted under tense circumstances or in dangerous times, never knowing if they’d see each other alive again. So he’d never learned that Serbian people—or at least Sia—said ‘ciao’ like in Italy. It struck him as absurdly adorable. Cute, even. Sia could pull it off, of course, but when Harry said it back he felt a little clumsy and stupid. 

Draco had grabbed his hand, pulling him off towards their next drinking destination. After spending the day home alone, Draco wanted to be out, to move… to dance. Harry hadn’t felt like going out at first but, once they were walking to the bar, Draco chatting happily… Harry had found some measure of happiness in himself, seeing Draco come alive; smiling, laughing, a drink in his hand, in his element, the warm air washing over their bodies until they felt new in the night. 

At the club Harry’s guts started kicking, instinct notifying him that they were being followed around the bar. Which turned out to be partially true—a couple of girls were tailing them, thinking they were fit. Harry sent Draco to the loo as a decoy, circling back to confront their stalkers, asking bluntly why they were following him. The girls apologized profusely. 

“How did you know we were…?” 

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry tracked Draco returning from the loo, banging his teal head to the music. The band was good. Harry opted for the most simple and true explanation, forced to shout a bit over the live music. “Military. Active combat last year.” 

The stricken looks on their faces—realizing that in an attempt to flirt they’d inadvertently spooked a veteran. The ladies insisted on buying their next round of drinks, and left them alone after that. 

Draco reluctantly consented to leave the mosh pit around midnight, remembering Harry had this new thing called ‘work’ in the morning.

 

 

 

 

Both Potters had bags under their eyes now, drinking second cups of coffee after a long shower, and Harry had skipped his morning run… but it had been worth it, swapping blowjobs in the shower. Harry felt like himself when he left for the office. And Draco snogged him goodbye, grabbing his ass until he forced himself to Apparate away or end up being late for fucking his husband.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry and Nebojsa got pulled into Nash’s office first thing.

Their boss’ workspace was Spartan—plain stone walls, a simple desk full of parchments, and nearly no decoration. His only concession was a photo of himself, his wife, and their two children. It looked to have been taken at the Quidditch World Cup four years ago—tents in the background, the Nash family supporting Ireland, of course—so his son would be close to Hogwarts-age now, his daughter about seven or eight. 

Nash was a strict father accustomed to dressing-down his kids; but he didn’t treat Harry or Nebojsa as such. They were employees standing before his desk that morning. He was informal, more curious than anything else, looking to build a relationship with them based on open, earnest communication. 

“Lads, I’m gonna assume,” the boss began evenly, “tha’ yesterday’s lil’ mishap was a genuine accident.” 

“That’s correct,” said Harry. 

Light reflected off of the scar on the side of Nash’s head when he moved. He nodded once, curtly. “Good. Explain.” 

Harry swallowed, looking away. He could feel Nebojsa’s eyes drift to him, as though the sharp mind behind those blizzard eyes didn’t know what to say anymore than Harry did. They hadn’t talked about it beyond checking the other was okay—Nebojsa’s skin was back to his normal shade of goth white, and he looked healthy. The cane was nowhere in sight. 

Harry was at a loss. He had no idea what might’ve caused the magical backlash which had messed Sia up so badly. They didn’t understand enough about the magic itself. Rather than try to unscramble anything last night, Harry had spent his time with Draco—setting his heart right, being with his husband, soothing them both until his emotions were under control. It still felt too soon to be diving back into this. 

“A misjudgment,” Nebojsa was making up an excuse. “Ve had never combined Endopathotics, Sorcery and Time Magic. It zhould have been fine, but… obviously zhere vere complications. Ve had feedback from zhe Time Syphon.” That sounded pretty good to Harry—he still had no idea if it was true or not, but it  _sounded_  just as legit as when Mads proposed it yesterday. 

Nash looked right at Sia, his gaze hard. His shaved head turned a bit pink when he focused. Nash said something in fluent Russian. 

“ _Niet_ ,” Nebojsa responded right away, strong. Whatever the question was, he said ‘no’ quite clearly, fervent and a bit… offended. 

Nash asked a second question. Harry picked out his own name, but he knew so little Russian that he couldn’t piece anything else together.

Nebojsa’s eyes flashed in response. He didn’t like what was said one bit, because he answered in English, not wanting Harry cut out of the conversation. “No. Notzhing like zhat. It vos an honest mistake, sir.” 

Nash seemed satisfied with Nebojsa’s certainty. He looked them both over. “Gents… no more surprises, eh?” 

Harry’s mouth pressed to a hard line. “If you promise the same,” he answered, wanting Nash’s word that they wouldn’t have another harrowing test sprung on them. 

“Doin’ my best,” Nash shrugged with frustration, gesturing around the office as though he were fighting the rest of the department to get anything done—that was probably true. People like Franklin Cornfoot still had a lot of influence and would want to keep doing things the way they’d always been done. Even with Kingsley as Minister, forward-thinkers like Nash would still be fighting battles at their own levels. 

Nash quickly shooed them out of his office, having other things to deal with.

 

 

 

 

In the hall beyond their boss’ door, Harry caught his friend’s gaze before he could walk away. 

Harry didn’t even have to ask. Sia outright told him without preamble: “Nash vanted to know if yoo tried to kill me.” 

“What?!” 

Sia’s head tipped—snotty and annoyed, just like Draco did— _Nash said it, not me_. 

Harry took his anger down a notch. “So… I don’t actually understand what happened yesterday but… you looked bad, I’ll admit. Do you think it’s possible you maybe came close to passing out? Not  _actually_  in danger, I mean. You’re fine now, tho, yeah?”

Nebojsa was looking somewhere above Harry’s head, not wanting to make eye contact. Harry knew when someone was looking at his scar rather than his face; Nebojsa was looking above him, not at the mark left by Voldemort’s horcrux. 

He said softly, “ _Ako vam ne smeta_ … stop talking.” 

Harry didn’t want to stop. Whether the guy liked it or not, he was one of the few people Harry could speak openly to about these emerging abilities. He didn’t want to stop talking. If they didn’t discuss it, they’d never learn. And if they didn’t learn, then he ran the risk of hurting Nebojsa again, or hurting someone else. That was unacceptable. 

Harry stuffed his hands in his pockets, hiding his fists. His frustration still snuck out of him in a terse whisper. “Oh my God, Sia. Don’t shut me up when I’m trying to apologize.” 

The Serb snorted. “Apology means nozhing if you take His name in vain.” 

Right. Nebojsa would get Draco and Dima high, would take a blowie in a back alley while kissing another bloke, would throw an attacker across a room with his sorcery, would kill his boyfriend’s father in self-defence, but he’d get mad if you trash-talked his faith in front of him. After the atheism of Hogwarts, Harry hadn’t fully acclimated himself to magical people who were also devout practitioners of a religion. Swearing a blue streak was something he could do with Draco, Dima and Misha, or any of his other friends, really… but not Sia. It was one more way Harry could hurt his friend without even realizing what he was doing. 

“Point taken,” Harry conceded. “I’m sorry about what happened yesterday, the accident, and I’m sorry I swore when I was attempting, very poorly, to apologize. I didn’t mean to hurt you yesterday. Or now. I’m just… I don’t always understand what’s happening, and my gut reaction is… emotional. That’s where the power comes from in the first place.” And, proving his point, he pulled a fist out of his robe pocket. His fingers glowed faintly, flecks of blue beginning to come to the surface like a flower opening up to the sun’s light—his wild feelings were the sunlight, feeding it, allowing it to grow. He stuck his hand back in his pocket, knowing the light wouldn’t go away until he calmed down. He didn’t want Sia to have to see it in the meantime. 

Harry explained their shared situation. “Draco and I don’t have anyone else to talk to about this magic—anyone who understands the experience of having it. As far as we can tell, the two of us plus you are the only ones with these abilities. We don’t know near enough. So not talking about it? Well, that’s not an option. For everyone’s sanity… and safety, it would appear. We can hide it from other people, but not from each other.”

Nebojsa took a second to process Harry’s point of view before explaining his own. “I’m upzet, too. Yezterday vos… unfortunate, and unexpected. It vos not your fault, Harry. I… I do not feel like talking right now because of… vot Nash said.” 

“His other question, you mean?”

Sia nodded. Harry waited, not sure if Nebojsa felt like sharing or not. If he didn’t, he’d say so. Harry just gave him the space to decide what he wanted. He chose to talk. 

“Nash… he asked if I vos involved in Necromancy.” 

Because Nebojsa had  _looked_  like he was dying yesterday, but managed to survive—to bounce back pretty damn quickly, all things considered. 

Of course Nash asked in a coded fashion, not wanting Harry involved, but also in the interest of protecting Sia if the answer wasn’t favorable—he’d be admitting a crime to a Law Enforcement officer. Nash would have no choice but to arrest him, and he’d be kicked from the recruit program immediately. Harry knew that much about magical law. 

It was little wonder Nash’s question left Sia feeling on-edge. Necromancy was a touchy subject in the magical world; no one had been willing to answer Harry’s questions about Inferi or the magic behind how they were made and how they functioned. He’d been trying to understand the strengths and aims of his opponent in war, and Necromancy was one of many forbidden branches of magic Voldemort explored. Nebojsa would bristle at the suggestion that he was involved in the same type of magic as the man who’d killed his parents, and was responsible for the deaths of so many of his friends. Sia didn’t care for the comparison; but moreover, he didn’t care for all the sad and difficult memories the subject dredged up. 

They were both emotional, and not treating each other so well because of that vigilant interior focus. They were both only trying to survive, to protect themselves. There was no chance of having a productive conversation until they both cooled down. Harry saw as much: Nebojsa still didn’t want to make eye contact, looking over Harry’s shoulder down the hall in the pretense of a lookout, insuring that their conversation wasn’t overheard. 

“I know you’re not a Necromancer. You’ve got nothing to do with that,” Harry reassured him. “Nash had to check—that’s his job. He doesn’t know you yet. Not like we do.” Harry didn’t want to have his hands in his pocket. He wanted to… give Sia a hug or something. But that wasn’t possible. Not until he had control of himself, anyway. If he reached out now, he would only make things worse. The magic in him which he couldn’t fully control would  _hurt_  Sia. So he was forced to use his words instead. “I’m really glad you’re alright.” 

Sia was still looking off over Harry’s shoulder. He didn’t respond. 

“You  _are_  okay, right?” 

“Sure,” muttered Sia. “I’m fine.” 

Harry knew a fake ‘fine’ when he heard it. He was the master of it. Especially after Cedric died, then Sirius, then Dumbledore; people would ask Harry how he was doing and he’d say ‘fine,’ all tight in his upper throat and dismissive, just like Nebojsa did now. It was an absolute lie. 

Pushing the matter wasn’t going to help Sia. As much as Harry’s curiosity and genuine affection shouted that he ought to dig in and try to learn something more, his practical side informed him this was the wrong time to push his mate. Another day, another place. 

“I’m here if you need anything,” Harry offered simply, making a little joke. “You know where I live. If you wanna talk, or get a beer or whatever. I’m around.”

Nebojsa’s brows became more straight, if that was possible. “Beer? It iz nine in zhe morning,” he protested. 

“A beer  _after work_ ,” Harry clarified. “It’s a phrase people use in English. Although, if you really want to…” he raised an eyebrow, sarcastically suggesting they skip their second day of work to go find the nearest pub and get shit-faced.

Nebojsa just stared at him, incredulous; either shocked at the idea of cutting work, or that Harry would suggest they go out drinking at nine in the morning. He was just trying to be silly, to lighten the mood and cut tension. Apparently Nebojsa took him seriously. 

“ _I’m kidding, Sia_ ,” he added with a hiss. “ _Despite yesterday, and the paperwork, I think I might actually like this job. So I don’t wanna mess it up. But I don’t want you to get messed up, either. You’ll let me know if you need anything? Anything at all?_ ” 

“ _Fine_ ,” his friend hissed back—a real fine. 

Harry held out his faintly glowing hand, gesturing for Nebojsa to walk with him back to the library where Gumboil and another day of boring lectures awaited them. 

It felt strange—normally he would’ve at least put his arm around Sia’s shoulders or… done something, some kind of physical closure, contact and comfort after having had an argument. But he couldn’t. Not without hurting him, because Harry didn’t have a proper hold on his shit. That was part of what he was in therapy for. He needed another appointment with Dr. Beasley, to work through everything which had happened in that staged fight, and almost losing Nebojsa in his arms… his best friend nearly died because of something  _he_  had done. Nebojsa telling him to shut up told Harry he’d been in real danger; like Harry, Nebojsa hated people worrying about him. He’d rather pretend things were fine than admit how close he’d been to dying. 

Not having his feelings in order was how Harry caused damage in the past. Now, the stakes were so much higher. He needed not just to control his temper, but everything else, too, down to processing in real time how he effected other people. Otherwise he was just a self-aware bull in everyone else’s emotional china shop; waiting for another disaster to strike, or a noise to spook him, and everyone around him would get trashed. Nebojsa was evidence-enough that something had to be done.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Less than a week before she went back to Hogwarts, Ginny marched herself into Ottery St. Catchpole, wearing her boots since it had rained the day before. She was a sight, mud up to her ankles and splashed up in dark, sticky flecks onto her denims as she stepped into the muggles’ public telephone booth. 

The paper in her hand was so worn and wrinkled it felt like cloth. She’d spun it round in her hands for hours. She’d balled it up and thrown it across the room… then chased it, finding it under the bed, or out the window in Mum’s flower beds, spelling the mud off. It didn’t matter: she’d memorized the digits, the handwriting, the golden-colored ink he’d conjured instead of stoic, standard black. 

“Call me, Jinevra.” 

She could hear his voice in her head. 

If not now, then… she’d be off to school on Sunday. She had to give the bloke  _some_  notice. It was downright rude to expect a guy to show up the next night, to drop his plans and rearrange his life for her. He had a career—he was starting with the Cannons, the announcement due any day now in advance of the season. It would be a frenzy. 

 _The Daily Prophet_  and  _Witch Weekly_  were obsessed with anyone so much as rumored related to a Death Eater. A witches’ magazine even ran an article attempting to smear Madame Rosemerta of The Three Broomsticks because she’d broken off an engagement to a Rosier twenty years ago. In Harry Potter style, she’d written to  _The Prophet_  with her explicit opinions on the matter, dispelling rumors; her relatives set her up with Rosier, and she broke up with him the moment she learned of his belief in blood purity. Nobody went after Rosemerta after that. But the papers would have a bloody conniption when it came out that Mikhail Ionescue—the son of a confirmed, convicted Death Eater—was going to play for an English team. No matter that the player in question was a dear friend of Harry Potter himself, had fought in the war on the  _right_  side, and even held an Order of Merlin for his bravery in battle. 

Mikhail had a long way to go before anyone’s first thought about him wasn’t in relation to his despicable father. 

She blew out a breath, twisting the tiny bit of paper in her hands. 

This was like… like falling for Harry Potter all over again. Another handsome, perfect hero. Another media magnet. Another athlete. Another inadvertent trouble-maker. Another innocent soul. 

Mikhail was possibly the sweetest man she’d ever known. That was what struck her, what made her change her mind and chase his telephone number every time she tossed it away. He’d saved her life. After that he’d kept his distance, relegating himself to long glances across the Great Hall, perhaps unsure of how she might view his affiliations, his family name, his history. And of course there was the dark magic in his blood, something he couldn’t shake, couldn’t undo. The Dark Arts were forever a part of him. So he never pressed for a relationship or even an acquaintance, out of respect. He understood very deeply that she may not want anything to do with him. And he expected nothing from her. 

She had to go to him. It was what she had to do now. 

Fingers cold, she lifted the receiver, counting the muggle coins from her father’s workshop under her breath as she slipped one after another into the machine. She didn’t need her paper to dial his number. She knew it by heart.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Ginny stood in the bathroom, looking at her reflection. She barely recognized herself. The woman preening back at her was confident, beautiful. She didn't feel that way. Not at all. 

Fleur had come to the Burrow that afternoon—had brought her a gorgeous pale blue dress to wear, had done her hair, laughing with her about makeup and innocuous shit to help with her nerves. Gin loved having a sister after all these years. 

This was her first date since Harry. Or rather, the first guy she'd truly fancied since her first love, because Harry Potter never took her on a single date. 

Maybe this was a sign. A young man was coming to take her out properly—a handsome, brave, wonderful wizard who made her knees weak among other notable physical reactions. She kept casting a Drying Charm at her armpits because she was sweating through Fleur's dress—which was a super attractive quality, to be sure. 

Mikhail was hot. He was perfect. And he was coming—any minute—to take her on a date. 

She was an imposter in her own body, someone else walking in a familiar skin. She didn’t deserve this, didn’t know how to handle a ‘good’ thing when it landed in her lap—or when it let her grope and snog it desperately at a party at Harry Potter’s house. 

Mikhail didn't deserve her lying to him. She had no idea how to tell him what his father did. And deep down there was a voice telling her that if Mikhail knew, he might not want her anymore. That scared her the most. 

As Fleur brushed bronzer over her temples, Gin felt like her skin was made of egg shells. One touch too hard and she might crack.

 

 

 

 

A shout of her name from downstairs. Ginny flinched. Mikhail had arrived.

Ginny leaned over the banister, spying on the interactions below. 

Mikhail brought flowers for mum. He brought a muggle VCR with instruction manual for dad, knowing he was interested in muggle engineering. Shit, shit, shit, this guy was perfect. 

His hair was kinda messy, in a sexy way. It was thick and very dark, making her instantly think of running her fingers through it—getting a handful and tugging him around by it, bringing his mouth to hers. He had something more than stubble on his cheeks—a very short-trimmed, neat beard. Holy fuck he had a beard! He was wearing a suit; dark color, with a white shirt and tie. Who wore a fucking suit and tie—muggle formal-wear—on a first date? Romanian Princes, that was who. And he made it look  _good_. 

He was joking good-naturedly with her parents. Mum's laugh lilted up the staircase. Gin couldn't remember the last time mum had laughed that much—maybe when she met Gilderoy Lockhart at Flourish and Blotts years ago. Except her laugh was real, not tinged with nervousness. Mikhail brought the happiness out in her within seconds of meeting. 

How was this her life? How the hell was a man—a wizard, a Prince—like him interested in her? 

Fleur pressed against her side, squeezing her. “Doesn't hee look 'andsome?” she cooed.

Understatement. He belonged as a spread in  _Witch Weekly_. Ginny's ankles felt wobbly. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to walk a straight line in the quill-point-thin stiletto heels Fleur had loaned her. Mikhail was tall, near six feet—she didn't want to feel like a garden gnome standing next to him. Now, with her legs weak and facing the staircase, she was regretting not wearing sensible flats. It would be just her luck to stumble on the stairs, fall inelegantly, and break something in front of her date.

 

 

 

 

They stood on the front steps of the Burrow. Inside, Mum and Dad were talking, saying they liked Mikhail, thought he was good for their baby girl. Mercifully they didn’t say a word about his extended family, only mentioning he was close with Harry. 

Mikhail was a true gentleman, pretending he couldn’t hear her parents talking about him. He was probably used to people talking about him, and not always saying flattering things. 

The walkway was still a bit muddy. But Mikhail’s shoes were perfectly clean—Gin would know, she’d been staring at them for the last twenty seconds and they were pristine. He’d probably done a Hover Charm on himself, or conjured a barrier to keep the mud off of his shoes. 

He was looking at her. After a summer living in London, his accent had softened considerably, turning slightly British for the company he kept. “I hope you like seafood,” he said. 

“Love it!” she replied, forced-bright. Could he tell she was nervous, hadn’t been on a date in a while? He didn’t let on. 

“And zhe opera?” 

She licked her lips. “Never been.” 

“Vell, zhey were sold out,” he shrugged. “Next time. I got tickets for a musical in London.” 

“Never seen one of those, either.” 

“But… you like music, yes?” he clarified, wanting to be sure she enjoyed music in general, and hadn’t just been hanging around when he was playing guitar for the sake of being near him.  _That_  would make her pathetic. Certainly not the behavior of the strong, independent witch he saw in her. 

“Yeah. I get a bit tired of the Weird Sisters and Celestina Warbeck.” That was all they had in the house, and the Wizarding Wireless didn’t have much of a musical selection; it was mostly interviews, news and opinions. Muggles had a lot more music to choose from than magical culture. 

Mikhail smiled. Fuck he was gorgeous. He put his arm around her. “We fix zhat tonight. Illegal unlicensed Side-Along Apparition okay? I promise, I have never splinched anyvone except my brozher, and he deserved it.” 

She laughed. “Perfect.”

 

 

 

A night with Mikhail was like nothing she’d ever known. He was a perfectly smooth Apparator, getting them into central London without a hitch. He spoke Japanese to their waitress at dinner, talking their way into a couple of cocktails. He hailed a cab to get to the theater on time, not wanting to make her walk in her high heels… or perhaps knowing the exercise might burn off some of the alcohol. They snogged in the back of the taxi; the theater wasn’t nearly far enough.

He told her about the animated movies he loved, promising if her dad could get the VCR working, he’d send her some tapes from his collection to watch. She said only if the films came with him, so they could watch together. She’d need a translator.

“Zhere are subtitles,” he explained while walking into the theater, Gin on his arm. “Little translation written at zhe bottom. So you do not have to speak Japanese.” 

“Brilliant invention!” she declared. 

Misha had gotten them a box to one side of the stage. Their two chairs were the only ones in the box, a private space just for them. 

The musical was set in America in the 1950’s, called  _Grease_. As soon as the upbeat music started—trumpets and electric guitars, plenty of drums—Gin knew she’d like it. There were a couple of English language jokes that flew over Mikhail’s head, as well as some muggle references which stumped them both. They had to whisper between themselves a few times, trying to sort it out. But the dancing and the happy music more than made up for it.

Ginny liked the slutty character Rizzo. Especially when she sang, “ _There are worse things I could do, than go with a boy… or two_.” The character was dealing with an unwanted pregnancy, a boyfriend who didn’t care, and a society ready to condemn her rather than listen or help. Gin understood feeling trapped by something inside you, something you couldn’t control, couldn’t get rid of, something no one could see.

 

_“I could stay home every night,_

_Wait around for Mr. Right._

_Take cold showers every day,_

_And throw my life away,_

_On a dream that won’t come true.”_

 

That perfectly encapsulated how she felt about her ex. Harry wasn’t the man she imagined; he’d been a fantasy, a dream in her head, and the real man could never measure up to that inflated image she’d held onto for far too long. If she hadn’t been so enamored with Harry, she might not have exposed herself to the Death Eaters and been put under the Imperius Curse in the first place. She could have been there, present, through the events of last year. Hanging on Mr. Right was a big part of what nearly cost her her life. But taking risks was what made a strong character, both in the theater and in life. Without the bold mistakes she’d made, she might not have found Mikhail, the man sitting beside her now, holding her hand. 

She didn’t exactly cheer when Rizzo got back together with her boyfriend at the end—Rizzo might’ve been better off alone, making her own path minus the idiot. 

The whole show was about the dumb things people did for love—when they wanted it, when they thought they had it, when they were terrified of losing it. 

During the closing number, Mikhail squeezed her hand, guiding her out of her seat. With the house lights low, no one saw them slip away. 

Her hand in his, she had a view of his broad shoulders in his suit jacket, pulling her along a hallway to nowhere. At the end he turned to a muggle utility door. He put his finger over his lips, a miming gesture asking her to stay quiet. Drawing his wand, he disabled the alarm attached to the door before opening it, ushering her through. He was technically underage—sixteen—and not supposed to be doing magic. Yet after the war and years without an authority or adult to control him, Mikhail thought nothing of drawing his wand, doing as he wished even in the middle of muggle territory. 

Bypassing alarms was the sort of magic only two kinds of wizards knew: highly-trained Ministry employees like Hit Wizards or Unspeakables… and criminals. 

Mikhail had been on the run for almost two years, apart from magical society, living in the muggle world to avoid the Death Eaters. Everything he did, everything he learned, was for his own survival. He wasn’t trying to show off now: this was just who he was. 

Up two flights of stairs—after Mikhail’s deftly-aimed spells at no less than three security cameras—they emerged onto the theater’s flat rooftop. 

He still had her hand, his palm warm against hers, bringing her to the edge to look out at London in the nighttime. Cars honked on the streets below, mingling with the noise of people and a faint, distant hum of the underground trains as they rattled along on their tracks. 

“I forget how beautiful the city can be,” she mused. 

“You prefer to live in zhe country?” 

She’d never thought about it—hadn’t had much of a choice. She lived where her parents told her to; the Burrow, or Hogwarts, or for a while at Grimmauld Place. That had been her first extended exposure to muggle London. Except for King’s Cross Station and the Hogwarts Express each year, she barely saw the place. She knew more about Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade than she did about the capital of her country. 

“Both have their merits, I suppose.” 

Mikhail was loosening his necktie one-handed. He looked so handsome in his suit, but the sight of him taking it off… she didn’t want him to stop. He squeezed her fingers, the tie limp around his neck as he worked at his top button. Gold eyes flicked to the side. Then he stepped away, hiding behind a large metal structure which Gin assumed had something to do with the building’s cooling system based on the gusts of hot air it belched. 

“What’re you doing?” she asked, following after him. 

Mikhail laughed. “I cannot transform in muggle clothes. Zhey rip. Zhen I have nothing to vear after.” 

“I don’t get to see you take your clothes off?!” she protested. 

His laugh kept on, faster, not with panic but carrying an edge. “Old fashioned, remember?”

“Suuuuure…” she teased, peeking around the metal corner. Mikhail had his jacket off, shirt unbuttoned, and was toeing off his shoes.

“Hey!” he said, rounding on her, his voice darkening at being so blatantly disobeyed. She hadn’t made a sound to alert him. Maybe the Dark Arts gave him eyes in the back of his head? It was easy to forget the type of magic he’d been exposed to after spending two hours in a dark theater with him, holding his hand, humming along to catchy music. His personality made it so effortless for her to forget he’d been raised by the devil. It was nothing short of a miracle he came out the other side of that so… normal. Except for the creature he intended to turn into just to amuse her. 

“You’re gonna take me flying?” she asked, just to be sure she understood him correctly. 

He nodded. “You can ride me zhat way,” and he winked, a hint of sexuality hidden beneath his sometimes painful shyness. “But only if you let me strip alone, Jinevra. Please.”  

She held her hands up, playing innocent, and put her back to the metal structure, waiting around the corner where she couldn’t see him. It was torture knowing he was getting naked so close. 

She asked the warm night air. “Should I Disillusion you? And myself?” 

His laugh was like the music that night, light and free. “Unless you like being arrested and going to Azkaban as a zecond date. Yes, Disillusion us please.” 

She laughed, too, until she heard the sound of his zipper. 

“You’re killing me…” she groaned. 

“Patience,” he cooed back. “I vould like to zhink I am… vorth vaiting for.” 

She pressed her rear end against the warm metal, echoing the pressure building inside her body. Mikhail was a flirt. She’d never dealt with a man who didn’t want to rip both their clothes off and have sex on the first date… not since Harry, anyway. At least it seemed like Mikhail wasn’t a virgin. He knew what he was doing but, like a large tea pot, he needed longer for the leaves to steep before he was good and ready to be tasted. She’d have to slow down her own pacing. No man had ever taken her to dinner, to the theater, and flying on his back through the lights and the stars! Maybe they didn’t have to have sex right away, so long as he had other tricks up his sleeve like this, methods to stimulate her senses, her imagination and sense of fantasy. 

There was a magical noise disturbingly like a cauldron of thickened Buboutuber puss being stirred with a wooden spoon. It was followed by the clomp of hooves, a rustle of feathers, and the nudge of a horse’s snout against her upper arm. Mikhail the Granian was saying hello… and he was if anything more physically affectionate for not being able to talk. 

Ginny didn’t mind. He lowered a wing, tracing the curve of her from shoulder to waist, then pulled her close enough he could nuzzle his head against hers. 

“Oh, so  _now_  you wanna hold me,” she teased. 

He gave a little whicker. Maybe it was easier for him to be affectionate as an animal than as a man? She considered how he grew up. As the child of a staunch and cold aristocrat, he might not have been touched often, or picked up and loved on by siblings and parents. Sure he was the youngest child, but she’d heard he grew up without a mother, and knowing his father more than she’d ever cared to… Mikhail probably found it easier to show his affection as a winged horse because, as a horse, it could never be sexual. It could be physical, and emotional, even spiritual, but never tipping into sexual. He could show her that he cared without sex being a part of the equation. That was what the silver-and-white feathered wing around her back meant, the big nostrils breathing against her hair, the firm chest bucked up against hers, breathing together. 

She carded fingers through his mane, which was mostly white with some grey, matching the silver dapple down his sides. There were faint scars on his left side; starting from his front leg, going up over his body, and back down his back leg. Either he’d gotten hit with something very strange, or the marking was a carry-over from his human form, a scar covering half his body even in horse form. She now knew something about his body without having seen him naked yet.

His eyes were the same wide, soulful amber gold looking back at her. 

She patted his neck. “Let’s fly, Pegasus.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

One night wasn’t enough. He promised to take her for lunch tomorrow, and to a movie theater playing one of his anime films. Ginny never packed her school trunk so fast, getting it done and out of the way so she had as much time as possible on their second date. 

The movie turned into ice cream and a walk in the park, which quickly devolved to groping him behind the cover of some trees, hiding from the streetlights and headlights which lit up London all night. 

“I need to take you home,” he kept saying, begging, throwing his head back and exposing his throat every time she touched him. He seemed to come alive under her hands, panting, barely holding on to his control. And that rumble in his chest when she bit him, rolled his lip between her teeth, raked her fingers under the sleeve of his tshirt to feel his muscles tense… he was seconds away from losing it, giving in, becoming completely hers. 

She didn’t want to go home—not without him.

 

 

 

 

It was about a ninety minute drive from The Burrow to King’s Cross in London. Ginny remembered from when they’d had a car… before her brother and Harry crashed it into the Whomping Willow after driving it to Scotland. The car was still in the Forbidden Forest, refusing to come out, traumatized by its experience with Harry Potter. Ginny could understand that. Harry was a rough bloke, especially when he didn’t really love you… and apparently when he  _did_  love you, going by the rumors of heavy bruises on Malfoy back at school. 

Mikhail insisted on sending a car for Gin and her mum and dad, to take them to King’s Cross Station. He showed up riding in the back seat of a limousine the next morning, with coffee and pastries for the drive. He entertained them under a discreet Muffling Charm with descriptions of the dragon sanctuaries in Romania, and stories about Durmstrang—specifically his brother Dmitry the prankster, whose antics rivaled Fred and George. 

He was careful not to talk about his extended family, or where he grew up. He never mentioned his mother at all, suggesting he’d never known her. Gin learned for the first time he had an even older brother, Vukasin, who died in the fighting when Durmstrang fell to the Death Eaters. The look on his face—gazing blankly out the window, without words, hands wrapped around his cup of coffee like he suddenly needed the warmth—broke her heart. 

He insisted on getting her trunk for her, not letting the driver do it. He was like Danny Zuko in Grease, insisting he carry Sandy’s books as a sign of his devotion. Mikhail insisted she have time with her parents on Platform 9 ¾ to say goodbye. He’d never taken the Hogwarts Express, he confessed, and wanted to poke around and see what it was like. 

“Oh, he’s wonderful, dear,” Mum agreed, hugging her tight. “You be careful at school.” 

“Here’s a bit of pocket money for Hogsmeade,” said Dad, slipping her a small bag of sickles and a few galleons. “Take good care of your broomstick, and do let us know if you need anything, we’ll have it sent right up for you.” 

“I will,” she promised. “We’re going for the cup this year. Angie Whipple’s an even better Keeper than Ron, and we’ve got the same Beaters from last year. Just need to find another Chaser or two and we’ve got it in the bag.” 

Dad hugged her. “That’s my girl.” 

She fell into Mikhail’s arms right after. He pulled her away, hiding them behind one of the brick columns. 

“How do yoo feel about… a small bit of Dark Arts?” he asked slowly. Her answer was to kiss him on the mouth. 

“Vell! Okay… so…” he could barely catch his breath. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a tiny velvet pouch, placing it in her hand and pressing. “Zhis is  _Drengir Leita_. It vos used as a part of zhe Dark Mark. My brozher and his boyfriend have it in a tattoo if zhey are separated or if one of zhem is kidnapped again.” 

It was the  _again_  that made her shiver. She angled closer to Misha’s muscled chest, taking advantage of his warmth. She pressed her side into his body, wrapping his arm around her as he told her about the murky white marble she pulled from the pouch. 

“Inside is zhe spell, a bit of feather from me, and… my blood. It vill allow me to find you no matter vhere you are. Even somevhere Unplottable like zhe castle. You are in trouble, something bad happens, you must break it vith Reducto. You know zhis spell, yes?” She nodded. It was one of her best. “If you break zhis, I vill sense it and come to you.”

She looked at him, long and hard, really taking him in. “You don’t get nearly enough credit. You know that, right? You’re bloody brilliant, and all anyone does is talk about your brother, or Harry Potter, or anyone else around you.” She purposefully left off his father. 

He shrugged. “I do not care so much vot people say about me.” 

“Well, you’re gonna do great with the Cannons. People are gonna love you—as soon as they see what you can do, and get to know who you are… I promise. It’s gonna be great. You’ll be great.” 

He put his hands on her hips, his eyes closed. He pressed his forehead to hers, breathing her air, being close. It reminded her of his behavior as a Granian, the way he nuzzled close without speaking, as though sensing her by the vibrations of the air around her. 

“Is zhat speech for me or for you?” 

She scoffed. “Shut up and kiss me goodbye, you jerk.”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

“What if magical and non-magical law enforcement shared a physical facility?” 

Harry had thrown it out as an option during his inaugural meeting of the Integration Advisory Board. It had seemed outlandish at the time, unfeasible. How would muggle constables share an office with Aurors and Hit Wizards without rending the International Statute of Secrecy into bite-sized pieces they’d all be spoon-fed in Azkaban? The idea was scrapped. 

Then Kate called from the Prime Minister’s office. There was a building under construction—a new center for constables in downtown London with all the accoutrements: prisoner holding cells, an armory, indoor firing range, a gym, parking, and a massive secure room for their computer servers. The building was a sky-scraper, twenty-three stories tall. 

The rub was, the constables and their toys only needed floors one through six to operate. Floors seven and up had been leased to various businesses and corporations. Now thanks to zoning issues, every lease had to be terminated, the city petitioned, and the zones re-made to allow for commercial businesses in addition to law enforcement. This process could take upwards of a year, meanwhile seventeen floors were doomed to remain vacant and unprofitable. 

A solution was proposed: The Ministry of Magic could sign a lease for those floors. Susan Wood’s growing HR & Magi-Muggle Integration Department would begin creating files and backgrounds for every member of Magical Law Enforcement and their immediate families within the existing muggle law enforcement software, so that by the time the Aurors and Hits and their administrators moved into the seventh floor and up, they might pass themselves off as a specialized division of Britain’s Security Service, MI5. They could begin operating in conjunction and in full cooperation with muggle policing authorities in as little as two weeks. As soon as the drywall was up and the carpet installed, they could move in. It might even be sooner, depending on how fast Susan and her team could make those records. Kingsley authorized an additional thirty people be hired to make it happen. 

Susan Wood and her deputy Hermione Granger were named joint-heads of the massive, ground-breaking project. 

Day one of the data migration from parchment records to digital, Hermione followed Harry home to Grimmauld Place, throwing herself on the mercy of his wine cellar. Draco got her so trashed she slept in one of the guest rooms, showered, and returned to work with Harry the next morning… after the boys pumped her full of espressos. She re-wore her pencil skirt from the day before and borrowed one of Nebojsa’s loudly-printed silk shirts, along with his black eyeliner… which Harry wouldn’t say to her face was an incredibly fetching look for her, but he certainly thought it. 

Ron made sure she got home to her worried parents the next night, explaining just how critical a project she’d been trusted with by the Minister of Magic himself. He was incredibly proud of her, though he didn’t always understand the details of her work. But he tried. Ron was learning an entirely new culture, the same as Hermione and Harry had during their first few years at Hogwarts. 

By day four, Harry discovered Mione and Dima covertly smoking cigarettes together in the empty lobby upstairs, ashing into the defunct floo fireplaces. Hermione claimed that smokers had an excuse to leave their offices every few hours and no one would think anything was the matter. Dima lit her another black-papered cigarette.

Susan Wood was spotted having fallen asleep  _in_  the lift, wearing sweatpants and no makeup: a pair of Unspeakables kindly Side-Alonged her home and got her to bed to avert her falling asleep on public transportation and getting mugged. She started packing caffeine pills in her safety briefcase. 

Between days six and nine, Harry suspected both women of sleeping in their offices. Nebojsa brought Hermione cassettes of orthodox monks chanting to help her remain calm. Dima gave her Blind Guardian albums, so that her officemates began to suspect she was schizophrenic when she’d switch from one to the other, even with the door closed. Sometimes especially with the door closed, because they could hear her screaming at her computer, with either religious chanting or German Similarian death metal playing in the background. They suspected she was trying to summon a higher power to get them out of their mess with the records. No one outside of HR knew how bad it was because no one else had a computer, or the access codes to the muggle constabulary software. 

On day ten, Harry and Ron volunteered to be sent down to Human Resources as test subjects, to examine their records and see if their information made the journey unscathed by error. That was Hermione’s nightmare word: error. Fear of mistakes plagued her Hogwarts years, and now she was mounting a project which would be experienced in some degree by all of magical Great Britain at some point in the next few years. 

They stood in her office, a small room with a small fake window she’d enchanted to look like the white cliffs of northern France. Harry hoped she wasn’t fantasizing about throwing herself off of them. Her hair smelt a bit like Dima’s clove cigarettes, which she tried to cover up with a spritz of apple blossom perfume she kept on her desk, but it didn’t quite work. She ended up smelling like someone had been smoking Gryffindor Common Room in her office the night before—sugary sweets, apples, cloves and smoke, with a hint of salty chalk in the air which made Harry look back at the cliffs increasingly wary, as though he could smell them mixed with the cigarettes and the perfume and the sleep deprivation. 

Their records were a train wreck. Ron became a fifty-eight year-old Squib called Owen, no last name, with the boxes for both genders checked, and they couldn’t be unchecked. Harry had four wives in the system, all named Dragan Radic, and a son called 01000101-01010010-01010010-01001111-01010010, who was, apparently, four years old. And incarcerated. At the secure facility for the criminally insane which they’d manufactured to represent Azkaban… though they couldn’t find any supporting record to tell them  _what_  Harry’s fictitious four-year-old had done to land himself there. 

They deleted plural-gendered Owen, and deleted Harry James Potter with the four male-wives and murderous four-year-old. They started over, typing the information from their files, checking it over for any mistakes, and then saving the record. For good measure they then logged out of the system, restarted Hermione’s computer, logged back into the system, and checked the files for Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. 

Owen was back. As was Harry’s polygamy problem and his demon spawn.

“You see?!” Hermione wailed. “I’m not crazy!” 

“No, you’re not,” agreed Harry, staring at the screen. He’d used computers plenty of times—he used to play Dudley’s games whenever the Dursleys were away, and Leon’s Field Ops crew kept their records digitally. He knew enough about the technology to decisively say when something was completely messed up—and this was royally fucked in a way he couldn’t explain any better than Hermione or Susan. 

Ron got frustrated, deleting his record and trying the same thing all over again. “I. Don’t. Know.” He enunciated angrily with each key he hit, using only his pointer fingers to tap the keys. He was the slowest typist Harry had ever seen… probably because Ron had never touched a keyboard or typewriter, let alone a computer before that day. “What. We. Are. Doing. Wrong.” 

Every time they saved their records, they came back as though they’d traveled through a meat grinder, a Sunday crossword puzzle, and a Translation Charm performed by a drunk person using someone else’s wand. Nobody’s records were right no matter what the did. 

Since the day their project began, Susan and Hermione received regular, concerned phone calls from muggles called Database Administrators who wanted to know why they were adding and deleting so many file packages, and why those packages had so many strings of “incomplete code.” 

Hermione began to cry softly. Neither of them noticed at first, staring blearily at the screen as she’d done for so many hours, trying to make sense of the senseless. She was silent, the fat wet tears confined to her eyes as she refused to let them fall to her cheeks and be seen by the world. It was her shoulders vibrating, hitching, which tipped them off. Each of them took up a sentinel post at her side, holding her. 

“It’ll get better, ‘Mione,” Ron told her smoky hair. “I know it will. You’re so smart and so amazing. You can figure anything out, even this 01001 bollocks.”

Harry looked at a legend for something called Binary Code which was pinned to Hermione’s office wall by a Sticking Charm, one of dozens of little reminders and notes to herself. While she cried into Ron’s shoulder, Harry pieced together that his imaginary four year old son’s name was ERROR, in all caps. Not sure whether this was useful debugging information or if it would just make Hermione cry more, he kept it to himself, instead voicing a different idea. 

“What if you used the recruits as a test sample instead of trying to do all of law enforcement at once?” he said. “We’re the smallest sub-group of the department, so there’s less data to manage, and you can test how certain things work. And instead of your team entering our records, we can do it ourselves. We have to teach everyone to use computers, anyway, so we might as well start by having the recruits type their own information into the database. Then you can blame the mistakes on us, and not HR Integration.” 

Hermione sniffed loudly. “I love you, Harry,” she sobbed. Because at that moment she felt that everything was her fault, and Harry was offering to take the heavy mantle of blame from her shoulders. 

“Uh, one more idea, here,” Ron told her hair. “What if… we tried bringing a computer to this new office building, plugging it in,” he knew that was an important part of using a computer, though he couldn’t explain why. “And entering the data from there?”

Hermione brought this idea to Susan Wood, whose scream of triumph could be heard two floors up. Aurors came running, thinking someone had been murdered. 

Ronald Weasley had found a proof for the metaphorical bug in their system, which had been throwing the whole thing off. Just as electronic devices struggled to function under the oppressive magical field of Hogwarts, so too did larger machines like computers—and even, Hermione discovered, scientific calculators—as they would not perform properly when in proximity to the Ministry of Magic. Something about the place being the site of quintillions of spells cast over hundreds of years, and the unknowable experimentations and research performed in the Department of Mysteries. Some poetic “magic in the air” caused the computers to write incorrect code to their hard drives, muddying all of the hard work of Hermione and her HR team. 

Hermione tested the theory by bringing a computer out of the Ministry. She brought one home one night, connected to the secure government database through her family’s land-line internet connection, and entered a few records. When she checked them the next day (after smoking a cigarette and listening to some Gregorian chant, freaking out her parents in the process of her new superstitions surrounding the project), the records were perfectly fine. 

So she proved it a few more times, going to various locations where she could access the database and make changes. The problem was irrefutably determined to be the old magic floating around the Ministry. To make integration work, they had to first integrate—leave the Ministry premises—which was a difficult concept to sell to the Integration Advisory Board comprised overwhelmingly of witches and wizards unfamiliar with muggle technology, plus Harry, Susan Wood, and Prime Minister Tony Blair. 

Harry found a way to explain the problem to the board after there was a sudden downpour one morning, and Nebojsa came home from morning vespers with runny eyeliner despite having an umbrella. His wet, ruined makeup reminded Harry of Hermione crying, which sparked his idea. 

“Imagine,” Harry coached the other board members. “That you’re writing on a piece of parchment. That’s essentially how we get our information into this muggle repository—we write information into the software. But as you’re writing, it start to rain. The ink on your parchment gets wet and begins to bleed, so no one can read what you’ve written. That’s what’s happening when the HR group tries to work right now. The rain is the presence of strong magic within the Ministry building. For HR to be successful, we need to move them and their computers to a location with very little magical history or activity—we need to get them out of the rain. Until we move them, all of their work will be ruined. The same for anyone who’s going to be using these computers to communicate or to store their own information, like case files or notes. Anyone who will be using a computer going forward must move to the new location for those computers to function, and we’ll keep this new location as low-magic as possible to prevent any future data corruption. Make sense?”

 

 

 

 

Upon receiving approval to move forward, Susan told Hermione she had absolute faith in her ability to oversee the implementation on-site. Then Susan had one of her brothers Apparate her directly to a spa in Bermuda for the next four days. She also bought a second four-day spa package which she gifted to Hermione, for her to use anytime after Susan got back. 

“Botox,” Susan told Hermione before she left. “Closest thing the muggles have to a Time Turner for your face. When I come back, it’ll be like this whole thing,” she gestured to a frown line on her forehead, “never even happened.” 

And so on day thirteen, one day ahead of schedule, Hermione Granger, Interim Acting Director of The Department of Human Resources and Magi-Muggle Integration,  lead her team of fifty administrators, and the Law Enforcement Recruit class of 2001, into their new building on Fenchurch Street in downtown London. 

It was a barely-finished construction site. There were buckets and tools stored in the corners of rooms. One of the two Auror levels had no ceiling, the wires and ducts and fireproof insulation all exposed. The majority of their furniture hadn’t been delivered. Light switches didn’t work. They walked through their new space, all dressed in their professional muggle attire, wands concealed, looking at each other like something had again written incorrectly to the hard drive and gone horribly, horribly awry.

Harry handed Hermione his mobile. “I have Kate Walker’s direct line,” he told her. “Use it. Ask her to make a threatening phone call to the contractors to get them back here, finish the ceilings, make the lights work, and get their tools and shit out of here. Then the furniture company to deliver. We’ll get some people down to the seventh floor and start running the elevators as shuttles for the workers.” 

The seventh floor was to be their lobby, the single point of entry to the fully-integrated arm of Magical Law Enforcement. Soon they would have armed guards checking the names and credentials of every person who entered. For all purposes, they would look and behave as though they were responsible for the safety and security of all Great Britain. Because, in a way, they were. It didn’t feel like it just yet, but they had to act as though. That was how magic worked; in order to manifest, you first had to believe.

 

 

 

 

By lunch time they had a conference room set up with sufficient tables and chairs for the recruits. New computers were delivered: MacBook laptops, two to a table. With the facility back on-track—thanks to a tersely worded telephone call from Kate Walker, Secretary to The Prime Minister—the recruits were going to have a computer lesson. They sat down to learn typing, documents and email, and be introduced to the internet. 

The muggle-borns and half-bloods like Harry would be fine. It was a refresher for them. But for some of the purebloods in the room, this was like jet pilot school. 

There weren’t enough computers for everyone. They were still waiting for more to be delivered. Everyone had to share for now, partnering up. Today’s first task was to set up their email profiles so that they could send and receive mail—not just with each other, but with muggle government agents as well. Soon, all of law enforcement as well as HR would be using muggle email to communicate amongst themselves, reserving post owls for formal communications to the magical community. It was going to save thousands of gallons each year in owl-dropping-cleaning alone, not to mention reducing the number of birds suspiciously flying up to the tenth and fifteenth floors of their building, tapping on the glass to beg for admittance. Only a few windows would be charmed to allow birds through—it was necessary to still be able to receive owls in the office in the event of an emergency. Telephones and emails would still be faster, but not everyone had access to them. They had to keep the magical technology even if it was redundant, in order to best serve everyone. 

The city of London surrounded them—other tall buildings, and the Thames River snaking through the concrete, glass and steel, late summer sunlight shining off the water. It was so bright, so free, in that high building almost touching the clouds. Their new office was the opposite of the Ministry. Rather than closed darkness, they had nothing but windows and light, nothing to hide. 

Unspeakables were scheduled to come and place Discretion Charms on the windows so that muggles couldn’t see what happened inside or take photographs through the glass.  Until those charms were up, they needed to be on their absolute best behavior. No wands out unless absolutely necessary. They were all getting a crash course in appearing mundanely muggle. 

Harry moved to stand at the back of the conference room, knowing he would be able to set up his email in a matter of minutes and wanting to give others a chance to learn before him. 

Harry looked around the bright, airy room, seeing everyone work together one more time to figure things out. Karine and Marie couldn’t connect to the internet. Nebojsa had to show people how to get a Cyrillic alphabet or other special characters mapped to their keyboard so that they could properly spell their names. Muggle-born Roger Malone was no help at all: once he had the internet at his fingertips, all he wanted to show anyone was funny pictures of muggle animals. It started when no one believed him that the platypus was a real creature, then Chinese crested dogs, and it only devolved from there. 

Harry laughed a little. And then suddenly his shoulders were shaking; he was crying, and he didn’t understand why. 

Hermione’s arm slipped around his middle, her cheek against his back. “Harry, what’s wrong?” 

He gasped a breath. “I’m… happy?” The last time he’d cried from being happy was his wedding day. He rarely cried, even when he’d wanted to—something he attributed to Voldemort’s horcrux. He used to get angry a lot and raise his voice when he experienced any emotion at all. Crying was probably better, all things considered, for both himself and the people in his life. Crying was healthy, normal, after everything he'd survived. 

He turned, shielding himself from anyone else’s view. He didn’t want to be disruptive. His hand found the back of Hermione’s head, holding her to his chest. “His Serene Highness Dmitry Ionescue, Prince of the Russian Empire, is teaching Ron Weasley of Ottery St. Catchpole how to use a Mac—a fucking Mac—and I just… I just….” 

She squeezed him, not saying anything. She was probably stunned. 

Harry whispered. “It’s over. It’s actually over. And I can hardly believe this gets to be my life now, and not some heaven-dream.” 

Hermione sniffed, too. Then she pulled away, which was a strange feeling for Harry. Hermione’s hugs always went on a long time—she often clobbered him, scared for his safety, or having not seen him in a long time, holding him tightly. This was a hug to console him; he barely recognized it, probably because he never allowed himself to need or accept consolation. She leaned back, one hand stroking over his tie, fussing with his tie clip as a distraction for her fingers. 

“I don’t want to muss you,” she said. “You look so… sharp.” She meant it as a compliment, but there was something else behind her word choice. She’d never seen him well-dressed until recently. All through school he hadn’t cared much for how he looked. Now he had the time to consider what his appearance said about him… and his past choices said he didn’t care for himself very much. That too needed to change. 

He’d told Draco he wanted to present himself respectably at work… and especially today, his first day at the new premises, he wanted to set the right tone. Looking himself over with fresh eyes, he realized with a jolt that Draco had dressed him like Lucius—minus the cane and the pompous attitude. Contrast-collar shirt, patterned silk tie in a wide knot, wool trousers and a matching fitted vest with a satin back beneath his his jacket, completing the proper three-piece suit. He wore detailed leather dress shoes, and a small silver tie clip engraved with a Snitch, a subtle nod to the position both Potters played at school. Because this was what Draco thought one was supposed to wear when going to the Ministry on business. He’d shifted the palate to compliment Harry’s darker coloring, and his selections in belts and ties was perhaps more youthful but… yeah, he was dressed like Lucius Malfoy. And aside from the mental association making Harry’s stomach twitch, he thought he looked about right for his new life… especially if he got called back to Downing Street. 

He supposed that, after six years of seeing him run about in mostly hand-me-downs from Dudley and then the Weasley boys, this was a major sartorial shift. Hermione noted the changes he’d made, the way he dressed at work versus at home or going out now that he was in charge of himself. He’d started acting like a grown man a while ago; his clothing choices had merely caught up to the life he led now. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s still me under the suit,” and he pulled her back in for another hug, her forehead against the knot in his tie. 

Hermione sniffed against him, this time not from emotion but smelling his person now he’d made it clear it was fine for her to get close. “You smell divine. Is that cologne?” 

He shrugged. “Beard oil.”

“You moisturize your beard, Harry?” She raised a critical eyebrow. “Wow. You  _are_ gay.” 

He tipped his head, preparing himself not to flip out about his sexuality being mislabeled for the umpteenth time, and instead launch into a speech about why stereotyping personal grooming habits to sexual preference was unacceptable. 

Hermione could sense him rearing up. She burst out laughing. “Oh my God, Harry. I’m kidding! You should’ve seen your face….”

Apparently he was still sensitive, or maybe just having an emotional day. Even that was a good sign. He wasn’t choking things off anymore. He was allowing himself to feel.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Law Enforcement recruits were subjected to physical testing. Harry had expected it sooner, to weed out anyone who couldn’t stand up to the physical rigors. Apparently the standard testing was put off until they had a gym for themselves at the new facility. 

The recruits were called down one by one when it was their turn. Harry waited outside the gym in athletic shorts, a tee and trainers. Dima had gone before him, and was finishing as Harry stood in the hall. 

The examiners were Pavan Patil and Luca Bisset, with Penelope Clearwater taking notes on a clipboard using a muggle pen. The rule for the new facility was not to use magic unless it was absolutely necessary, for the sake of the computers. They did most everything the muggle way, from writing with pens instead of quills to taking the elevators and stairs rather than Apparate between floors. Even the locker rooms had muggle hair dryers, and they heated up their lunches in microwaves. 

Harry felt oddly at-home making a cup of coffee in the break room, opening a packet of sugar and pouring in cream from the fridge all-the-while discussing quidditch or the much-anticipated new album from The Weird Sisters. 

Harry was used to blending magical and muggle manners. For others, it was a stretch. HR was assigned with combating infractions of the necessary-magic-only rule. Nobody had gotten fired yet, but a few supervisors got a talking-to from Susan and Hermione, explaining that a little magic here-and-there seemed harmless, but if left unchecked it would irreparably mess up the computing for the entire facility—including the muggle constables working downstairs—destroying the integration project, costing many people their jobs, and risking an infraction of the International Statute of Secrecy. They had to tread carefully. The eyes of the entire magical world were upon them; they had to show it could be done. 

Still, it was hilarious when Freddie Hay-Boggis walked into her office one morning to find the room turned by a quarter: her carpet, desk and chairs were on the wall to her left, the floor was a wall, and the wall to her right was the ceiling. She lost it, shouting so loud even the Hit Wizards a floor above heard her. They never did figure out who did it. Harry had a feeling it was Dmitry—the master-prankster of Durmstrang, who didn’t like Hay-Boggis once she started implying Dima would make a good Auror. Dima didn’t want to work for her; the intense structure and desk-time of the Aurors didn’t appeal to him. He seemed far happier in the gym, hitting things or throwing heavy objects… or smoking a blunt and painting late into the night. Pranking Hay-Boggis made him feel better. 

A week later people were still chucking about it. It took three Unspeakables to undo the single hex, which was pretty impressive. 

Harry could hear the clunk of weights on a machine smacking, metal-on-heavy-metal, as Dima was put through his paces. Harry caught sight of him sweaty, a towel around his neck, headed off to the locker room to shower and change back into his muggle clothes. As recruits, they hadn’t earned uniforms yet. Everyone was expected to have muggle clothes at-the-ready, even if they Apparated to work, just in case. Most people wore muggle clothes when not in uniform. 

Patil and Bisset had Harry run a quarter mile on a treadmill—no worries there, as Harry regularly jogged five or six miles for fun, to Hampstead Heath and back. He knew his running score would be more than acceptable: he managed in under two minutes, and he wasn’t sprinting. They checked his flexibility—he could nearly touch his toes, if only his legs were a bit shorter or his fingers were longer. Then he was run through a couple of machines to check his one-rep max for different muscle groups. 

Harry stopped at the bench press. There were a lot of plates on the bar—a quick assessment put it at four hundred pounds, maybe more. That was Dima’s max single lift. Harry wanted to test something. 

“Just leave it,” he said to Luca Bisset, as the man was about to remove some weight before he had Harry lift. 

Bisset’s eyebrows went up. “Really? You’re sure?” Beside him, Penelope Clearwater looked nervously between Harry and the heavy weights. She thought he wasn’t big enough to manage that much. She’d known him as a first year at Hogwarts, so in her mind he was probably still that little kid. 

“Yeah,” Harry said, faking a confidence which wasn’t with him. He wanted to try out Dima’s theory that he was just as strong, and what better time than with two magical spotters? Patil and Bisset positioned themselves at either side of the bar, ready to catch it if it proved to be too much. They could always use magic if something bad happened. Harry wanted to know. 

Harry laid down, pressing his shoulders into the padded bench, hanging his head off the end for a second to loosen up his neck. He slid himself into place, hands on the bar above him. He wasn’t sure whether or not he could do it… but he was ready to embarrass himself in front of Patil and Bisset if he couldn’t made it. Like when he played quidditch or sparred in martial arts, it felt good to be tested sometimes. It was a chance to push, and to surprise yourself. Failure and mistakes were just things to learn from; and while he still didn’t like them any more than the next person, he didn’t let himself get mad over a mistake. He learned and moved on. 

He got the bar up with one good heave, locking his elbows at the top. The tricky part was lowering it back down to his chest without smothering himself. He had to bring it down to his chin, then back up to count as one rep.

His forearms corded, wrists protesting, joints not used to the weight. He lifted heavy on occasion, but not like this. 

“Got it, Potter?” asked Bisset, looking nervous.

“…Yeah,” Harry grunted out. Four hundred pounds hovered over his chest, held up entirely by the strength of his arms and shoulders. Patil had his wand out in case Harry screwed up, ready to vanish the bar before it rolled out of his hands onto his neck, which would surely kill him. 

He pushed up on his exhale, eyes closed, his face screwed up. But he did it. 

Patil and Bisset took the bar out of his hands, resting it back where it belonged. Harry just laid there, breathing hard. 

“That’s our new record,” said Penelope. 

Harry’s eyes opened. “Huh?” 

“We rank all active officers by the percentage of your body mass you’re able to lift,” she explained, pointing to a paper pinned to the wall behind the machine. Harry hadn’t noticed before. She did some quick math on her clip board. “You just lifted 244% of your weight.” 

Harry shrugged. “That’s… pretty good, right?” 

“We expect a Hit Wizard to bench one-and-a-half times their weight,” Bisset explained. “Some of the best athletes in the world can bench double.” 

Harry sat up, turning to look at the paper on the wall behind him. Dmitry was at the top, with a lift of 195%. Beneath him were a few retired pro quidditch players like Alexi Petyushkin and Hálfdan Jørgensen. Those guys were huge, well over six and a half feet tall and as wide as doorframes. Yet somehow, when it came to relative numbers, Harry was stronger than them… which didn’t seem right to him.

 

 

 

 

He caught Dima fastening his robe in the locker room. The Romanian wizard was freshly showered and about to leave. 

“Hey, um…” Harry asked, inelegant. “Any chance you fudged your bench press?” 

Dima’s eyebrows pinched. He didn’t understand the idiom. 

Harry explained. “Did you throw it? Lift less than you normally do?” 

“No. A hundred ninety kilos iz my best. Vhy?” 

Harry wanted to say ‘nothing’ and leave it. But his results were going to be on the sheet. The next time Dima went to the gym, he’d see it and know. His instinct was to hide information even from his friends—a bad habit he needed to break himself of. 

“Well,” Harry’s hand went to the back of his neck, an old nervous tick he hadn’t outgrown. “I just lifted yours.” 

Dima didn’t look surprised, like Bisset or Patil. He just… smiled. 

“You don’t think that’s kinda… insane?” 

“Insane?” Dmitry repeated. “No. Perhaps zome magical influence?” 

“A spell? Wouldn’t that be cheating?” Harry glanced back towards the gym, wondering if he ought to go back and ask to nullify his performance—to have  _Finite Incantatum_  cast on himself a half-dozen times and try again, to see if his results differed. 

Dima folded his impressive arms across his equally impressive chest. Dima had an extra twenty kilos of pure muscle. Harry still thought it was mathematically impossible that the two of them, so physically different, would be able to push around the same weight. “Not zo much a spell as… Harry, yoo died. Zhen yoo came back. Zhat… it  _does zomezhing_  to a man. Zhings ve do not understand.” 

Dima was saying that horcrux magic was the source of Harry’s strength. It was true he felt more physically fit now than he had last year, despite having been in essentially a military boot-camp under Leon’s direction. He felt more in-shape now—working out a few days a week, and leisurely, more for fun than anything else—than when he’d trained eight hours a day, pre-horcrux. Dmitry could be onto something. 

“What about Nebojsa?” Harry asked, knowing Dima would be more forthcoming about his boyfriend’s time under the Death Eaters’ torture than Nebojsa himself. “Did he get stronger after? I mean, the Death Eaters killed him and brought him back, too, right? A bunch of times?” 

Golden eyes searched the ceiling, looking for proper words to express what he knew. “Zhat… vos different. Vhen zhey kill him, zhey bring him back…” he put one palm against the back of his other hand, his fingers pointing upwards, and banged his joined hands against his breast bone a few times, producing a deep  _thump_ -ing sound. 

Harry got it. “CPR. They restarted his heart manually?” 

“ _Da_. Zhis is… not how yoo came back. Iz different method, different result. Not zhe same, zo ve should not compare.” 

“Fair,” Harry sighed, more disappointed than anything else. He wanted to find some connection, some reasonable explanation for everything which happened then, and the new details they seemed to uncover each day. He wanted these puzzle pieces to fit together; but maybe they didn’t. 

He didn’t see any logic behind coming back stronger after having died, returning to life through a horcrux. When Voldemort did it seventeen years ago, he existed as a glimmer, a spirit. He floated for years without a physical form, until he eventually possessed Quirrell. He managed to create his baby-like form surviving on unicorn blood in the Forbidden Forest, but it took Harry’s blood for him to have an adult body again. There had to be something about Harry himself, some unknown marker of strength, which allowed Voldemort to create that form, a factor which now granted Harry this super-human strength. The process of dying and surviving through a horcrux in Draco unlocked this latent ability, the thing Voldemort had needed in his blood. He couldn’t explain it any other way.  

Everything Voldemort did was to avoid his own destruction. Coming back as a spirit left him weak and vulnerable. When Harry came back, it was to his own body; after a few days in a coma, he emerged stronger than ever, physically larger. He was the opposite of Voldemort. That stark difference convinced him that there was something fundamentally different about their magic. Voldemort’s horcrux left him barely alive, while Harry’s only made him stronger, faster, more powerful than ever. 

If they were both potions, then Harry had some ingredient or technique Voldemort had lacked, or missed, or was incapable of. What he experienced was fundamentally different than Voldemort, because of their intentions as much as their magic. 

Harry brought himself back. “Thanks for the info,” he said, acknowledging the sensitive details Dima had shared with him. “I’m still trying to piece this all together. If I’m gonna have a chance at controlling it, I have to understand it.” 

“Of course,” Dima gave a knowing little nod—Nebojsa was a painfully private guy. It was easier on him to be left out of the discussion; especially after contact with Harry’s magic had fucked him up so badly, a little distance was a good thing. Dmitry’s expression turned cautious, raising an eyebrow. “But… perhaps ve hit zhe pads a bit? Before ve start combat training. Yoo don’t vant to accidentally hurt zomeone.” 

He was implying Harry ought to further assess his strength, getting more comfortable with his abilities before going to spar; after knocking a guy out in a single hit, that was a very valid point. Being able to lift two-and-a-half times his body weight put a hell of a lot of power behind his strike. A little self-assessment would only help, especially if he worked with Dima, who was at least as strong as he was. 

A nervous laugh snuck out from Harry’s lips. “Yeah. Good point. Let’s do that.”

 

 

 

 

Toweling off after his own shower, Harry once again had company in the locker room. Ron slumped in, throwing himself down on one of the benches, dejected. 

“Hey,” said Harry. 

Ron kept his eyes closed. “Harry… did they, uh… did they put you on a diet?” 

Harry cleaned his glasses with the corner of his towel. “No?” 

Silent, Ron handed over a little booklet detailing what he was supposed to do. 

Harry flipped through it. “Did they say what they want? I mean, are you supposed to lose weight, or gain muscle?” 

Ron covered his face, groaning. “Lose weight, I guess. I’m fat.” 

“You’re not fat,” Harry countered. “Maybe you don’t see it but… I think they want you to move up to the Hit Wizards.” 

Ron’s eyes shot open. “Really? You think that?” 

“Yeah. Nash has been watching you. And he’s not a subtle guy. I think  _this_ ,” he chucked the booklet back at Ron, “is their way of seeing if you’re up to it, if you’ve got what it takes…” He hesitated, not wanting to push. “If you want it.” 

Ron looked himself over, his hand resting uneasy on his stomach. He wasn’t heavy; Ron was in better shape than an average bloke, perhaps twenty percent body fat with good muscle underneath that. His only exercise had been quidditch and walking around the castle; he’d never trained in a gym as far as Harry knew. It wouldn’t be hard for Ron to cut about a stone and a half, achieving the leaner, more toned body-type of a Hit Wizard. 

He felt it as Ron’s gaze went from his own physique to Harry’s exposed one, lingering on the definition of his back and shoulders, watching the way his muscles flexed under his skin as he reached into his locker for a stick of deodorant. The curse of being a Seeker was always knowing when someone had eyes on you. Ron hadn’t seen him in a locker room since Hogwarts, pre-horcrux. His body now was a bit different… something Ron envied. 

His mate let out a long breath. “I could… maybe… look more like you?” 

Harry put down his deodorant, giving Ron his full attention. Ron noticeably gulped when he saw Harry in a towel from the front. 

“This,” he gestured down his front—defined abs and hard pecs under dark hair, “is a combination of a year of intense training, sometimes eight hours at a time, six days a week, the right diet, dedication and time, plus genetics.” And, maybe, horcrux magic. But he left that out, saying instead, “I worked my ass off. And I’m naturally thin. I’m not saying it’s not possible for you. But… don’t compare yourself to me, you know? I absolutely think you could lean up and get stronger; if that’s what you want and you’re willing to put in some serious work, then in a year or two you could be as jacked as Dima.” Ron’s expression brightened considerably. He liked that possibility. “Regardless, I think you’d make a really good Hit Wizard.” 

Ron sat up, elbows on his knees, considering. “So… what’s the first step?” 

“Come to Grimmauld one night,” Harry suggested. “Talk it over with Dima and Misha—they’re basically bodybuilders. They know even more than I do. If you wanna do it right, ignore that crap from the Ministry and do exactly what the Ionescue brothers tell you.” 

“They’d do that for me?” He looked sheepish. 

“Of course. You’re my best mate. And they love this stuff; seriously, it’s hard to get ‘em to shut up sometimes. Misha’s cutting for the Cannons right now—you can jump in with what he’s doing a drop a few kilos before our exams, even.” 

Spirits restored, Ron got up, throwing the Ministry booklet across the room, landing neatly in the garbage. “How’s tonight?”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The surprise Gawain Robards had promised the Law Enforcement Department turned out to be an addition to their mandatory certifications. One more hoop to jump through was hardly a happy surprise for an already understaffed office, but they swallowed it down. One more test wasn’t that big of a deal. 

Aurors were expected to pass a series of exams on a quarterly basis, with an annual performance review. For Hit Wizards, the tests were more rigorous and frequent; Hits were expected to re-certify each time they went on active duty, approximately once every ten days. They had to pass a cognitive assessment presented as a series of memory games, a ten question exam of randomly selected laws and procedure, and a reflex check—which was Harry’s forte, as it was more or less a muggle paintball gun mounted to an advanced random-motion turret. The officer had to successfully dodge or magically deflect the projectiles without getting splattered. 

Hits were also required to check into a Ministry gym at least four hours every week to maintain their physical fitness. Many came to work out on their off days given the rigors of their ongoing training as well as the mental and physical toll of a deployment. At least when Hits or Aurors saw action, there was a mandatory cool-down period of forty-eight hours before they could be called back into the office for official business. Hits were known to show up in the gym the day after being released from St. Mungo’s—they were considered the elite for a reason. Nothing stopped them. 

The new step to re-certification was a relatively new invention, a machine introduced over the summer by a magi-manufacturer in South Korea. The machine tested a sample of a witch or wizard's blood and was able to identify a range of known spells recently effecting that person—like Glamours or a Cheering Charm—as well as anything worrisome, such as the Imperious Curse. It could pick out basic potions in your blood as well, so if you drank a Hangover Potion that morning the Ministry would know about it. 

This was a game-changer for trials of Death Eaters and their alleged supporters. Anyone claiming to have acted under the influence of the Imperius Curse could volunteer their blood to be tested. If they’d been under the curse recently, it would show up on their results. So long as a person was able to submit a blood sample in time, they could prove their innocence. And anyone who refused to submit a sample for testing within the detection window was likely lying. 

Fittingly, the invention was called Piui Seongsil, which translated to ‘Sincerity In Blood.’ Around the office it was quickly shortened to just Seongsil, which was easier to pronounce as ‘SONG-shea.’ 

Piui Seongsil also attempted to identify something of a wizard's overall power, using a numeric scale. A muggle's blood run through the machine would score a 0, naturally. Squibs scored from 1 to 10, though sometimes as high as 15. Magical people would express a 20 or higher. The average clerk or administrative worker had a baseline of 45, while an Auror might be in the 60's or higher. A Hit Wizard was expected to score at least in the 80's, though many came in over a hundred. 

The manufacturing company were gifted relics of famous witches and wizards to test. Quentin Trimble, author of  _The Dark Arts: A Guide to Self-Protection_  and a former Headmaster of Hogwarts, scored a 164. Famed Seer Cassandra Vablatsky—murdered during the war by at-large Death Eater Antonin Dolohov—had some of her blood owled by her grieving family; she received a mark of 189. And someone very creepily had a sample of Gellert Grindewald’s blood, which ranked a solid 200. 

If the Ministry had some of Voldemort’s blood hidden somewhere—and Harry guessed they did—nobody was saying what that result was. No good would come from that knowledge, only unnecessary panic. 

According to the team who invented the Seongsil, there was no maximum score. The machine also didn't compare one person to another, or have any way of keeping information on people. It was a blind test, with no way to know whose blood it was examining or a method by which to retain information after a sample was examined and used up. Drawing comparisons or compilations of data was up to the owners of the equipment, as the company had no intention of collecting any data on those who used their invention. 

Schools were buying the Seongsil as well as various governments. Puddlemere United fans had started a fundraiser in Diagon Alley to buy one for their team. There were already plans within the British Ministry to start offering the Piui Seongsil as a service to the public for a small fee; people would be curious to have their children tested to see how powerful they might be expected to be. Harry hoped people might use the results to nurture magic in kids who scored low, not just focus on the kids who scored high. A lot could happen in a person's life, after all. Believing in young people was more important than how they scored on one stupid test. 

The highest publically-confirmed magical score for a British Ministry official was Kingsley Shacklebolt, who got a 136. It was one of the many personal documents he voluntarily released to the public during his campaign for Minister. 

Standing in the Seongsil testing line ahead of Harry were Auror John Pucey and Hit Wizard Sean Moran—the latter of whom Harry guessed might've been an older brother to the Moran who played Beater for Ireland National judging by the similarity of features, body-type, and voice. 

In a rather boisterous conversation, Moran claimed his score was in the 90's. Pucey countered his own score to be a crisp 100, and vowed up and down he'd get a copy to prove it to Moran as long as the man swore to buy him an ale when it was proven true. 

Standing behind Harry was Nebojsa. The Serb leaned against the wall, looking especially pale and miserable. 

" _What’s the matter?_ " Harry hissed, his hand over his mouth, speaking into his friend's hair. No one would hear them, anyway, with the way Moran and Pucey were egging each other on. Covert conversation was more of a standard than a necessity. “ _Don’t like getting your blood drawn or something?_ ” 

Nebojsa shrugged, not making eye contact. "Or zomezhing..." he murmured. 

" _Nervous?_ " 

He nodded.

Harry didn't say anymore. It was Nebojsa's business. If he wanted to talk about it, he would. And Harry was done being the type of asshole who pushed out of mere curiosity. Everyone had a right to their personal boundaries, and respecting limits was part of being a good friend. Harry was determined to get better at being a friend. 

" _To be honest_ ," Harry admitted. " _I'm nervous, too_."  

He had no idea what this crazy new invention might pick up on. Would it be able to see evidence of Voldemort's horcrux in him? Probably not. It was only created to detect magics that most people knew about—the Unforgiveables, personality-altering charms, and benign stuff like someone using a Glamour Charm to effect their looks, like covering up a scar or a pimple, or Transfiguring the color of their hair like Draco did. Harry had nothing to fear. He kept telling himself that as he waited. 

 

 

 

 

Harry sat down at the machine. It was utterly unremarkable in appearance, looking like a tube station ticket-taker; a silver tower, half the width of an average filing cabinet and approximately the same height, with a slit in the top for a strip of parchment soaked in blood to be inserted, and a larger slit in the front where a sheet of results would spit out. There was a small emblem on the front, the Korean-language symbols for Piui Seongsil and the manufacturer’s name which glowed a pleasant floral-yellow color. He understood the color would change from sunny yellow to deep blue when the Seongsil was working, and red if it broke… not unlike a muggle traffic light. 

It was operated by a pleasant-looking witch with an elegant demeanor, flowing blonde hair, and very cool, soft hands. She introduced herself as Ophelia, and Harry guessed her to be in her fifties, though she'd aged quite gracefully. She used a damp towel to wipe his hand clean, then sanitized the tip of one finger with a spell from her wand. She didn't conjure a needle but rather pricked his skin with another lightning-quick spell. Harry didn't even realize he’d been cut until a bubble of blood bloomed from his finger. 

Ophelia soaked a tiny slip of parchment with his blood and fed it into the machine. Then she waited for the results, the symbols shifting to blue as the Seongsil tower hummed faintly. 

"You can heal your finger now," she told him mildly, and he did. 

Her Seongsil spat out a sheet of results. Ophelia's eyebrows rose slightly as the parchment kept coming, listing Harry's attributes. She picked it up to begin reading before it was done being printed, a little quill and ink pot working inside like the magical equivalent of a Xerox. 

Ophelia's eyebrows rose, and she coughed. Her cheeks turned pink as she looked up at him. 

Harry felt his face tighten. "Problem?" 

She gave him a bracing, thin-lipped sort of smile. "I, uh... I believe you know my son, Ephraim. And his husband Corbin." 

Harry nodded. "Yeah. Congrats, by the way." And, being rather adept at reading upside down, Harry realized her subtle meaning. He saw on his results the words Lubrication Charm and Anal Stretching.  _Shit_. Ophelia was letting him know she was a friend, a safe person for him to be less-than-straight and openly married to a bloke around. Now she knew Harry Potter bottomed, too. She was saying she wouldn't out him or embarrass him because of these test results. She might even be willing to bury it for him. He hadn't known he'd be tested like this when he and Draco fucked last night. 

There were also a few lines listed as Unknown Spells—that would be the soft light around Draco’s hands as he healed him in the shower afterwards. The Seongsil designated their categories as ‘Healing’ and ‘Rapid Injury Recovery.’ That sounded about right. 

He had a few benign spells, too. He noticed a Romanian Translation Charm still active, and the Personal Cooling Charm he’d used after his six o’clock jog, keeping him comfortable through the crowded tube ride to work. He’d taken to commuting, mostly because it was discouraged to Apparate into the Fenchurch office if not absolutely necessary; for people like Nash or the foreigners who lived quite far away, Apparating was the only option. Harry, Dima, and Sia easily took the underground since they wore muggle clothes to work, anyway, and changed if they needed to be in robes or gym clothes later. 

"I can strike this from your record," Ophelia said, "as it's personal and not pertinent to your job performance. We do the same if someone's expecting, or using a Glamour for cosmetic reasons, what-have-you. Private matters. If you know you're being blood-tested, you'll want to have a window of at least eight hours—ten or twelve hours if you can. And there's always the muggle way, or options which don't require magic, of course."

Her smile turned up. She was suggesting Harry Potter give head or a handjob so it wouldn't pop up on the days he had to submit himself to Seongsil testing. Hit Wizards had to re-certify with blood work each time they returned to the field, so he’d be doing this about thirty-five times a year for as long as he was a Hit Wizard, or as long as the Seongsil was policy. 

Ophelia turned back to her machine, waiting. Harry had assumed it was done because the humming stopped, but the way she glared at it made Harry think something wasn't quite right. At least the light was still blue. It hadn’t gone red, so he hadn’t broken it. 

"Waiting on your score, dear," she advised, guessing what he was thinking. "Sometimes it takes a mo. Nothing to fret." 

They sat for what felt like forever, but according to the hands of Harry's watch was nearly two minutes. He stared at his watch, then the silver box, then his watch some more. 

"Does it normally take this long?" Harry tried not to whine. 

"Not normally, no. However, given...." She didn't need to say 'the fact that you defeated Voldemort' because the Seongsil started humming again, writing out a number. It had three digits that Harry could see from the far angle he was sitting at. 

Ophelia pulled the parchment from the machine when it was done. She handed it to him, not saying a word. 

He scored 272.

"Impressive, Mr. Potter." Ophelia managed to keep a neutral face, which Harry found impressive. "I'll remove the personal spells. Would you like your record public or private?" 

"Private, please," Harry responded immediately. He didn't want the general population to know about his score, only those who needed to access his records—like his bosses, or Healers in the case of an emergency.

"Of course," Ophelia nodded politely. "You're all set. Have a nice day." 

"You too," Harry mumbled, dazed, on his way out the door.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Ron and Dima were waiting in one of the open work areas near Ophelia Summerby’s office. This was an Auror floor, and his mates were chatting with a few Auror witches Harry recognized. Ron raised his eyebrows at Harry, inviting him over. They weren’t due in dueling class for another ninety minutes, so there was time to kill. 

"How'd it go?" Ron asked. He’d gotten his blood tested ahead of Moran and Pucey. "Bet your score was off the charts." 

Harry's jaw tightened. He had to consciously separate his molars before he started to grind them, running his tongue over them instead. His score wasn’t something he’d want to talk about in front of other people, especially anyone he didn’t know well. Harry was an intensely private person—especially when it came to his magic. Ron ought to know better. 

"Oh, you know," Harry shrugged, though he didn’t feel anything like ease. 

Ron fell back into quidditch banter with the Aurors, giving Harry and Dima a moment to catch eyes. Harry tried to communicate that Nebojsa was nervous and Dima should go wait for him, to be there when he got out. Harry jerked his chin in the direction of Ophelia Summerby's office, but it may have just looked like he was trying to get his hair out of his face. Dima didn't seem to get the hint. 

Minutes dragged by, leaving Harry to wonder how long it would take for the blood-reading machine to spit out an answer about Nebojsa. Maybe he had things on his results which needed to be removed—personal things like Harry had. Sia could be talking to Ophelia about those. Harry tried not to be the dick who kept glancing at his watch during conversations; instead, he looked at the clock on the wall, conveniently in his line-of-sight over a witch’s head. 

Eight minutes. Then ten. Then fifteen. Then Twenty-two.

He excused himself to the loo and washed his hands for something to do. That was where he bumped into Nebojsa.

The Serb blew into the men’s room, not even seeing Harry, storming right into the first stall and slamming the door behind him. His friend was a blur of black robes and blowing black hair. Harry heard the stall door lock with a silent charm, and he didn't have to guess that Nebojsa did it with a flick of his thin fingers, no wand in his hand. 

" _You okay, brother?_ " Harry asked. He'd meant to say 'mate' but that was the thing about Parseltongue. It wasn't a direct translation, but rather something which came from inside you—from your head, your heart, and your gut. And apparently that was what his guts meant. 

He heard a deep nasal breath, not quite a sigh, rather on the tremulous side. " _Pleasssssse leave me alone. A few minutessss to myssself_." 

" _Yes, of course_ ," Harry acknowledged. " _Would you like me to tell Dima to come later?_ " 

" _No!_ " he said immediately. Then, thinking he may have sounded more sharp than intended, he tacked on, " _Thank you, my heart_." 

Parseltongue again. Even Sia couldn’t hide what was going through him, what Harry being there really meant to him. 

Harry briefly touched the cool door—hoping Nebojsa could feel through the metal that Harry was around if he wanted to talk. He'd obviously learned something from that truth test, or at least had to discuss something which upset him. Nebojsa didn't rattle easily, making Harry’s gut-level worry all the more validated. 

Harry didn't want to drop his hand, didn't want to walk away... but that was what his friend asked for, and he needed to respect that request for privacy. "Always," he said simply, and left.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry was glad to have so many familiar faces in the new office bull pen—that was an adopted term from muggle police work, what they called the common area where the recruits and a dozen or so Hits had their desks: no cubicle walls, plenty of space to move around, and amenities for collaboration like big common tables, white boards with markers, and progress boards for certain open cases. They even had a poster with the Ministry’s ten most wanted Death Eaters at large—information which they’d recently shared with the muggle government, getting the Death Eaters classified on the international registry as a cult-turned-terrorist-organization. It wasn’t difficult, given the recent tragedies to strike in America. The muggles were operating on high-alert. Harry couldn’t blame them, after having multiple government and civilian buildings targeted.

Because of his work on the Ethics Committee and Integration Board, Harry was given an actual office with a desk and a door and everything. It wasn’t terribly large, or on a corner, which he’d insisted on. He wanted a regular office, no frills. It had his desk and MacBook, and two bookshelves which began to fill with training materials. One wall was all windows, looking out over London. Sometimes when he was frustrated or trying to memorize a law or procedure, he’d stare out at the buildings and the Thames, reminding himself how lucky he was to be sitting there. 

Harry left his office as often as he could, walking around, getting to know the new space and his new coworkers in it. Most of the Law Enforcement administrators had moved over to the new facility, and more workers from other departments arrived every day, filling the other floors. The Aurors had three levels to themselves. Last week the Hit Wizards moved in, a few of them settled with the recruits. The space would become theirs once training was finished. 

Harry hadn’t had so many new people to meet since he’d started at Hogwarts. A part of him was excited—this was his chance to start fresh… and he felt like an equal this time, capable in his magic, secure in his self-knowledge, and far more at-ease with his situation in life than he’d been at age eleven. 

In muggle terms, he’d skipped college, having graduated with high honors from Leon Harper’s School of Hard Knocks & Shooting At Things. Oh, and Voldemort, too—Tom Riddle had been like a final exam, on which Draco had helped Harry cheat a little. With experience rather than higher education, Harry stepped directly into his career. Wizards didn’t have much of a concept of advanced education beyond the apprenticeships and on-the-job training received by MediWitches, Healers, and the like. Magical culture was fairly unregulated in that respect; they’d let anybody have a crack at a job to see if they were any good at it. There were so few of them, there was little benefit to being picky. 

Harry propped his office door open, his desk and computer facing the doorway so he could greet anybody who seemed about to stick their head in and say ‘hullo.’ It didn’t take long for others to realize Harry was earnest and welcomed any interruption from his studying or the seemingly endless stream of typing and parchments he’d been subjected to these first few weeks. Redundancy in triplicate; if Harry wrote out his personal information one more time—full name, address, birth date, height, weight, race, wand information, emergency contacts, etc—he was going to throw something. 

The light and uncluttered skyscraper floor which the recruits and Hit Wizards shared had a similar atmosphere to a quidditch locker room before a game—happy voices, good-natured jokes, the occasional prank, and a general air of getting things done with a positive disposition. A least that was how Gryffindor’s locker room had been in Harry’s experience.

Their crew was pretty evenly dispersed when it came to representation of Hogwarts houses: Alicia stuck around, and Auror Kate Walker had played Seeker before Harry’s time, representing Gryffindor. Third generation Hollyhead Aideen Griffiths and loud-mouthed Lewys Jenkins had also been Gryffindors. 

From Slytherin, Harry knew of two men for sure: Hit Wizard Jonas Clarke had a picture of him and his mates winning the Hogwarts Cup on his desk, obviously wearing Slytherin green uniforms, and Seathan Nash had been a snake in his day, too. If you stood by the coffee pots in the morning you could hear him talking to anyone who’d listen about his son Brodie who’d started at Hogwarts the week before, sorted into Slytherin just like his dad. 

Roger Malone and Oliver Moon were Hufflepuffs, hoping to become Aurors. Harry kept his eye on Roger, who had what it took to be a Hit Wizard—his muggle father was a Major in the British Army, and trained his son in combat as well as de-escalation tactics. Roger would be the first Hufflepuff to ever become a Hit Wizard, but there were plenty more badgers amongst the Auror crowd upstairs. Roger hadn’t mentioned an interest in testing up and becoming a Hit Wizard; but like Ron, Nash had an eye on him. 

The Hit Wizards had been gutted by the war, and were in need of as many capable bodies as they could get. Right now they barely had the head count to cover every shift. Harry heard Bisset and a couple of the other trainers were pulling the 9PM to 7AM shift on weekends so the regular staff could get their days off. They needed their recruits to do well, pass exams and certify, so they could be trained up and enter the rotation. 

There were a lot of Ravenclaws running around the office, though more-so on the Auror and administrative side. Kevin Entwhistle would have good company—though his girlfriend Sally-Anne Perks had dropped out, her friend Sophie bowing out a few days later. The witches were staying with the Ministry as Obliviators; being bright, but not up to the physical demands of an Auror, and the unavoidable stress of dealing with people who were not always at their best. Aurors got called into sticky situations—domestic disputes, Splinchings, accidental magic—and seeing that level of distress on a daily basis felt too much for Sally-Anne and Sophie. They’d enjoy the more level and predictable clean-up work of an Obliviator, working down on the ninth floor. Kevin and Sally-Anne still met up for lunch when their schedules worked. 

Harry finally learned the name of the blonde Auror whom he’d seen fighting side-by-side with Margie Gweir at Ravenwood—she was Maura O’Toole, a Ravenclaw by the quidditch scarf pinned to her office wall. She’d been promoted after the war to an investigative role specializing in stolen objects and antiquities, earning herself an office near Gawain Robards. Harry walked by often on his way to the loo, noting her quidditch allegiance. With a brand new office space, everyone was bringing in a few things each day, deciding how to decorate their desks or offices to suit their tastes. 

He’d expected the Hit Wizards to be one of the more diverse sections of the Ministry, and in a way he was right. They had Hits of every size, shape, and color; from all corners of the globe. Great Britain had one of the higher populations of magical people—and concentrated, too, verses spread out like they were in the western hemisphere. 

What Harry hadn’t anticipated was that so many of his fellow Hit Witches and Wizards would hail from the tiny island of Iceland. He’d already met six working Hits who were Icelandic. It took him a bit to re-train his brain to the fact that Icelandic people  _never_  went by their surnames socially—the opposite of Brits, who called even their best mates by last names. All the better, because Harry had trouble pronouncing ‘Bjarkardóttir’ and the like, whereas Icelandic given names were either short or had an easy nickname the witch or wizard went by. 

Harry’s face cracked into a grin when retired quidditcher turned Hit Wizard Hálfdan Jørgensen insisted Harry call him by his childhood nickname of “Dana.” There was something intensely satisfying about calling a seven foot tall man who looked like a Viking warlord by a girl’s name… especially because it made the giant man smile, too. The nickname came from his gran. 

One face Harry was very surprised to see around the office was Tonks.

He stood up when she approached; he’d been sitting with a mixed group at one of the common work tables, giving some instruction about how to use sub-folders to organize one’s email inbox. He couldn’t imagine how difficult a task it was to witches and wizards who’d never touched a computer until a few days ago. He made jokes and was patient, upbeat, offering his help only when it was asked for and then shutting up, letting his co-workers learn on their own and lean on him when they needed. Confidence was built by doing, not by being told. 

Seeing Tonks, Harry scooted his chair back and excused himself, immediately going over to say hi. 

“ _Shit_ , Tonks,” he whispered, emphatic, stepping close. She was extremely pregnant, her stomach like a beach ball inflated beneath her burgundy robe. The color didn’t exactly help with the impression that she was one seriously ripe tomato. He had to guess that maternity robes didn’t come in the more muted dark colors she usually wore. Tonks was an all-black kinda witch most days. 

Harry didn’t even ask if she should be on her feet, or at the office. He could tell everyone else was asking her that and she was sick of being pestered. She’d probably gone for a walk to get away from well-meaning people telling her how pregnant she looked… like she didn’t fucking know she was carrying a watermelon glued to her front. 

Tonks had been waddling a circuit around the office. There was a path highlighted in differently-colored carpet, not unlike a racetrack at an indoor gym, ringing the entire floor. Harry had walked it a few times, taking the long way back from the loo or a lesson, stretching his legs. Sitting too long at his desk made him antsy. He did better with regular exercise, like walking between classes back at school or working out multiple times a day. If he didn’t enjoy working as a Hit Wizard, he probably had a future in quidditch. 

Tonks took the hand he’d offered, squeezing his fingers with the three she had left. They walked a little ways, talking about nothing, continuing her loop around the floor. 

A zap of electricity went through Harry—and like unknowingly sticking his head into Dumbledore’s Pensive, Harry fell into some kind of vision. Everything went black, and then he was back in the office but somehow outside of his body, watching himself and Nymphadora walk together. Tonks’ face contorted, grabbing her stomach, doubled over. People around them got nervous. Harry shouted. He put his arm around Tonks, shielding and comforting, pulling her upright to get help. And then he felt it… pain like her body was ripping in half, like her baby boy would kill her on his way out. 

Harry gasped. Coming out from that alternate reality was like being on a muggle amusement ride which stopped abruptly at the cusp, jerking mechanically; about to fall but suspended, twitching, unable to move. His cheeks felt heavy, but his head was swimming. 

“Harry?” 

He squeezed her hand tight. He’d either had a panic attack or some type of magic-induced premonition.

Harry didn’t rattle… he knew himself well-enough in rough situations to say that. His mind and body were so used to being under mortal pressure. No matter what happened, he never lost his touch with reality. 

There was nothing rational about the out-of-body, altered consciousness moment he’d just experienced. What he’d seen…. For a moment he wasn’t in charge of the lens through which he saw the world; like when he came, or the few times he’d fallen under the sway of the Imperious Curse. Something or someone else had influenced him. In that split second, he’d seen something which hadn’t come from himself. A vision. 

The mystics of certain religions considered moments like those to be a sort of divine intervention. Harry had trouble getting his breath, moving his tongue inside his mouth. Returning to his body was suddenly as strange as being in that other universe, watching himself like a ghost watching over the living. 

“Uh, um…” he murmured inexactly to Tonks, wondering how much to say. She seemed confused by the look on his face. He probably looked like he’d had a mild stroke. “I think… you’re gonna go into labor.” 

She tipped her head of blue and purple-colored hair; it had been like that since the war, and apparently the baby favored those colors so strongly she was being overridden when it came to her own appearance. “Huh? I’m not due for another twelve day-hay-hah— _ahhhhh!_ ” 

Her knees buckled. It was a good thing he had her by the hand; Harry was able to brace her, leaning her up against the nearby wall. The last thing either of them wanted was her falling. 

“Contraction?” asked Harry quickly, his eyebrows up, looking for confirmation. 

Her nod was abrupt, her eyes very wide. Just like in his vision, she was holding her stomach, pressing his hand to the underside of her belly. Through her robes, Harry felt a headbutt. The baby was head-down and ready. 

“Y-yeah,” she nodded, then moaned, closing her eyes. 

“Do you think you’re going into labor? I mean, your water—” 

He shouldn’t have said it. He was Harry Potter, and fate had it in for him after he managed to escape the Killing Curse twice-over. Because he mentioned it, Tonks’ water broke right then, getting her boots and his shoes sopping wet. Harry didn’t even have a uniform yet, still in training. The splash hit his dress shoes. 

“For the love of Aidas…” Tonks moaned, because she was in excruciating pain—which Harry had felt in the premonition and could sense even now—and because she was mortified to have loosed a bodily function on him, even one which she couldn’t reasonably help. “Sorry.” And then she was leaning against him instead of the wall, his arms wrapped around her to keep her up, just as they’d been in his bloody premonition. 

“St. Mungo’s?” He wanted to take her, didn’t want her going by herself. She nodded against him. Harry shouted to the rest of the room over her head. He figured everyone would be looking at him anyway, and now he needed their help, needed their attention. People were poking their heads out of their offices to see what the commotion was about at half-ten in the morning. 

“She’s in early labor,” Harry announced loudly, clearly. “We need a St. Mungo’s Evac, who’s got one?” 

Hit Wizards and some Aurors carried a Portkey to St. Mungo’s which could be activated at any time. Such Portkeys were called Evacuation Protocols, Evacs for short, and were issued to those who worked in the field. Since Tonks was on desk work she didn’t have one on her, and Harry had only learned about Evacs a few days ago in training. He’d never actually used one before, but he’d seen them. Now he needed one. He held out his hand, asking for help. 

Nash’s office was nearby, and Nash’s shaved head had poked out of it. The Scotsman dug into the black and white fur pouch hanging at the front of his tartan kilt—pulling out what looked like a large silver locket or an old-fashioned pill case. He flipped it to them. 

“Here, take mine. Good luck.” 

Harry caught it, opening the metal closure one-handed. Inside was a kind of spongy material. Harry knew they both had to put a finger against it and press down to activate the Portkey. 

Having used these types of Portkeys more than once in her career, Tonks put her thumb on top of Harry’s finger and jammed it down before another contraction could rip a real scream from her lungs. He still thought he heard it in the split second they were moving between locations—Tonks screaming into the void, thinking no one would hear her in agony. 

They landed abruptly next to Seathan Nash’s personal bed at St. Mungo’s Hospital. 

Tonks sat down on the edge of the bed, holding the side of her stomach now. Her chin went to her breastbone. She was puffing out her cheeks with a breath she refused to exhale, biting back the pain. 

“Hello? Hello?” came the voice of the Healer on duty; distant, somewhere in the hallway outside their room, alerted to their arrival by a standard Monitoring Spell. She opened the door to the otherwise empty room—there were six beds with crisp white sheets, an engraved sign on the wall above each one. 

Tonks sat on Nash’s bed. There was one for Gawain Robards, and his deputy Franklin Cornfoot. Nash didn’t have a new deputy yet, so the bed beside his still bore the name of Casper Williamson—who’d survived everything only to fall at the Battle for Hogwarts. The other two beds belonged to Freddie Hay-Boggis and her deputy Nathaniel Bones. Harry had to assume there were other rooms nearby with beds for other officials like Kingsley. Eventually there’d be a bed somewhere with a placard reading ‘Harry Potter, Hit Wizard.’ 

“Can I help you?” asked the MediWitch, stepping into the room. She knew they were too young to be any of the high-ranking officials assigned to this area. Then she saw Tonks’ stomach under the voluminous red robe. “Oh! Let’s get you over to maternity,” she said with a kind authority. “What’s your name?” 

Tonks threw her head back and let out a scream. 

Harry turned, recognizing that Tonks wanted him to take over and handle this so she could concentrate on screaming. “Nymphadora Tonks,” he said around another fantastic shout. Tonks’ voice rumbled with a flicker of magic in her throat, like an angry griffin. 

The MediWitch physically started when she saw Harry from the front. She got such a surprise that she hopped back several inches. She’d assumed the young man in the room was the baby’s father—Tonks’ boyfriend or husband come with her for moral support. The MediWitch had only seen him from behind. And from behind, all she saw was a tall man, athletic, smartly-dressed, with long dark hair and a beard. Could’ve been any rich wizard. He had to turn around for her to see his glasses, green eyes, and lightning bolt scar—though that last Harry Potter trademark was effectively hidden by his insanely thick, faintly curly hair. 

She stuttered inelegantly. “Ha-ha-ha…” She was trying to say Harry Potter. Tonks let out another impressive bellow, gripping her stomach and stomping a booted foot against the floor. The rubber sole squeaked against the tile, wet from when her water broke a minute ago. 

“Yeah, Harry Potter. I’m the godfather,” Harry redirected attention back where it was needed—Tonks. “She’s in serious labor, and the baby’s not due for a bit yet. She needs help.” 

The witch nodded, turning to leave the room. Tonks grabbed Harry’s hand—she was worried he’d leave, too. 

Harry took a knee beside the bed, his face even with her belly. He squeezed her calf in a kind of calming massage he used on Draco, trying to give her some comfort through her obvious pain. It was something he’d learned to do when Voldemort hurt Draco by calling for him through the Dark Mark. Thankfully that could never happen again. Harry hated seeing people in pain with no solution or remedy available. 

“I’m right here,” he said, rubbing reassuringly, a grounding gesture. “Not going anywhere unless you tell me otherwise.” 

Tonks put her hands on his shoulders… then gave him some of her weight, leaning down into him. The position seemed to take some of the stress off of her back, and he didn’t mind being of use. 

“I can’t believe…” Tonks whispered, her mouth so close to his head he could feel her breath on his scalp. “I’m having a baby. Feels like yesterday I found out. I…” she had to stop a moment to grit her teeth. Harry rubbed her calves some more, not knowing if it helped but she didn’t say stop, so he kept at it. “I never really wanted to be a mom. Not my thing. I like kids, but… I never saw myself having one. Remus was… he was so happy.” 

She sobbed against his hair. Harry had to catch her, to make sure she didn’t tumble off the bed into his arms, with both of them going down on the floor. Harry would break her fall but he wasn’t sure if that kind of impact would hurt the baby at a time like this. He figured she was safer sitting on the side of the bed than on the floor. Tonks wrapped her arms around his neck, holding on for dear life as another contraction made her whole body tense, shaking, until it pulled out another scream from her. 

“I’m so sorry,” said Harry, feeling useless. “I know it hurts.” Labor was painful. But so was admitting she only kept the baby as a way to keep Remus with her. She might learn to love being a mum… or she might not. Some people didn’t have a parenting gene, and Tonks could be one of those people. Like Harry, she had a truly unorthodox style of going about her life—it made sense to her, because she followed her own path, but to other people Tonks sometimes seemed a bit… off. Harry understood. People called him nutters all the time. Entire newspapers and broadcasts on the Wizarding Wireless had questioned his sanity. Tonks was perfectly sane… she just liked doing things her own way. “I’m right here,” was all he could say. 

She had no choice about being in labor. That was part of why it hurt so bad. Like losing Remus, she had no choice but to get on with it. 

She gripped a hand full of his hair. “Where’s that fucking MediWitch?” she growled. 

“Can they give you something for the pain?” 

Tonks actually pulled his hair, seething. “I dunno! I never went to the classes or read the books or…. Hell, I barely ever went to the doctor before this.” Like a muggle, she said doctor by instinct, probably because it was shorter than MediWitch. “I always thought there wasn’t much a few sips of whisky, a decent fuck, and a good night’s sleep couldn’t fix.” 

“I think the whisky and the fucking is probably how you got here,” observed Harry dryly. 

She wheezed out a laugh between whimpers, pressing their foreheads together. “You and Draco are lucky. At least you can fuck without… worrying about… something like….” She meant their both being blokes, how they could never accidently knock each other up. 

But she was having trouble breathing and couldn’t finish the joke that was waiting at the end of her thought. 

“What’s wrong?” Harry pulled back, looking at her face. Her expression was far-away, like she was having a premonition of her own, like she’d left her head for a second. Or maybe it was just the pain. Harry gave her the tiniest of shakes—it was all he dared. “Tonks? Tonks!” 

The MediWitch poked her head in through the door. “It’ll just be a few minutes, we’re getting a birthing room ready.” 

“’K,” Harry shot back, terse. “Hurry.” Tonks was leaning against him, giving over her weight. Then she groaned. 

“No time,” she seemed to say to the other witch, who’d already left. “Baby’s coming now.” 

Harry’s own voice was a deep deadpan. “What.” 

“Now,” she repeated, following with a sigh of, “Damn it.” She tried to get back on the bed properly but that wasn’t happening on her own. She couldn’t move from the edge of the bed without screaming. 

“Okay, okay,” Harry placated. “Fucking hell.” He knelt, touched her ankle, asking, “Boots?” Offering to take them off for her. 

“No time.” She wasn’t nervous anymore, or scared, or even feeling the pain. She was all business. “Knickers,” she said. That was permission, and the look on her face said it needed to be taken care of immediately. Harry didn’t think anything else, his hands gathering up her red robe, sliding up her thighs to find her underwear. 

She probably expected him to Vanish them like the second-most powerful sorcerer alive ought to. That wasn’t Harry. Instinct took over and, with a brutish tug, he ripped the things off. Tonks stared at him like she’d never known him before. 

Harry realized he was still in his dress shirt and tie. Thankfully his suit jacket was shucked earlier and left back in his office. He used an old pureblood unpacking and undressing spell which Draco had taught him a year ago, back when they’d first started dating. Taking his own clothes off with magic had become more natural to Harry, but when it came to helping others remove their clothes he was still a hands-on kinda guy. And his hands were currently on Tonks’ shaking thighs after getting rid of his shirt and necktie. 

He was on his knees, ready to do this: her robe up to mid-thigh… but there was something like confusion in her eyes. Harry Potter was about to see between her legs, and that meant something which neither of them could define. He wasn’t a doctor, or a medical professional, or even a blood relative. He wasn’t anything like her boyfriend, either. Except for circumstance and a sense of duty, he had no earthly reason to look up her robe right now. Yet that was precisely what he was about to do. She probably didn’t want him to see her like that, either. It wasn’t precisely ideal. 

The baby was coming. Either he could help, or not. He didn’t think his participation meant very much in this endeavor, but maybe to Tonks, having a friend be there for her might be easier than a doctor or some random stranger who didn’t understand the heartbreaking significance of what was happening. 

“We’re family, so don’t worry about this part, okay?” said Harry. That was all there was too it. “It’s fine. I don’t mind.” He patted her leg, suggesting they get on with it. Her face said she was in excruciating pain. 

“But,” Tonks objected. “You’re gay.” 

He wasn’t. And he’d told her that, and Remus, and all the Weasleys, at Christmas dinner last year. Apparently no matter what he said, the fact that he’d married a bloke gave everyone else permission to write off his complicated sexuality as ‘gay.’ 

“I’m actually mostly-straight, but that’s irrelevant,” he pointed between her legs, “and not what this is about. At all.” 

“Of course you fancy women…” she muttered, distracting herself: making sense of  Harry Potter pulling a brute move on her knickers. Having mentally filed him as gay until a second ago, no wonder she found it odd he’d torn her panties off her like he’d done it before. Harry Potter had happily gone face-first in vagina before; but as Harry said, this was a very different situation, and not sexual in the least.

Still, Tonks was a private person, and the thought of her cousin-in-law sticking his fingers around that area of her body and looking so closely—even for the sake of delivering her baby safely—made her squeamish. It was a fundamental Englishness which Harry had lost in the war. He’d given up comfort for real safety. Sometimes you had to go through discomfort in order to come out a better version of yourself. If Harry had given up because something struck him as gross or weird… well, he would still be a virgin, and he’d probably be dead. 

Tonks was able to lean back on her hands. “I believe this is the part,” her voice was strained, throat tight, “Where I start pushing. Mostly because I have no choice.” That was tentative consent to Harry’s assisting in the process. Neither of them had ever done this before. “Just don’t tell me to push, alright?” she warned in a snapping tone. Apparently that was her biggest pet-peeve of the birthing process—nurses shouting in her face that she needed to push. 

Harry snorted. “Oh hell! I’m not gonna tell you what to do: I value my life.” He scooted closer—wet dress shoes squeaking against the floor, wool slacks tight around his thighs, and his thin white undershirt rising and falling with his heavy breathing despite their banter. His hands went to the tops of her thighs, giving her the option to part them or ask him to step away. “I’m just here to catch.” And he winked at her, because he was a cheeky son of a bitch. 

Tonks started laughing at the gay joke he’d made. Then she was laughing and screaming at the same time. It was a sound which would stay with him for a long time… like what he thought his mother’s soul must have sounded like as she sacrificed herself: humor and pain and resignation, duty but with humanity and a remaining hint of selfishness. No one was perfect. Everyone just muddled through, trying to bring out their best in the moments which counted. 

Harry couldn’t help but think that Remus should have been in his place. That it should have been Remus making Tonks laugh, sharing this instant with her before the birth of their son… another little boy who would change their lives forever. 

Instead Tonks was going to be doing everything as a single parent—though she’d never be alone. She had her mum and dad. She had Harry and Draco. She had the Weasleys. She had her friends from work. But no relationship replaced the role of a partner in your life… especially a partner who wanted the baby in the first place. Tonks felt she’d been left holding the bag, filled with both their unfinished and unrequited dreams. It was both of their fault they’d gotten pregnant. But now Tonks was the one spending the rest of her life with the consequences of their decision. 

Tonks had started pushing. If Harry wasn’t mistaken he could nearly see a head already. He knew the general parameters of what he was looking at; the baby wouldn’t need much more clearance before he’d be out. 

In between gasps, she yelled at him. “Use condoms, Harry! Use fucking  _condoms!_  They work! Don’t rely on that pureblood  _Amortius Intentia_  bullshit. Anything based on intent is only gonna screw you over, because our hearts and our heads can never agree to— _aaaaaaghhh!_ ” She ended on a piercing cry, furious and in pain. 

Harry saw some blood. And hair a different color than hers.

He wasn’t sure how much of what Tonks was saying was her unguarded opinion, and how much was out of rage… physical as well as spiritual anguish. It sounded like maybe Remus had gotten her pregnant, saying he’d use a spell but not doing it properly in the end—because, selfishly, he wanted a baby with her. Whether or not that was true, or her pregnancy had been a genuine whisky-fueled mistake, the very last piece she had of Remus was about to leave her body, to join the world. He would never be hers, living within her, again. The last of Remus Lupin was let loose. 

For a split second, the muggle in Harry started to worry. Babies shouldn’t be blue when they were born. They were supposed to be covered in slime and gore, supposed to be soft and wiggly. But they weren’t supposed to be blue. 

Unless they were magical Metamorphagus babies. 

The little guy came out with neon blue hair and the usual amount of muck on his skin, which was not blue but the same shade as his mum’s under all that mess. Harry slid him out as Tonks screamed her guts out. Something silver-ish snuck out after him, spongy and a bit lumpy, like a half-risen cake taken too soon from the oven, and covered in blood… the placenta, Harry remembered from muggle biology classes. He had no reaction beyond seeing it and thinking,  _Well that’s one more unusual life experience to add to the bucket_.

The placenta landed on the linoleum floor with the  _splat_  sound of a ball of wet laundry. It was attached to the umbilical cord, the other end of which was attached to the kid, and aside from making sure the falling object didn’t take Harry or the baby down with it, he didn’t care where it fell. Even when it fell on his shoe. 

Harry held the newborn in his arm, wrapping the umbilical cord around his hand to keep a grip on it, unsure what he was supposed to do with it and the lumpy blood bag at the end—the placenta, not the baby. The baby he’d read books about all summer, and had an idea what needed doing. 

Tonks’ baby boy wasn’t breathing yet. Crap. Something blocking his airway? Harry stuck his finger in the little guy’s mouth, rooting around. That ticked him off and he batted Harry away, coming to life in his arms—kicking and wailing, his mouth opening wide to make his displeasure known. 

“He’s okay!” Harry told Tonks. “He’s fine, breathing just fine now….” Harry had to remind himself to breathe, too. He touched the baby’s fingers, counting ten of them—tiny little things moving against his own. Ten minutes ago this same guy had been trying to headbutt Harry’s hand through his mother’s stomach. Now he was out and a part of the world. Seeing that sort of magic gave Harry a welling sensation, deep and flowing in his chest, which he couldn’t quite put a name to. 

Tonks had fallen back against the bed, exhausted. She was able to loll her head on the wrinkled white top sheet in order to look at him. 

“Ungh,” her nose wrinkled, the end almost twitching. It was an expression Draco made sometimes, too, when he saw an ugly painting or heard a piece of music he didn’t care for. “You look like you’ve been to war, Harry,” she said. “You’re both a mess.” 

“’S fine,” Harry shrugged. It didn’t much matter he was covered in Tonks’ insides. He’d been covered in worse in his lifetime. This time he had his godson in his arms. He’d just delivered his godson. It was a strange parallel to watching his own godfather give his life protecting Harry three years ago. 

With a gentle hand, he started to wipe away a bit of the muck from his godson’s face, using his tshirt because it was already ruined, anyway. “It’s okay,” Harry repeated more softly, being careful not to push against the baby’s tender skin. He reminded Harry of Fawkes when he’d burned up and become new—all tender pink wrinkles with purple-blue veins beneath. “You had the hard job, anyway,” he told Tonks. “Are you okay?” 

She gave a nod against the bed. “Better once I can get something to knock me out for a few hours,” she admitted. “Can you make sure they clean him up and…?” she waved her fingers inexactly, meaning the umbilical cord and such. Harry hadn’t known the standard procedure amongst wizardkind, and wasn’t about to conjure a knife and cut it just because that was what muggles did. He wasn’t precisely a muggle anymore, nor was he an expert on magical birthing customs—always caught somewhere between the two worlds. 

Harry nodded. “Yeah. Sure. Have you… considered a name?” 

Tonks sighed. Apparently she’d been asked a lot. “I dunno. Maybe Theodore, after my dad.” 

Of course she might not want to name him after his own father. Too many memories there. A lighter start to life, not quite so sad. Maybe Remus for a middle name? 

“Not gonna do a constellation name?” Harry teased lightly—it was the Gryffindor way, to take the mickey out of someone when they were down, as a reminder that things weren’t so bad that you couldn’t have a laugh. “Hydra? Fornax? Telescopium?” 

Tonks perked up for a second. “Oh hell no!” But that seemed to take the wind from her sails, and she closed her eyes, resting. 

Harry glanced at his watch, noting the time of 10:52AM. Muggles often put the time of birth on records. He didn’t know whether wizards did or not. It seemed to him that Tonks had had one of the fastest labors and deliveries of all time. When the kid wanted out, he got out, apparently. 

“Do you wanna hold him?” 

He realized it was incredibly rude of him not to have offered immediately. But once the baby was in his arms… some long-buried, primordial paternal instinct had taken over. He’d never had an opportunity to hold a baby before, but having delivered this one, it felt completely natural and normal. He realized he was doing it—holding Teddy—with only one arm, which was maybe not the smartest considering he’d never handled a baby until just now. But Tonks didn’t seem to mind. And it felt fine… weirdly right, holding his cousin-by-marriage, his godson, in the crook of his arm. 

Maybe Tonks would never be a “normal” sort of mom; smothering her kid with affection, needing to be near and involved and around constantly. But she’d probably find a way to be a  _good_  mom, because she’d be herself and tell the kid the truth no matter what. Even when it hurt. 

A wry smile turned Tonks’ mouth. A Sirius-like expression. “Nah. I’ve got the rest of my life for that. You hold him a while, okay? You’re both filthy, and I’m exhausted, so ‘s fine by me.” 

Tonks blew out a breath, pushed her robes back down, and closed her eyes to rest until the MediWitch came back and realized the deed was already done. 

Little Ted still had his wrinkly eyes closed. Harry wondered if his eye color might keep shifting with his mood, like his hair, as he’d exerted on his mom’s body when he’d been inside of her. 

He was strong, that much was certain. The longer he was in Harry’s arms, the darker his hair got; gradually shifting in shade, so slowly Harry hadn’t noticed at first, until tropical blue became midnight, then dropped from the color spectrum into true black. He was taking on Harry’s hair color without having ever seen his face. If that wasn’t a sign of strong magic, Harry didn’t know what was.

 

 

 

 

In a round-about manner, Draco got the news that his godson had arrived two weeks early. After Tonks went into labor in the office—and Harry rushed her by emergency Portkey to St. Mungo’s—the gossip had made its way back to Nebojsa, who informed Ron and Dima, discussing how best to get in touch with Draco at home alone. They decided on floo-calling, since the Potters kept Grimmauld under heavy wards during the day, including Anti-Apparition, and Draco refused to have one of those muggle mobile phones of his own. Having Harry’s, Misha’s, and Nebojsa’s was quite enough in a house with one electrical socket. 

So it was Ron Weasley’s head in the fireplace before lunch—after shouting to get his attention—informing him he ought to make his way over to St. Mungo’s now that the messy part was over with. 

They didn’t understand. These Weasleys… they might as well have been born on different planets, like the slimy green aliens he shot at in his video games, for all the customs of a Malfoy differed from everyone else left standing. He was the foreigner, the stranger, the one left scratching his head in confusion at the things they expected him to think, believe,  _feel_. He didn’t, because he was built in a fundamentally different fashion. 

He wasn’t the child’s father, so why ought he go to the hospital? What possible use could he be? Tonks was his cousin, and they weren’t particularly close. She’d just gone thorough a sudden labor—she probably wanted all the pain and sleeping potions she could get her hands on, and maybe to see the little one once he was cleaned up a bit, fed and watered and properly swaddled by some paid professional who knew what the fuck they were doing. None of that would be improved or impacted in any way by Draco’s presence. Even then, Tonks didn’t strike him as much of a “baby” person. She had her own priorities which didn’t involve catering to the whims of a tiny human for the next eighteen years, or tolerating a dozen on-lookers to every step of the process. Draco didn’t care to be a nuisance. He would only be furniture, ornate and ultimately in the way of anyone doing real work. 

Playing the role of the obedient spouse, Draco slipped off his muggle clothes and got into a set of robes before leaving for St. Mungo’s—Disillusioned out the back door of the property, through the alley, outside their protective shields before Dissapparating so as not to set off the Sneakoscope and other gadgets Harry kept in his study.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

“Blood is a good look for you,” Draco observed of his husband’s stained undershirt. 

Why was he always blood-stained and dirty? Was there no way to get through a major life event without needing a shower at the half-way mark? The hallmark of Harry’s type of heroism appeared to be his getting filthy in the process of saving others. 

“It was rather sudden,” Harry attempted to explain what was already quite clear by the tiny mucky handprints on his shirt. Literal handprints the size of a galleon coin, in dried blood, against his chest. The baby had been grabbing at his shirt. “Her water broke and we barely got here. I ended up delivering Teddy while the MediWitch was looking for a Healer and an open room. She’s thinking Teddy for a name, by the way—Theodore, after her dad.” 

Draco said nothing, but let his eyebrows rise. It was answer enough. 

Harry surprised him. “Do you wanna hold him?” 

“I—” Draco didn’t get to finish his thought as a newborn swaddled in a thin blanket was deposited into his arms. Tonks was asleep in her hospital bed, blissfully knocked out with some fine potions. She’d wake up feeling much better than she’d gone down by the looks of it. Her robe, though a deep shade of red, still showed stains of blood and innards, even draped over the chair in the corner. 

Harry had used his mobile to contact her parents and let them know what happened. They’d brought her a fresh change of clothes for when she was released from hospital, and were currently downstairs in the cafeteria. It was lunchtime. Harry told him all of this in a rush, babbling, high on the adrenaline of the crazed, once-in-a-lifetime experience he’d just gone through.

Most wizards would never deliver a baby. Most wizards didn’t have Harry Potter’s strange fucking luck. 

Draco felt his stomach in knots. Thankfully he hadn’t eaten, including breakfast. There was an infant in his arms. He’d never touched a child before. He was nearly five before he even met another person his age. Before that it had been tutors and staff and house elves, and the hour or so a day in which his mother might come and visit him, or the occasional brusk nod from his father should they happen to pass in the halls of the Manor. At one point Draco had supposedly asked one of his nannies who the tall man was—the tall man being his own father. Lucius had never been interested in cultivating a relationship until Draco was capable of bathing and dressing himself, was spell-casting beyond his age-level, spoke four languages, and could be considered an interesting conversationalist; so about ten, just before he left for school, was when Lucius noticed his existence. In retrospect, he’d enjoyed his life far more without his father’s attention than under it. 

Draco made a silent promise which he knew he could keep: that Tonks’ child would never be isolated like him, or like Harry. Theodore Lupin would never be shut in a cupboard, or silenced, or struck, or made to feel alone.

He looked Harry over once more. It took Draco a moment to realize. 

“Harry,” he said with a certain tick. “There’s blood on your shoe.” 

Harry shrugged at him. “There’s blood on a lot of me. No big deal, right?” He leaned close, putting a hand on the baby’s head before touching Draco’s forearm. “I’m fine. Nothing to worry about. They’re just shoes.” 

Andromeda and Ted Senior came back from the cafeteria. 

“Getting the hang of it already, I see,” said Ted, realizing a moment later that his statement had been a horrible one—his blind wife would have no idea what he was talking about because, unlike the rest of them, she  _couldn’t_  see. “Draco and Harry are here,” he explained hastily. “Draco’s holding Teddy. He’s a natural.” 

He wasn’t. Harry had explained to him how to support the baby’s neck, and to give him lee-way to move around. These were Teddy’s first few hours in the world, and he was spending them in the arms of a Malfoy of all people. Well… a Potter now. 

“Good,” said Andromeda firmly. “We’re going to rely on you two for babysitting.” 

Draco could read Harry’s thoughts like they were written in a bubble above his head in the style of Misha’s comic books. Harry thought of having a baby over at Grimmauld place… and gulped visibly. The house was fine for a couple of blokes by themselves, but it was a far cry from safe for a baby—at least not by muggle standards, whatever those might be. Magical children were far hardier once out of the womb. A few odds and sodds bumping around in Grimmauld could likely kill even a magical baby… especially if ingested. 

They still hadn’t discussed what to do about the house. Or their future. But the future arrived twelve days early, squawling and pink, demanding they change for him. The future was a self-centered arrogant prick, just like his father had been. Draco hoped the future could still be influenced. He didn’t like the idea of a life set in stone. That left no room for mistakes, and mistakes were where the fun happened. If it weren’t for mistakes, he and Harry might never have gotten together. 

Draco mentally checked-out. He laughed politely at the conversation between Harry and his aunt and uncle-in-law, his baby cousin in his arms, the weight of a diapered bottom against his Dark Mark… who would’ve ever thought? Draco was the only person in the world with the Mark. It was a sign of everything they’d been through. It felt like lead on his arm, weighing him down. 

He handed their godson back to Harry, excusing himself to the loo. 

Alone, he pressed his back to the door and listened to the sound of his stilted, wheezing breath, trying to quell down a taste like panic in his throat. His life was  _good_. Finally. So why,  _why_  couldn’t he fucking breathe?

 

 

~ * ~

  

 

After a few weeks of trying to manage his schedule, multiple commitments, messages and owls—and nearly rage-blasting a hole in his wall after double-scheduling himself on three different occasions in the same week—Harry asked Gawain Robards if there was room in the budget for him to have a secretary. 

“I'll take a pay cut to make it happen,” Harry offered. “But I can't handle the desk work on top of recruit training and the Minister's councils. I don't want to drop out of training, and I don't want to let the Minister down, so I'd like to hire someone to help me out with organizing, owls and emails, taking calls, that sort of thing. I’m a field man, and that’s where I need my focus to be. The desk work is slowing me down.” 

Robards could relate, with all the people trying to contact himself in a single day. It had to be ten times worse for Harry Potter by virtue of who the man was. 

Robards agreed to look at the budget and message Harry with what he could do for an assistant’s salary. 

Harry got an email that afternoon. It impressed him how quickly magical people adjusted themselves to muggle technology.  _48 galleons a week_ , Robards wrote.  _20 of those from your salary, and 2 weeks paid vacation. Hire whomever you like, so long as they pass background review, etc._  

Harry sent the approval to HR to source someone for him. Hermione conducted the initial search and screenings before sending up a couple of people for Harry to interview. 

The person he really liked came as a last-minute surprise. Her name was Valya Vasnetsova, a Durmstrang student sorted into Slytherin last year. She decided not to go back to school after her OWLS—of which her scores were off the charts. She spoke perfect English, though with a heavy Russian accent. She could also read and write in Latin, as well as speaking French, Russian, and German. She could type very well, knew how to drive a car, and generally was familiar with the muggle world. 

“My mozher vos half-blood and English,” Valya explained. “She insisted ve learn non-magical technology, to function at zhe highest level in zhe non-magical vorld.” 

Valya was tall for a girl and rather gaunt-looking. She reminded him of a Victorian doll; because her skin was so pale and flawless, her long hair as black as her eyes, and her style was a bit old-fashioned—a ruffled white shirt buttoned all the way to her neck, a cameo necklace, and a long pencil skirt with brown leather high heels. She looked more like a muggle from the 1940’s than a modern girl. 

She was kinda pretty, even with a long nose, squinting dark eyes, and her severe style. Maybe that was just what she chose to wear to the interview, to be taken seriously. Harry remembered seeing her at the Slytherin table at Hogwarts last year. He had to search his memory for whom he saw her spend time with in the castle—Galina and her brother Czeslaw, Lorenzo Egidio, and Finlay Harper. No one with Death Eater connections. 

Valya lost her mother quite young, which Harry could identify with. She had two older brothers. One died during the fighting at Durmstrang—he’d been on the defending side, against the Death Eater invasion. The other brother was an Auror, like their dad; he was killed at Valaam, his body one of hundreds found beheaded, a pureblood insult to the dead. It was all in her file. Hermione’s background checks were incredibly thorough. 

Harry already knew Valya’s father, Vladimir. Luca Bisset hired him a few weeks ago as Law Enforcement’s newest dueling instructor. Vlad was highly skilled, knowledgeable about the Dark Arts, and a hands-on sort of teacher. Valya wanted a job at the new building, to have some separation from her father but still able to live together and catch each other for the occasional lunch or something, after spending the last year separated while she was at Hogwarts and he fought the Death Eaters back in Russia. 

She wanted to be near her dad because he was all the family she had left. They planned to stay in England, to make their home here, and she very much liked the more forgiving immigration policies Harry was pushing for, which would make it easier for them to stay and become British citizens now they had jobs here and a flat in Diagon Alley. 

At the back of his mind, Harry considered that hiring a foreign-born witch to be his assistant sent the proper message about how he would conduct business. Valya was qualified; no one could fight her credentials. Also he wanted to show the importance of letting go of old prejudices; about where people came from, about their gender, about their age. Valya was young, just turned seventeen, but she could more than do the job. Her serious demeanor would shut down any comments questioning her qualification. 

What Harry appreciated most was her dry, no-nonsense attitude. She reminded him of Minerva McGonagall—someone who wasn’t afraid to say “no” to people’s faces and wouldn’t take any shit. Harry would like to have her in his corner, rejecting meeting invites he didn’t need to attend but didn’t know how to politely say no to. Valya would keep people from wasting his time. She could be his gate-keeper, preventing people from getting to Harry when he needed time alone, and keeping bullshit off his desk when he needed to focus. 

He imagined she’d be as cool as a gin gimlet in a crisis—she’d seen battle at Durmstrang, survived, watched her friends and her own brother die. When he asked, she confessed she’d gotten through the fighting at Hogwarts by hiding out in the Slytherin girls’ dorms, her boyfriend keeping a look-out for her and a few others, waiting until morning to come out and see the damage. 

That was the type of person Harry wanted. Someone smart but calculated, who didn’t need to be out on the front lines to be effective. Val wasn’t a glory-seeker. And she was not at all impressed by his fame. She was deferential to him—but only because she wanted the job. She never sucked up to him for being The Boy Who Lived, nor did she get tongue-tied. She treated him like… her boss. Harry liked the clear distinction of roles and responsibilities; he understood some of that delineation of authority came from the culture at Durmstrang. He imagined her military father had been strict at home, as well. 

Valya sat straight in her chair, her feet crossed at the ankles, never flinching or hesitating no matter what Harry asked her. She was honest and direct, even when the subjects were uncomfortable. 

He had to wonder why Hermione didn’t send Valya first. She was exactly what he needed. Then he looked more closely at her file—flagged for relationship conflict, which would need to be approved. 

One of the most onerous tasks of the greater magi-muggle integration process was referred to casually as ‘conflicts.’ In order to best serve the public, all active officers in Law Enforcement had to keep a list of people they had personal relationships with, including the difficult relationships like grudges, ex-lovers and such. Anyone who might feel uncomfortable being served by you in an emergency. 

All magical people in Great Britain who didn’t have documents like a birth certificate, ID, marriage certificate, or license to drive were having those generated for them by Susan’s team. In addition, all witches and wizards were registered within the policing system as protected persons, an affiliate of MI5 such as a witness, secret informant, or victim of a past crime. 

Any time that a magical person was involved with muggle law enforcement—they were in a traffic accident, or picked up for public intoxication, or anything else—the constables who ran their identification would immediately be notified that the person was under protective custody, and to call the officers assigned to them. The call would go to the Fenchurch office, which was staffed ‘round the clock. An Auror or Hit Wizards would show up and take over the situation; a clean hand-off to limit knowledge of magic from spreading, protect the rights of magical citizens, and generally keep everyone safer. 

So long as the magical officer showing up to rescue you wasn’t a conflict. 

It was the job of a Law Enforcement Administrator to assign batches of officers to witches and wizards, making sure there was no overlap of relatives or people with known affiliations or conflicts. Because it would be embarrassing and awkward as hell if a witch got picked up for driving under the influence only to have the Auror who showed up to handle it be her mother-in-law or an ex-boyfriend. Establishing these conflicts was tricky—all current officers as well as future recruits had to create and accurately maintain a digital list of everyone they considered family, all their friends, anyone they ever dated or had sex with, and anyone who would have a problem with them showing up in a crisis. Kind of exhausting, but necessary. 

It took forever to come up with these conflict lists. For some officers, the lists were quite long; people like Mads who got around and thereby had a ton of exes or broken hearts littered behind them, or Dima, whose father had done wrong by a lot of people and those individuals or their families might not want anything to do with Tihomir Ionescue’s son. Harry had a fairly large list, himself.

The fact that he and Val had conflicts might not be that big of a deal depending on who their overlapping contacts were. Harry didn’t care at this point. He’d fight to get Valya hired as his assistant. “Who’s our conflict?” he asked, genuinely curious. 

Her response was clear and candid. “My fiancé, Coleen Creevey. And my cousin, Severus Snape.” 

That came as a shock to Harry. “I didn't know Severus had any relatives.” 

She explained that Eileen Prince had a little sister, Helen, who went to work as a Dragon Tamer. Helen fell in love with a local wizard, married him, stayed in Russia and raised her family there. So Snape was Val’s first cousin, though they’d only met a few times, briefly, and weren’t at all close. 

That explained some of her personality, and her looks. The relationship didn’t bother Harry any. Most of the magical world was related somehow—hell, they suspected even he and Draco were very distant cousins! Valya was her own person. She had nothing to do with Snape. And the fact that she was going to marry Colin said a lot about her personal choices. Colin was a nice guy. 

“Best wishes on your engagement,” Harry replied automatically. Draco had taught him that it was wrong to say 'congrats' to a woman—congratulations were for the groom, 'best wishes' was said to a bride. There were gonna be a lot of weddings in the coming years, so Harry made a point to get it right even if his preference was to send a bag of galleons and not attend the ceremony. 

Formal occasions still made him uncomfortable. Working with Akilah, Harry came to realize that special events were a major trigger for his PTSD. After seeing Cedric die in the middle of a magical contest, followed immediately by the realization that his mentor ‘Moody’ had actually been a Death Eater in disguise, and then Fleur being put under the Imperius Curse by Philippe and Laron Didier at her own wedding last year, Laron masquerading under Polyjuice Potion in the skin of his brother whom he’d murdered… well, it was a bit too much like history repeating itself. No wonder Harry got a bad feeling any time he was expected to put on a nice outfit, smile and perform for a crowd. 

His own wedding lasted less than fifteen minutes for a reason: he couldn’t stomach much more than that without drowning, sucked under an overwhelming wave of paranoia. Ceremonies convinced him that something was going horribly wrong and he couldn’t see it. He didn’t want to bring that kind of attitude to someone’s celebration. 

It was because of therapy that he didn’t break out in a cold sweat at the prospect of being invited to yet another formal event. He still managed to ask politely, “When’s the wedding?” 

She looked him dead in the eye. “Zhat depends on how much you pay me, Mr. Potter.” 

“Fifty galleons a week,” Harry said, a smile sneaking onto his face at her bluntness. He’d pitch in the extra two from his paycheck to make it a round number. “And two weeks vacation a year. I know it’s not very much. But if you’re good at your job I’m confident I can negotiate a raise for you.” He chewed his lip as his computer  _ding-_ ed, alerting him to a new email he’d have to deal with. “Being Harry Potter has gotta be good for something around here.” 

The corner of her mouth turned. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was more than she’d make working in a shop in Diagon Alley, or as a waitress in London. She would get to be near her father whenever he worked at the Fenchurch building, and have the prestige of saying her boss was the famous Harry Potter. Harry didn’t think that last bit mattered much to Valya, but maybe she could leverage it into a discount on stuff she needed for her wedding. 

She stuck out her hand, wanting to shake on it. 

Harry gripped her hand. “ _Dobro Pozhalovat_. Glad to have you, Val.”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

“Special Advisor to the Minister of Magic,” Draco recited, lifting his eyebrows, his mouth canting to the side. “Spiffing.” He thought it was the opposite, mocking his husband. 

Harry suppressed a groan. “Yeah, I know. It’s total pants.” 

Kingsley’s new Ethics Council was convening, their first meeting. They were gathering in a few minutes time in the conference room on the top floor of the Fenchurch office, symbolic of their progress—everyone in muggle attire, in a muggle building, discussing how they could do better. Harry got to bring Draco to the new building and show him around, to meet his secretary and see his private office where he worked. 

After making fun of the name plate and title on Harry’s door, Draco poked his head in to the actual office. Seeing the mess of parchments on Harry’s desk, the blank white walls and plain carpet floor, and his nose turned up. 

Harry could tell Draco was about to make a rude comment about his lack of organization or style, but his spouse’s critical eyes landed on the photos arranged on Harry’s long L-shaped desk. He’d bought some frames from a shop down the street. They were all matching silver. 

Most were Colin Creevey’s photos from the school year. A few images of him and Draco together, back when they were the same size, sharing uniforms and stealing gropes in storage cupboards between battles. A few choice shots taken by Misha over the summer. A photo of the Weasleys from last Christmas, with Percy, and Charlie standing, him and Draco holding hands days after their marriage. And one of the few pictures Harry had of himself and Sirius. 

Draco stopped cold, looking a long and silent time at these pictures; Harry’s greatest and saddest memories, all waving back at him from their simple silver frames. 

Draco had no photographs of his family, or his childhood, or his old life for that matter. He’d escaped his former world with nothing but the clothes on his back and his wand to-hand—and he had his mum to thank for that. He got away with his life. Whatever evidence there was of his old life was locked away in Malfoy Manor. 

Harry had submitted formal inquiries on Draco’s behalf, requesting the status of the investigation into the property. Everything came back redacted; blacked out, classified, beyond his pay grade. He’d asked Nash to intervene, to see if there was anything to be done to get Draco’s home back, or at least know what stage the investigation was at. Nash wanted to help. He brought Harry some scuttlebutt—gossip from the Unspeakables—that sections of the ancient catacombs beneath the mansion were sealed off by dangerous magic, preventing the exploration and cataloging teams from entering. Until they could verify that the property was safe and any illegal objects or artifacts were confiscated, they couldn’t hand it back over to the Potters. 

Draco offered to help. The wards were blood-based, so he’d be able to walk right through them. No word back on whether or not the Ministry would take him up on his offer. Harry bit back the urge to light their desks on fire, or set Jarveys loose in their offices, or let Dima give them a piece of his mind.

Harry touched between Draco’s shoulder blades—wanting to give him that comfort, to put some of what he felt in that gentle contact. He wouldn’t do any more than that in the office.

“Hey… we’re due upstairs soon.” 

“Yeah, alright,” Draco sighed, glancing back at Harry over his shoulder. 

He’d kept his hair brilliantly teal, a kind of ‘fuck you’ to the somber occasion. Draco wasn’t reverting to his pre-war ways. He refused to get back in his quiet little shell and play the part they wanted of him. He’d put on a jacket and tie, but he wouldn’t be silenced—he wore rich colors, his blazer an elegant pattern with a navy satin rolled shawl collar, more over-the-top smoking jacket than suit. His pale grey trousers were distractingly tight, at least to Harry standing behind him. 

Draco wasn’t his father, nor was he a Ministry cog. Anyone who saw him knew it. He was his own man: an artist, a creative and boundless thinker, a free person, for perhaps the first time in his life. 

“You look great, by the way,” Harry offered. He meant it. 

“Fuck off, Scar Head. I’m not bending you over your desk. We haven’t got time.”

Harry just laughed. “You always look great, luv,” he self-corrected, knowing that the more specific his compliments became, the harder it was for Draco to wiggle his way out of accepting their sincerity. He wasn’t looking to get laid—he’d wanted to pay his husband a compliment, which was an inherently trick task on a less-tense day. “I like your jacket. It’s loud. It suits you.” 

He was better off not asking how much it had cost him; he didn’t care, so long as Draco felt half as confident as he looked in it. 

Approval turned the sly corner of Draco’s mouth. “Better. Let’s go, then.”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Hermione stood in Harry’s doorway, her fingers raised, drumming softly on his open door to capture his attention. Val recognized Hermione as Harry’s friend, permitting her to walk right through and knock so softly on his door. 

“Hey,” he said, glancing away from his computer screen. Seeing Hermione’s tight expression, the lines in her brow, the worried lift in her torso without a heavy book bag to drag her shoulders back down… he quashed the smile he’d felt tug at his lips from seeing his old friend come to visit. “What’s up, ‘Mione? Grab a seat.” Valya had smartly ordered two comfortable leather chairs to sit opposite Harry’s desk, for when he had visitors. 

Hermione closed the door behind herself, taking the closest chair. She sat, hands in her lap, looking at the surface of his workstation rather than at him. A deep breath seemed to calm her. 

“I wanted you to hear this right away,” she prefaced. “From me, not anyone else. I literally just found out. I haven’t even told Susan. I came right to you.” 

He could see she was upset, so he got up, rounded his desk, and leaned his bum against it, offering some closeness for comfort. He held out his hand, palm up, as he often did to Draco. She took his fingers, her hand less than steady. Harry rubbed a thumb over her knuckles. “Tell me,” he said softly. 

“Harry… Dolores Umbridge applied for a position in the Department of Education.” 

There was a part of him wanting to scream ‘son of a bitch!’ at the top of his lungs, to punch a hole through the drywall and hope he didn’t hit a stud hard enough to break his own fist, then pick up his computer and throw it out the window with a shout like a wounded griphorn. And there was a part of him suggesting he crawl under his desk, throw his robe over his head to make the world turn black, and cry. 

Neither of those reactions were going to help anyone. Nor would they make him feel any better, any stronger, any less helpless. 

Hermione looked up at him, holding his hand tight, waiting to see his reaction. More than anything in that moment, she worried how badly he might take this news. She was bracing for his famous temper. 

He managed to hold it together. Barely. “There are a lot of open jobs over there, right? Education is hurting for staff?” He wanted confirmation of the rumors he’d heard ‘round the old Ministry building. Hermione nodded. “I don’t care if they’re down to a single grindylow waving a stick for an employee. Nothing justifies allowing that woman near children—or any other unsuspecting human being—ever again.” 

“Damn right.” Hermione rarely swore. When she did it was with good reason, and she meant it, like she did now. 

“What can your department do to embargo this?” 

She folded her arms angrily under her breasts. “Not enough.” Which was why she sat in Harry Potter’s office right now and not her boss’. “We’d need some kind of documentation, something legal like testimony or—” 

“We know what she did,” interrupted Harry. “So do a few others. Some of them are still kids but… a trial,” he concluded. “She tortured me, and the proof’s in my memories. Hell, it’s written on my fucking hand. Nobody would’ve taken me seriously then; but I’m a Hit Wizard now—Special Advisor to the Minister of Magic,” it was a ridiculous title but it was what was printed on the name plate outside his door. “If I speak up now, everybody listens. I can get Umbridge for torturing an underage wizard. I can take her down.”

“…Azkaban,” Hermione said softly. “It might be too good for her.” 

Harry tended to agree. A witch like Umbridge might learn a thing or two from the population of Azkaban. She might come out an even greater monster than she went in. But they couldn’t risk doing nothing. She couldn’t be allowed free, to do to others what she’d done to Harry. If she thought for a second she could get away with it, she would keep right on hurting people. Harry wouldn’t stand by and allow that. 

He leaned sideways over his desk, using his obliques and core to support himself rather than lean an arm on his desk and mess up the pile of parchments he was working through. He reached out, pressing the intercom button so he could speak to Valya at her desk. 

“Val? I’m gonna need you to please get me thirty minutes with Gawain Robards. Yes it’s urgent, and no it can’t wait. I need him today, preferably this morning.” 

“Vot shall I tell Nancy?” 

God bless Valya for having memorized the names of everyone’s secretaries and assistants because Harry couldn’t. He’d never been that good with names and faces unless they were attached to quidditch jerseys. 

“I have evidence that…” Harry cleared his throat, looking for the most succinct path. “I need to start the process for an arrest. For torture of underage wizards. I need Robards on this, because the media’s gonna be all over it.” 

Val swore in Russian—he knew what that sounded like; mat, the vernacular for swearing, was nearly universal across Russia and the Slavic countries. Then she started typing, looking for an opening in Robard’s calendar, trying to circumvent his assistant all-together given the degree of severity. 

“Lunch,” she said. “He haz lunch open.” 

“Fine,” Harry agreed. He’d made plans with Ron and the guys to get out of the office for a bit and stretch, get some curry or something, but this was too important. “Set the appointment and please order me something,” he told Val. Then he turned to Hermione. “Looks like Ron’s free for lunch this afternoon. Would you mind taking him out for a sandwich and telling him? I’m gonna be with Robards, and I’m not sure how fast it’ll go from there.”

“Sure, Harry. Of course.” She squeezed his hand back. They’d been holding hands the whole time, which meant she’d felt the pulses of magic running through him, the tiny twitches of his fingers, the adrenaline and anger begging to get out. 

He put his finger back on the intercom button. “Val? Could you also check with Cardoso, see if he has some time to spar later today?” Jai had his black belt in Jiu Jitsu, which Harry learned their first day of combat training when the Brazilian casually flipped him like a rag doll. Now that he was used to it, Harry actually found it rather fun to get thrown about, his ass handed to him on the mats. “After this meeting, I’m gonna need to hit something.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry walked into Gawain Robards’ office to find his take-away waiting for him. Valya had it sent up. She knew him too well—Harry shook Robards’ hand before sitting down to a nice stir fry loaded with shrimp, smothered in sauce with a kick to it. Harry recognized the work of the noodle bar across from the tube station. Robards had soup and a sandwich from somewhere. 

"Probably not the best subject to discuss whilst eating," Harry began. "But I need to block the re-hiring of Dolores Umbridge. She cannot be allowed to work for the Ministry, or with children, ever again. At Hogwarts when I was fifteen, she physically assaulted me. Plainly speaking, she tortured me. She had a quill which would write in your own blood, scratching your skin with every word you wrote. She made kids at Hogwarts write lines with it. Sometimes for hours, until there was blood on the floor." 

Harry held up his hand, pulling down on his cuff to reveal his scar. Draco always got Harry's shirts a bit long in the sleeves—partly because Nebojsa was often the mannequin when choosing or making clothes for Harry, and his arms were longer—but also because Draco knew Harry was self-conscious of the rude reminder on his hand. Harry didn't like people seeing it and inevitably wondering what it meant, how he'd gotten it, ripped into his skin in his own handwriting. The scar made him look emotionally unstable, if not disturbed. That had probably been part of Umbridge's game-plan to discredit him.

Robards looked at the scar:  _I must not tell lies_  in Harry's untidy, fifteen-year-old-boy penmanship. His writing wasn't much better now, but at least he typed more than he wrote long-hand. That scar, the memories, and his writing at fifteen would be with him, written on his body, for the rest of his life. 

Umbridge had left her mark on him. And that hubris would be the start of her undoing now she’d poked her head up from whatever hole she’d hidden in when the war began in earnest. Harry was a bit surprised she’d escaped the centaurs, to be frank. 

"I'm willing to submit testimony and take this to trial,” said Harry clearly. “With permission to go public I'm sure I can round up others she did this too—the ones I don't already know about, because I'm sure she has other victims out there. People who get away with this sort of thing once tend to do it again. Especially when their victims are kids who can't stand up for themselves, or people like me who wouldn't be believed due to circumstance." 

Robards put down his sandwich, which he'd forgotten on its way to his mouth. Child abuse rightly put him off his lunch. 

Harry picked up his fork, getting some vegetables and chomping down. He was hungry—he’d been for his usual run that morning, Misha keeping pace with him now he was training hard, then hit the Fenchurch gym with Dima, Sia, and Ron; and the cafe in the muggle lobby had been all out of muffins and scones by the time he got there looking for a second breakfast. He chewed. He needed the fuel. 

"How can you eat?" whispered Robards, looking at his sandwich like he was loathe to waste food but couldn't keep it down just now. 

Harry lifted a shoulder. His blasé dark humor often got him into trouble, but not with Robards. "I was starved as a child, sir," he said plainly. "You'd be surprised what I can eat my way through." 

After most of the violent events of his past, Harry had woken up in the Hospital Wing and gone right to the Great Hall, an unlimited buffet for his voracious appetite. It gave him a sense of agency that he could eat however much he wanted of whatever he chose. No one denying him, no one to tell him that was too much or he wasn't allowed certain arbitrary things. Dr. Beasley said his eating was fine so long as he could identify when he was full and didn’t have trouble stopping at that point; he was a highly active man and needed the calories. If he ever found himself in less active employment he might have to scale back. But as it was he kept Grimmauld stocked to bursting, and regularly sat four meals a day. His body was strong and still growing. Draco grumbled every time he had to re-tailor a shirt, calling his husband a weed. 

Robards shook his head softly. "How is it possible you're only eighteen?" he asked rhetorically. 

Harry's shoulder rose again. He chewed pensively, speaking when his mouth was clear and tingling slightly from the spice in his food. "I believe Alexander The Great was eighteen when he put down a rebellion in Thrace. And the Marquis de Lafayette who coordinated the revolution in America was seventeen and leading troops.” He read a lot of military history during his time with Leon, learning from the past in order to better the future. “We can't be surprised when young people rise to the occasion the same as adults; that sort of attitude limits young people from achieving." 

Robards stared at him, as though trying to understand a rune in a by-gone language, or a relic of a lost era."You remind me of my great-great-great grandfather Nicolas Flamel." 

“Do I?” Harry set down his fork out of politeness. “I was very sorry when he passed away. In some ways, I felt responsible.” 

Robards shook his head. “We were with him—the whole family—at the end. He and Perenelle, they said it was an opportunity for their deaths to  _mean_  something, just as their lives had. They had a chance to take a stand against You-K… against Voldemort.” It was an adjustment, to be able to say the wizard’s name again without repercussion or risk. 

Harry very well understood the feeling of one’s death having a purpose. 

“About Umbridge…” Robards put both elbows on his desk, leaning forward. “I believe you, Potter. Your recollection, your evidence…” he glanced at Harry’s hand, ‘evidence’ he’d carried with him for three years without a single adult able to do something about it. It took Harry being grown, too, in order to fight back in ways that counted, ways which would help others in a lasting way. “That’s all sufficient for a trial. I do agree we ought to gather these other victims you mention, and there may well be more out there than we think. What I don’t want is to influence testimony—to lead witnesses, you understand? We need people coming forward on their own, offering their statements with no knowledge of what you’ve told me. Independent testimony.” 

“I understand,” Harry agreed. More than wanting Umbridge to pay for what she did to him, he wanted others to have their justice, and to be sure Umbridge never had the chance to hurt anyone else ever again. If that meant moving more slowly and carefully than he’d have done on his own, then so be it. 

Robards rolled his sandwich back up in its paper, pushing his soup aside to reach his computer keyboard. 

“Let’s draft a statement for  _The Prophet_ , and see who comes out of the woodwork.” 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter posted a couple of days late, but I hope the length makes up for my tardiness! My partner was in the hospital for a bit. He’s back on his feet now, made a full recovery, but I wanted to take those couple days to be present (and ream his doctors for being idiots). 
> 
> This chapter is fucking huge. There’s a ton going on, and another 10-12k arriving in a couple days in a similar vein. 
> 
> For Discussion:  
> -The Ministry is still kinda fucked up in the interior. Kingsley’s got a lot on his plate, and a long way to go to real institutional change.  
> -Ron’s showing some depth and personal progress!  
> -Do we like the Ginny/Misha parallel story? Or am I rolling eyes because they’re a hetero couple, or not a heavy S&M pairing? Do you wanna keep seeing this relationship or should I gloss until they become plot-critical?  
> -I desperately wanted to see more POC and women in leadership roles, and have them be developed, well-rounded, interesting characters. Doing this in a predominantly Caucasian country is tricky. I hope it was more natural than shoe-horned.  
> -Harry’s emotions are growing exponentially, and he’s having trouble both understanding and controlling them. Is this because he’s free of Voldemort’s influence and finally able to fully feel? Or are his emotions so overwhelming because he’s repressing other feelings?  
> -WTF is going on with Nebojsa? More clues or even more questions? Theories?  
> -What role could the Seongsil machine play in helping Harry and Draco unscramble their powers?  
> -How about those changes to Tonks’ story and pregnancy?  
> -Hermione is really growing up. She’s taking on a ton of responsibility, carrying a lot of people whereas she used to take care of just Ron and Harry. What impact is this gonna have on her relationship with Ron?


	11. Blurry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry advances in his training to become a Hit Wizard. Nebojsa forces Dmitry’s hand. Draco explores his inheritance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** PTSD, nightmares, denial, false-memory association, angst, inappropriate use of Polyjuice Potion, mental illness management, finance, situational/emotional insensitivity, dueling, office humor

 

_“Everyone is changing_

_There's nothing left that’s real_

_Make up your own ending_

_And let me know just how you feel_

_Cause I am lost without you_

_I cannot live at all_

_My whole world surrounds you_

_I stumble then I crawl”_

 

“[Blurry](https://youtu.be/5RisBAkC0x8)”

Puddle of Mudd

 

“The Great Harry Potter… not so great after all, are you, Harry?”

He could recall with photographic precision the wet sheen to Voldemort’s waxen skin, like that of a reptile or some swamp creature. His voice was incongruous to his cursed body; he ought to croak, to wheeze, to smell like death and damp, rotten things. Bones jutted from his face like fallen trees covered in a thin layer of snow. The black robe wrapped around his towering frame looked like a bat’s wings furled around itself as it slept upside-down. 

Harry opened his mouth, a rebuttal on his lips. But nothing came out. 

Shadows rippled around them, echoes of the waters of the Great Lake moving far above; they were back in Slytherin Commons, back in the battle for Hogwarts. The Dark Lord’s foot soldiers surrounded them, looking on; their sneering faces were familiar—Lucius and Bellatrix, Philippe and Laron, Greyback and Dolohov and the rest.  

“I understand you’ve been hard at work to undermine me. A valiant effort… too bad it will come to nothing. Yet I do appreciate your tireless attention these last seven years.” 

Fucking narcissist. 

Harry couldn’t get a word out. So he pushed Draco behind him, offering his body as protection. He needed his husband to be safe no matter what. Harry had faced Lucius Malfoy this way; he stood between Draco and Voldemort as he'd stood between Lucius Malfoy and his friends years before, stood between Lucius and his wife out of her mind from torture only last year. He was always putting himself between danger and the ones he loved. The faces changed but his intention never swayed. He was their shield, willing to die for them if need be. 

He was willing to die. He’d done it before, and he’d do it again. 

“Nothing to say, Harry?” 

In seven years, he’d only held a few brief conversations with Voldemort—in the Ministry of Magic, and a graveyard in Little Haggleton—and even then he’d been tied up, or possessed, somehow rendered physically defenceless: Riddle barely listened to Harry, anyway, caught up in his own glory. No one had conversations with Voldemort; they were opined to, talked at. Harry Potter had only ever been a prop, an object, and any sound he made was of no more consequence than the creak of a floorboard when tread upon, or the scrape of a chair when the Dark Lord rose from it—as he’d intended his soul to rise from Harry’s corpse, a flower emerging from dirt. 

Harry never viewed ‘conversing’ with Voldemort to be particularly necessary, or productive. So he never sought out the opportunity to talk with his enemy. Harry never had anything to say to Tom Riddle. He had no interest in the lunatic’s words, and refused to aggrandize him by giving the basic courtesy of listening. Hearing and measured response were given to discourse, wherein ideas were exchanged to reach understanding or compromise. There would be no compromising with Voldemort, so what was the point in wasting words and time? 

As Voldemort glared at the Potters, the world around them began to bend, darkening, stretching, until they were in the Hall of Prophecy. 

And from the shelves came whispers. Seemingly out of the walls, everything inanimate had a voice. Including Harry’s own wand carried in Draco’s hand. From behind him phoenix and holly cried out that it didn't want to be made to fight its brother. Everything had an opinion. Everything was able to express itself… save for Harry. 

He couldn't speak. So he raised his gun instead, took aim at Voldemort, and squeezed the trigger. 

More than anything, he didn't want Draco to have to go through the horror of killing someone again. Draco had to be okay, to survive, to get out in one piece. He wasn’t shooting to defend himself; he pulled the trigger to stop Riddle from hurting anyone else. 

As his body fell, black robe billowing, a red hole in his forehead... Voldemort turned into Sirius, falling through the veil again before Harry’s eyes. Because the Hall of Prophecy became that windowless cave of a room with a whispering arch in the center, and that cold, pale body went through it, into death. 

Harry and Draco rushed to the curtain—he was surely dreaming, his mind insisted, because he was his old height, back in his five-foot-five body, but Draco's hair was a bright shade of teal, like a neon light in the darkness beside him. 

People were blending and the details mixed up, jumbled and wrong. His waking life made only a fraction more sense. He knew it was a dream because he always dreamt of people dying, and of the veil in the Department of Mysteries. His mother's voice still screamed—forever screaming, dying. Her voice came through the prophecies on the walls, as though miles away and right beside him all at once, until that scream drowned out the whisper of prophets because it came from his own lungs, the first sound he was able to make and he sounded like anguish, like his mother dying. 

Draco ripped the veil aside. He needed to see Voldemort dead, to know it was done. 

The body was Nebojsa's, his winter eyes open and dead, a hole in his head leaking a puddle of blood beneath his soft flowing hair. Harry shot his best friend in the head. And Draco was screaming—pushing Harry away, horrified, because he'd killed their friend this time and not their enemy.

 

 

 

 

Harry woke in a cold sweat. 

Draco was right beside him; awake and annoyed on the pillow next to him, a hand on Harry's shoulder, ready to wake him up if it got any worse. He’d probably thrashed around, if not yelled, waking Draco up. 

His nightmares always woke Draco. There were less of them now, but they’d never leave him completely. 

"Sorry," Harry mumbled, immediately feeling worse for having disturbed Draco’s sleep. He peeled wet hair off of his face. His pillow stuck uncomfortably to his neck, wet cotton and wet skin. 

"You were shoutin'," Draco told him, agitated, perhaps even worried. So said the unconscious Westie lilt to his words, not unlike a sleepy slur but unique to Draco. "In Parseltongue." 

 _That_ was what made Draco nervous. 

Harry knew by the look on Draco's face that it had been a while since he'd spoken snake language in his sleep—at one point they'd thought it had something to do with Voldemort's horcrux inside of him. But the more Harry explored his own self—his power as well as his sexuality—he realized unconscious Parseltongue came from himself, not Riddle. 

There was still something inside him trying to get out. 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The Potters went to Diagon Alley for a few errands—potion ingredients, owl treats, a few quidditch magazines, the usual—before stopping at Fortescue's for an ice cream. Soon they'd be wearing jumpers as the weather turned, and Harry wanted to take advantage while they could still comfortably sit out on the patio. 

Draco wore long-sleeves, his robe and the muggle shirt beneath it protecting the public from the sight of the Dark Mark on his arm. Draco was the only person in the world with that mark on him. No matter what it meant to the two of them, other people would see it and have their own feelings and assumptions. He understood Draco’s desire to cover his tattoo, not to incite those reactions in others. For a day, Draco wanted to be normal. 

People would stare at them regardless, because of who they were. 

As a distraction, Draco started quizzing Harry on Hit Wizard jargon he'd be tested on in the coming workweek. 

Hit Witches and Wizards went through the same two-month course as Aurors, followed by an additional three weeks of specialized training before a series of exhaustive tests. Anyone who didn't survive the additional curriculum usually dropped back and became an Auror instead. After passing exams, physical testing, and a final interview with the Department Director, Robards, those who were deemed worthy became Hits. 

Hit Wizards always worked in pairs, called a team. And the person you were teamed up with out of training was often your partner for many years, unless someone retired or moved elsewhere in the Ministry. Working in pairs had many benefits—most obviously camaraderie and someone to always have your back. But it was also a measure of accountability. When Hits testified in court or gave evidence it was always as a team, so that no one person could falsify evidence or have their testimony influenced. It reduced corruption, and often helped provide more accurate details of stressful firefights or other events, as your teammate might observe things you missed, or remember details you forgot. The concept of two-person teams was unique to the Hits, although it was often debated whether other departments ought to adopt this method as well... mostly the argument was made in the wake of corruption scandals or in cases where field officer testimonies didn't line up. Extending the concept of working in paired teams department-wide was something people debated often, Draco told him, but in hundreds of years the practice remained exclusive to the most militarized branch of Magical Law Enforcement, a type of self-regulation present nowhere else in the Ministry. 

Draco quizzed him. "When two teams deploy together, they’re called...?" 

Four Hit Wizards, two teams. "A squad." 

"Three teams are…?" 

Six Hit Wizards. "A force." 

"And more than that?" Draco raised his eyebrows. He was being cheeky. After that it two squads, or a squad and a force, or two forces, and so on. 

Harry licked the ice cream off his spoon. "I believe that's called a war." 

Draco's eyebrow rose, and he almost smiled. The squiggly white scar along his hairline twitched. His hair—which was no longer aquamarine but a deep shade of sapphire blue—caught the light, his eyebrows and lashes darkened to a complimentary brunette. He’d grown tired of his bright color and opted for something more saturated to match the changing season. The darker blue suited him, too, bringing out the faint freckles on his skin. 

Draco liked Harry's answer. So said the flicker of light in his eyes. "Your examiner might not appreciate your flippancy, but yes, I do agree." 

A group of witches a few years older than them looked ready to come over and say hello. They were smiling and talking amongst themselves, their eyes fixed on the Potters, bucking up their collective nerve to approach the famous couple. 

Draco glared them away even as Harry started chuckling... in truth he laughed a little harder at the expression on Draco's face—exasperation, and a barely visible fraction of Chosen-One-adjacent exhaustion. Even Draco was sick of being under constant attention every time they set foot in the magical world; perhaps being husband to Harry Potter was in some ways more attention-inducing than having been the son of Lucius Malfoy. These witches needed to learn about boundaries in Draco's mind. To Draco, there was a protocol for approaching famous or influential people in public; a remnant of old pureblood culture which he thought everyone gifted with magic ought to observe, mostly because it made _his_ life easier. 

A Malfoy scowl got the witches on their way, looking disappointed. That was an art Harry hadn’t quite mastered yet—getting people to leave him alone. His appearance of ‘niceness’ backfired in that regard. Strangers regularly walked right up to him and started chatting, in part because Harry made others feel comfortable. Perhaps _too_ comfortable for Draco’s tastes. 

Draco turned back to Harry. “Who do you think will be your partner?” 

Harry shrugged. “Dunno. Jai Cardoso’s really good.” 

“From Brazil?” 

He nodded. “Yeah. He’s an impressive fighter—has his brown belt Jiu Jitsu—and he’s one hell of a duelist. But I think Nash might not pass him for his English. He’s practicing… but the accent. Cardoso’s kinda tricky to understand, and communication can be life-or-death in a fight. Especially when English isn’t everybody’s first language to begin with.” Harry was considering how difficult it was for the Icelanders and the Slavs to understand Cardoso’s heavy Portuguese accent and sometimes muddled word-order. He could understand the guy, but only because they spent hours in the gym together week-after-week. 

“True,” Draco licked his ice cream. “Who else, then?” 

Harry considered. “If not Cardoso then… maybe its cliché but… I’m kinda hoping I get put with Ron.” 

Both of Draco’s eyebrows lifted—mild surprise. “Thought he was on the Auror track.” 

Mouth canted, Harry forked a hand through his hair, getting it away from his eyes. “Nash has an eye on Ron. I think ultimately Hay-Boggis will ask him to test up to the Hits. Ron’s been working with Dima in the gym. He’s in shape for it. He could do it… if it’s what he wants.” 

Draco closed his eyes a moment, mentally assessing. When he opened them, silver flashed, catching in the light of the alley. 

“Why wouldn’t he want to work with his best mate?” 

Things between Harry and Ron were still… complex. They were clawing their way back, each day a little better than the last. They were something like mates again. It got better every day, because they were both trying like hell. 

“I think… maybe we’ve forgiven each other,” admitted Harry. “It’s a lot of trust, being a Hit team. I dunno if that’s what Ron wants. But I’m open to it, if he is.” Harry took the last bite, dropping his spoon in his empty cup. “”S not up to us recruits, tho. Robards has to approve every final placement, and Nash assigns teams after we pass our exams.” 

“When’s that?” 

“Four weeks.” 

Draco finished, too. “Then in four weeks, you’ll have your answer.”

~ * ~

 

 

 

 

> TO: DL-LawEnforcementPersonnel, DL-HRIntegration, DL-SeniorStaff
> 
> FROM: Granger, HJ
> 
> SUBJECT: Internet Access, Professional Conduct Guidelines
> 
>  
> 
> Good Morning,
> 
> It is the policy of this Ministry to restrict the use of computing and muggle internet to professional purposes only. If for any reason you are unsure that your investigation or necessary work may fall outside these guidelines, you are advised to contact your superior or a member of Human Resources to discuss the matter further. Special allowances will be granted for sensitive cases, projects, and personal circumstances.
> 
> Under no circumstances are Ministry resources to be used to access or view pornography.
> 
>  
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Hermione Jean Granger
> 
> Deputy Director, Human Resources & Magi-Muggle Integration

 

 

Harry needed both hands over his mouth to stifle the laughter threatening to bust out of him.

When he had control over himself, he got up from his desk and stuck his head out to survey the bull pen. He counted heads, noting teams and senior staff, then shifting his focus to his fellow recruits until he figured out who’d been canned for looking at boobs on the internet. 

Lewys Jenkins was missing, his desk cleared. Of course it was fucking Jenkins.

 

 

 

 

Three hours later, Hermione was standing at the edge of the bull pen, having come from the elevator bay. She waved her hand, covertly signaling Ron to come out and speak with her privately. Confused, Ron followed her summons. 

After about five minutes, he returned. Harry was at Dima’s desk, comparing notes after that morning’s workshop on arrest protocol. Ron floated back, a tremendous grin on his face. He leaned against the edge of his desk, his bum settled on the surface, hands splayed out behind himself, and heaved a sigh. 

His lips were thick and red from snogging. Hermione had smoothed his hair back, but Harry noted the soft pink trail of fingernails along the side of his neck where she’d gotten urgent at one point, yanking his head down to meet hers. 

“What was that about?” Harry ventured. 

Ron looked at Harry, speaking woodenly. “I sent her flowers. Because of the Jenkins thing this morning.”

“I bet that was an awful experience for her,” Harry commiserated. Hermione had never fired anyone before. It would make her uncomfortable—on top of which Jenkins had done something inappropriate, sexually, which always put Hermione extra on-edge. She wasn’t the best at talking about sex given her conservative muggle upbringing. The meeting would’ve been as awkward for her as it was for Jenkins. “Good thinking, mate. I take it she appreciated the gesture?” 

“That’s the thing…” Ron’s chin turned, his jaw tight, suspicious. “I didn’t send the flowers. But apparently the card was from me.” 

That explained the piercing look he was giving Harry. 

The Boy Who Lived To Be Oblivious only wished he’d thought of that; instead he’d laughed a moment at Jenkins for being an idiot and moved on, never considering how the man’s blunder might’ve effected anyone else. 

“Don’t look at me. I didn’t send ‘em, either.” Harry held his hands out, palms exposed, as though demonstrating his innocence—or rather, his lack of sensitivity. 

Nebojsa snorted at them, picking up his mug and heading to the water cooler for a refill. On his way by, he must’ve made a face at Ron because the red-head reacted, his eyes bugging out, his face incredulous. If Harry had to bet, he’d say Nebojsa winked at Ron. _He_ sent the flowers. Of course he was the one to consider Hermione’s feelings, the one not to laugh at Jenkins’ mistake and blow the whole thing off as a hilarious cock-up. Nebojsa’s heart wasn’t nearly so calloused. 

Harry pointed after the Serbian’s back, waiting until he was out of ear-shot before talking about him. “That man is a saint,” Harry declared. “None of us deserve him.”

 

 

~ * ~

 

Robards called a status meeting on the Umbridge case. Harry was a bit surprised to see the number of names on the invitation. They didn’t fit in any of the ready conference rooms, forced to use one of the larger, yet-unfurnished rooms on the top floor. A couple of support staff showed up early with folding tables and chairs, setting up by hand with only a small amount of grumbling for not being able to use magic to speed up the process. Harry himself arrived a few minutes early, pitching in. 

The announcement Robards published in every newspaper stated that there was an investigation underway looking into abuse of students by certain teachers at Hogwarts during the year Umbridge was there, with a year on either side for padding. The Director asked anyone who suffered physical or psychological abuse at the hands of a professor to write a statement and direct it to his office to be included in the indictment and trial. For the first time in magical history, an email address was provided along with the article, giving victims an alternate and more expedient option for submitting their grievances. 

A few muggle-borns and mixed-bloods actually emailed the Ministry, surprised when they received a response back within a few minutes. Robards had the case on highest priority. 

The article didn’t mention Umbridge by name; a calculated omission by which they could more easily filter the true victim statements from the mud that was going to be slung. 

“That’s just human nature,” Robards said in a previous meeting. “Give people an opening and some will be honest and true, but others will take advantage and throw false testimony for attention or to obfuscate from the real matter at hand.” It was too bad, Harry thought, but that was how the world worked. People would use this as an opportunity to cry for attention or waste the Ministry's time. So be it. The run-around from false letters was worth it when they found victims, and were able to get those people into a position to receive justice. 

The process was taking longer than anticipated as the staff assigned to the case—those responsible for reading owls and emails, preparing official documents, and keeping track of the details—kept changing over. Every new victim statement to arrive created further conflicts of interest; somebody’s friend turned up as a victim, or a sibling, or an in-law; or amongst the older generations it was their niece, their nephew, or their own child who’d suffered. It was getting difficult to find Ministry personnel who _didn’t_ have a personal connection to this case. 

Valya had volunteered to help but had to recuse herself once Denis Creevey, her future brother-in-law, wrote his own statement after breaking the news to his family. And that was pretty much how it went—every few days another staffer got removed as the true level of devastation caused by one single person continued to surface, rippling outward like a toxic plague in the air, invisible but affecting them all. At last, they were starting to see the impact of allowing an abuser into a position of power over others. Especially kids. 

Robards ended up assembling a group of mostly foreign-educated witches and wizards, as well as squibs from HR; people who hadn’t gone to Hogwarts and could stay more or less objective about it. A few had asked to be taken off the case for personal reasons—it was hard to spend your whole day reading accounts of child abuse, whether the claims were true or not. Dissecting each experience took a major toll on a person no matter how strong they were. 

Harry had kept his ear to the case as much as he could. He wasn’t allowed to read any testimonies as a precaution, so the experiences of others couldn’t influence his own recollections when the time came. But he could access the growing list of people alleging that Dolores Umbridge abused them. 

Every name made sense to him: Cho Chang, Marietta Edgecomb, Sue Li, Laura Madley, Orla Quirke, Stewart Ackerley, Nigel Wolpert, Owen Cauldwell, Terry Boot, Zacharias Smith, Ephram Summerby, Patrick Byrne, Euan Abercrombie, Lee Jordan, Fred and George Weasley, Padma and Parvati Patil, Katie Bell… the list just went on. Umbridge had ripped through a sizeable portion of Hogwarts, significantly Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, going several degrees outside Harry’s known acquaintances and members of Dumbledore’s Army, trying to get someone to roll on a friend. And a few of these victims had likely been totally unrelated to Harry’s activities with the DA—students Umbridge took a dislike to for any number of reasons. He guessed Pat Byrne found himself in Umbridge’s clutches for his truancy habits, or getting caught one too many times snogging various girls in unused classrooms. Umbridge had it out for people other than Harry Potter and his supporters. 

He didn’t want to think about those who hadn’t survived the fighting at Hogwarts, who would never see Umbridge held accountable for what she did to them. They deserved to be believed, to have their experience recognized and in some way apologized for. A few grieving parents of deceased students wrote letters, recounting the stories of abuse their children brought home. Their statements were logged as supporting evidence in the rapidly-growing case. 

When Robards called the meeting to order, it was announced that the confirmed victim count had reached over thirty people… many of whom were under seventeen and still attending Hogwarts. Their signed testimonies came in accompanied by statements from their parents giving permission for their child to be part of the trial. Each adult signed with their magical seal, like the one Draco produced on their marriage contract, which Nebojsa had taught Harry to perform. He wished these seals carried a happier meaning like that day. But these families meant business; every last one prepared to have their stories go public. They didn't want a person like Umbridge returned to a position where she could hurt anyone else's child. 

The evidence was overwhelming. 

People couldn’t help but look at Harry sitting beside Robards. He didn’t say anything—he didn’t have to. It wasn’t spoken, but everyone understood. Harry was Victim Zero: the first to step forward. He started this avalanche. 

Very soon there would be a warrant for Umbridge’s arrest. In the interim she was under uninterrupted surveillance, authorized by Kingsley himself. Her surveillance crew were predominantly foreign-born Hit Wizards; Harry’s co-workers were recording her movements, assessing when would be the best time to take her into custody… and watching in case she somehow caught wind of the impending charges and attempted to flee. They had authorization to arrest her immediately should their surveillance catch her doing anything even remotely illegal. 

“Dolores Umbridge is considered a violent menace and a danger to our youth,” said Robards. “We need this one to be unequivocally by-the-book. I’m counting on each of you to abide by the strictest letter of the law, so that these young people and their families can have their day in court.”

The institutional changes which Harry helped spark to protect kids were working, as there were now even more statutes to site in bringing Umbridge in—each procedure, practice, and new law like a chain locking her down. There would be no escape.

 

 

**~ * ~**

The recruits were scheduled for a series of workshops on muggle weaponry—a last-minute addition to the Hit Wizard and Auror curriculum, one which Harry thought was sorely needed. As the Ministry planned to integrate the wand-guns invented by Leon, Ollivander, and Gregorovitch into standard Hit Wizard issue, it was critical that all Hits had a solid understanding of the mechanics and function of muggle weapons, as well as proficiency in wielding firearms with safety and accuracy. Aurors might not deal with this sort of thing on a daily basis, but they too needed a practical, hands-on understanding. 

Robards firmly believed learning physical fighting skills in addition to magical ones was the right direction for Law Enforcement as a whole, not just the elite Hits. In a controversial move, he authorized Bisset to hire a full-time physical combat instructor by the mane of Anatoly Chesnokov; a muggle-born graduate of Koldovstoretz who’d worked for multiple Field Operation groups in America… and was repeatedly fined for illegally competing in muggle professional fight tournaments—namely boxing and mixed martial arts. Chesnokov was an expert in the Russian fighting style of Sambo. He had to write a rather embarrassing letter of apology before he could be hired, since wizards were forbidden from competing in muggle professional sports due to their genetic advantage. Chesnokov grudgingly penned a few words about his regret which even Harry could tell were false; the guy believed in getting in a cage and letting nature take its course, allowing the best man to win whether he had magic in his blood or not. Everybody bled the same, he seemed to believe. 

Harry wondered whether Chesnokov ever knew someone like himself with emotion-based magic, who could manifest magic without trying. If Chesnokov had ever experienced that kind of endopathotic power, he might change his tune about wizards having an unfair advantage over muggles when it came to fist-fighting. 

Knife Day was fun. Harry took a few good slashes, dripping blood as he slumped in the showers afterwards, red running down the drain before he thought to heal himself. Draco would call him a fucking muggle for forgetting to use magic to heal himself right away, suffering the sting of sweat and hot water in his wounds. It was second-nature to wait for Draco to heal him, since Harry rarely trusted anyone else to get that close when he was injured. 

His sweats were ruined, shredded from avoiding blows and stained with his blood. He'd been used as a teaching aid more than once, challenged to get away from instructors Chesnokov, Vasnetsov, and MacPherson in a three-on-one skirmish—which he only survived using a quick-point Apparition technique, phasing himself out of danger to appear at an opponent’s back, strike quickly, and pop away, over and over again until he nearly puked. 

Ron was better at Apparating. He managed the technique better than Harry, getting the drop on his training partners, Mads and Jai. He was still more deadly with his wand than a blade, but his reflexes were quick, and he had explosive physical power gained in the gym; allowing him to launch himself into every fight, using his long reach and heavy upper body to his advantage, refusing to give up. Ron found his aggression when he got sliced open. 

Nebojsa did well, too, avoiding all but a few surface wounds. When Chesnokov asked which combat techniques he’d studied, Sia’s only answer was _Beograd_ —a nickname for Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, where he’d grown up. That seemed to be his excuse for most of his "bad" habits, or at least the violent ones. He'd learned to fight on the street, defending himself, probably jumped by multiple larger and older kids attacking from behind. If he didn’t have endopathotic magic to save his ass, his fists would’ve been the next best thing to prevent his getting mugged. Kind of explained why he had such an incredible pain tolerance. That and, you know, having sex with men; because that toughened you up about as much as getting punched in the face. The explanation of where he came from seemed enough for Chesnokov, who was happy to coach Sia, refining his technique. 

Dima had formidable fighting skills but his size worked against him at knife range; he couldn't help being such a large target, built wide in the torso, making it that much harder for him to twist and dodge. He and Chesnokov were roughly the same size, and well-matched despite their instructor being double the age of the average recruit… further proof that wizards held physical advantage over muggles, including aging more slowly due to their longer lifespans. 

Kevin Entwhistle dropped out after Knife Day. He was quite talented with Charms and Transfiguration, and very bright, but his lack of athleticism became a hindrance he wasn’t ready to dedicate additional time to: Kevin discovered he’d rather hit the books than the gym. Arthur Weasley picked Kevin up, and he started in the Office For The Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects at the old Ministry Building. Harry spotted him in the lift a few days later and was sure to say hello, and check how he liked his new gig. 

“No one’s come at me with a knife yet!” Kevin told him on a sigh of relief. “I love it.”

“Sounds boring,” Harry teased, smiling genially. “I’ll take the knives.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The Hit Wizard trainees had three entire days set aside for firearm training, beginning with safety. Harry smiled when he saw the itinerary. 

"Ivan!" he shook the big Serbian wizard's hand before their class began. They'd worked together in America. Apparently the Ministry had followed Harry's lead and tapped additional international talent to educate their teams. Harry was glad not to be in a class of only recruits. All of the Hit Wizards would be in attendance, needing to understand their new armaments which were currently being manufactured by Leon’s crew. For now, they’d practice with standard muggle firearms using the constable’s shooting range at Fenchurch. 

"Harry!" the huge ginger man pumped his hand in a cheery greeting. If Ivan weren't such an adept fighter he would've made one hell of a professional Keeper. He was six and a half feet tall and could block an entire ring with his arms outstretched. Harry wondered if Ivan had to get his clothes custom-made, being that big and in superior shape. His robes were tailored. Harry had only ever seen Ivan in military gear before. He was a sharp dresser, leaving Harry to wonder if fashion sense was common among men in Serbia, or just the magical ones. "Good to zee you. Yoo have gotten zo tall!" His eyes shot over Harry's head, widening in pleasant surprise. "Nebojsa! _Zdravutse!_ " 

Sia had always gone by his middle name. Harry understood 'Dragan' was a common name in Serbia, like John or Stephen, so there would have been many of them in school or other social settings, causing confusion. In the UK schoolmates called each other by surnames for just that reason. Harry knew Slavic culture wasn’t like the English—people used each other’s first names even when they were acquaintances, and the use of surnames was considered rude unless accompanied by a _Mr._ or _Mrs._ ahead of it. Durmstrang had been the kind of school where everyone called each other by first names, and only teachers called you by your surname. 

Nebojsa was an old-fashioned name, and uncommon; the kind you might hear in wizarding society. After a summer spent in that part of the world, Harry had yet to run into another bloke, magical or otherwise, with that moniker. 

The countrymen fell into speaking Serbian—shaking hands, grabbing each other's elbows in what was nearly a hug, kissing each other warmly on each cheek. Ivan would have been a few years ahead of Nebojsa, just a bit too old to have been a candidate for the TriWizard Tournament. Ivan might've done well in that type of competition: he was a fierce fighter and duelist in addition to his proficiency with muggle firearms, with a natural competitive streak. His gung-ho attitude sometimes caused friction with Leon's team back in America, many of whom were calculated introverts like Draco, and Ivan's ready willingness to run headlong into a firefight sometimes made his old coworkers nervous. But he was confident and incredibly likeable. If Ivan Ješić had gone to Hogwarts, Harry had no doubt he'd have been a Gryffindor. 

Ivan was kind of how Harry pictured Godric Gryffindor in his head: physically huge and able to dominate in conversation the same way he commanded the attention of a room. A bit headstrong, occasionally mischievous but meaning well. And hard to work with sometimes, not yielding his stance by a millimeter when he thought he knew best.

Harry stood back, getting a bottle of water and picking out his seat for the instructional portion of the day. They were due to go to the shooting range later, in shifts so that there would always be someone covering the desks in the event of an emergency. Ivan would teach his course a few times over, making sure everyone was proficient and passed tests for safety and accuracy. 

Harry drifted back to his Serbian friends after a few minutes, wanting to stick close for a chance to catch up with Ivan. 

At the first lull in conversation, Harry looked between his two friends, bucking his eyebrows in silent question of whether they wanted a third. Nebojsa provided him with a wandless Translation Charm so they might continue speaking in their native tongue. 

Ivan wasn’t thrown by Nebojsa’s sorcery—casting spells without a wand in-hand or a word spoken. Then again, Translation Charms were so ubiquitous at Durmstrang that it was reasonable most of the school’s former pupils were highly proficient. 

Harry inquired in Serbian, "Were you two close during school?" 

Ivan laughed, pointing an accusatory finger at Nebojsa. "This little punk ousted me from a four year streak as Dueling Champion!" 

Harry made his eyebrows go up, though he wasn't at all surprised knowing Nebojsa's skill. It was polite to be interested in Ivan's story, which Harry certainly was. His surprise was feigned, though his intrigue was not. "Really?" 

"I was crushed not to win Champion my last year of school, when I should have been seen as being at my best," admitted Ivan, in good spirits because the blow to his reputation had been so long ago. "To be eighteen and defeated by a thirteen year-old?" He snorted, shaking his ginger head. He still had one of the nicest beards Harry had ever seen—glossy, almost sleek, and the color like sunlight through a piece of red-gold cathedral glass. Ivan’s beard was more like a fine pelt of fox fur on his face than facial hair. Harry bet that women really liked it, even if they weren't strictly into beards. "If Nebojsa were a lesser wizard, I'd have been crushed. But, all things considered..." he nodded deferentially, hinting at where Sia had ended up—Order of Merlin First Class, on-track to become a Hit Wizard, and friends with Harry Potter. 

"I got lucky," Nebojsa deferred politely. 

"Nonsense," countered Ivan with good humor. "You bested me fairly." His brown eyes traveled to Harry, filling him in. "The club elected him captain after I left, you know. I heard he never lost a tournament. Is that true?"

Nebojsa shrugged—that meant _yes_. From the age of thirteen he'd never lost, even to witches and wizards much older than him. 

"Who were the runners up?" asked Harry, curious. 

"Usually… Vuk or Chereshko," Nebojsa told him, hesitating a moment before he uttered the names of the dead. "Sometimes Iga could get to them, or Mads, or Lorenzo. Yuri was very good but he would never enter; he doesn’t like contests." 

"Batsushanski?" asked Ivan. They were closer in age, between twenty three and twenty six if Harry had to guess. Nebojsa nodded. "Where's cranky old Yura now?" 

"Groundskeeper at Hogwarts," provided Harry. Which seemed a strange place for a talented duelist and budding wandmaker versed in the Dark Arts to hang his hat. Yuri ought to have been in America developing combat technology with Gregorovitch, or even teaching Defence Against The Dark Arts at the castle. He was more qualified to teach the subject than Percy Weasley or Gilderoy Lockheart. Instead Yuri was living in Hagrid's old hut and tending to the creatures in the Forbidden Forest… exactly where he’d landed in the days following the final battle. 

Harry thought Yuri might have found being alone in the woods therapeutic, taking care of the animals after his young life of having to hunt and kill them to put food on the table. Yuri was waiting for word on his lost fiancé, Darya Gregorovitch. Harry figured staying in one place was good if you wanted somebody lost to find their way back to you. But someone with Yuri's abilities could've aimed a lot higher. Like Fleur Weasley or even Draco, Yuri was keeping a very low profile despite his considerable talent; and, like Fleur and Draco, he had his own very private reasons for his life choices. 

Yuri was caught in a place between hope and grieving. Until he learned what had happened to Darya he wasn't willing to take any big steps with his life. Harry didn't want to see his mate put his life on hold forever. But six months wasn't long enough to start giving Yuri shit for hiding in the woods. Everyone dealt with the aftermath of the war in their own way. Just because it was Harry's choice to take an active role and become a military man didn't give him the right to judge others who might need to take a more circuitous path in finding the next aim for their life. 

"Any news on his girlfriend?" asked Ivan. 

"Fianceé," corrected Nebojsa gently. Ivan took that with a nod of concession. 

"No one's heard anything about her, and everywhere I've looked it's nothing but dead ends," said Harry. "I don't want to say she's gone...." 

"There are yet strongholds," offered Ivan, with a rare note of optimism for a Slavic person. Generally they tended to be on the pessimistic-to-realistic spectrum. Harry appreciated the lack of sugar-coating to their conversations, but it was equally nice to hear a bit of hope alongside the facts. "She may be held somewhere. She may yet escape." 

Ivan eyed Nebojsa carefully. Sia and Draco were the only wizards publically known to have escaped Death Eater captivity. And even then, they’d had help. An escapee was more likely to die in the attempt than make it out alive. Ivan understood the odds were against Darya turning up alive... especially given she wasn’t a dueling prodigy like Sia, or famously powerful like Harry Potter.

"Or we'll raid and find her," added Harry.

He wasn’t a Hit Wizard yet, but neither was he blind. He knew the department was working on something big. They had leads on Death Eaters and were preparing to move, getting every last detail in order before they struck hard and fast. Today’s lesson in firearms was one more piece of that necessary puzzle. With firepower and magic combined, they had a good chance at rescuing people like Darya Gregorovitch, and whomever else they might find trapped in those Death Eater hide-outs. 

The Death Eater clean-up was about to go from its recognizance phase to an active assault. Once the recruits were trained, their new weapons manufactured, and intel locked down… it would be time to strike.

**~ * ~**

Dmitry gifted the Potters several of his most remarkable paintings over the summer. Harry—who had never owned fine art before—only lifted an eyebrow when Draco declared he couldn’t just tack the canvases to the wall like quidditch posters in a dorm room. They needed to be taken to a framing shop, matted and mounted properly, before they were hung on the walls. Their house could use the brightening from a bit of art which reflected _their_ tastes rather than the previous, stiffly pureblood owners. 

The Potters were at the frame shop that evening, confirming their choices. Which was why Nebojsa was startled to find Harry Potter in his bedroom. 

The Boy Who Lived was idly poking through Dmitry’s cologne bottles on the dresser, as though waiting for someone to catch him at it. He picked one up, sniffing. And when Nebojsa entered the room—stopping dead and startled at Harry’s presence—The Chosen one merely held up the bottle, sloshing the chartreuse-tinted liquid inside. 

“What do you think?” he asked, casual at being caught rifling through Dima’s things. “I’ve never worn cologne but….” He picked up another, a bottle of black glass which was not actually cologne but lubricant brewed with essence of murtlap to promote the healing of internal tearing after rough sex. “Maybe this?” He smiled—slow, sensual, his naturally puffy lips parting to show white teeth. Luminous green eyes strayed down Nebojsa’s shirt, his top few buttons undone. 

It wasn’t Harry. 

“ _Dimka_ ,” Nebojsa growled. “ _What_ _in the hell do you think you’re doing?_ ” 

Caught, his partner dropped the act. Dima couldn’t mimic Harry’s mannerisms—The Boy Who Lived was too pure, to unconscious and unguarded, whereas everything Dima did was calculated, even when he appeared at ease… perhaps then most of all, because it was the biggest act. Dima never felt truly comfortable in his own skin, which was why he enjoyed using Polyjuice Potion so much. It allowed him the fantasy of being someone else, living their life rather than his own complicated one, if only for a few hours. 

His lips kept their upward curve, Harry Potter’s body wearing Dmitry’s lusty, lopsided smile. 

“Come on, baby,” that familiar English voice cooed. “They’ll be gone for a while. Why not?” He attempted to excuse his own highly questionable actions—swiping Harry’s hair to make himself into this vision in order to seduce his boyfriend, suggesting they give in to the fantasy of sleeping with Harry without consequences. 

Except every action had consequences; if not felt by the world, then etched into the soul who committed the sin. 

Dima had pinched a pair of tight, dusty-green-hued trousers from Harry’s closet, and a thin grey henley shirt which hugged Harry Potter’s well-developed upper body, the sleeves hiked up over his elbows just as Harry did, bunched up and haphazard, showing off his tattoo and the hint of a scar from a nearly-fatal basilisk bite beneath his ink. Dima touched Harry’s flat stomach, fingers taking in the feel of him, looking over the image he’d chosen to present. 

“You don’t like it? I… I forgot the glasses. _Prost_ ,” he scolded himself, saying he was an idiot. It wasn’t that strange anymore to hear Harry Potter’s voice speaking Romanian.

Dima was an idiot for a lot of reasons. Forgetting to put on Harry Potter’s glasses was the very least of his failings. 

Nebojsa had to unhook his tight jaw to speak. It took a monumental effort to remove the anger he felt from his voice. He had one simple, direct question he wanted an answer to. “How long since you’ve slept?” 

Dima had to think about it—that wasn’t a good sign. Sleep deprivation had its stages, just like grief did; there was giddiness, and listlessness, hyper-focus, and something like depression. Dima appeared to be in the early stages, silly and not thinking things through. It was the head-space in which he planned and carried out elaborate pranks back at school. Polyjuice-ing himself into Harry’s body for sex was just another laugh to Dima. In his current mental depletion, he couldn’t see the problems he was causing. The portion of his brain responsible for processing the repercussions of his decisions was shut down, inaccessible, due to chronic Insomnia. He probably thought this was amusing, a curious indulgence, something different they could both get off to. 

His Insomnia had seemed to settle over the summer—sufficient exercise, good company, something like a regular schedule, and most importantly the reduction of his stress. Dima wasn’t fighting for his life against his own father any more; he got his family home back, had more than enough money on which to live, and was surrounded by people he loved to be with. For a while he was sleeping at least a few hours every night. He hadn’t slept that well since his mother was alive. 

Then it started acting up again… whenever Harry got emotional or Draco withdrew into himself, Dima wouldn’t be able to sleep. The more in-tune Dima became to the Potters—the more he fell for them, performing his little supplicating favors to feel as though he were taking care of them—the worse he got. Now, with Nebojsa pressuring him to move out combined with the sometimes violent exposures of Hit Wizard training, Dima was in increasingly rough shape. In his head, it was like the war all over again. He was likely sleeping less than ten hours in a week, straining his mind, his cognition, his judgment. He wasn’t fit to work. He was able to hide his condition, to mask his symptoms, carrying on as normal. As the son of Tihomir Ionescue, Dmitry was a master dissembler, able to convince just about anyone he was level. Because, to anyone who’d come to know him in the last couple years, extreme sleep deprivation _was_ Dima’s normal. 

He knew how to hide when he wasn’t sleeping. He always slid into bed in the mornings, not wanting Nebojsa to know, to worry, to intervene. He pounded espresso and Pepper-Up Potions, using Glamour Charms for the dark circles under his eyes; he would paint and lift weights, engaging in his regular activities as though everything was normal. So it had to get to the point where Dima became bored and acted out, the warning shot of what was to come if he wasn’t tended to. 

Nebojsa had ripped into him for his prank on Head Auror Hay-Boggis. Dima was risking more than his job—his thoughtlessness could blow the entire Fenchurch operation, costing a few hundred people their jobs. Dima promised he was working on it; obviously that was a lie… or he wasn’t working nearly hard enough to combat his urges. He had to stop; to admit he was hurting himself and others; to drink a Sleeping Draft and knock himself out for at least a day… and keep doing it, until he was sleeping every night. If he didn’t get himself under control before their training was over… he’d be putting others in danger; Nebojsa would have to report him, to prevent him from working as a Hit Wizard in the field if he hadn’t slept for days.

“You’re not gonna play along?” Dmitry pouted through Harry’s features, refusing to answer the question. So it had been at least thirty-six hours. Maybe longer.    

“What’s there to play along to?” Nebojsa glared. “Harry Potter would not be in our room without asking. And Harry Potter would not be giving me that look.” 

Eyebrows rose. “What look?” 

“A look like being scolded turns him on.” 

Dmitry bit down on Harry’s sultry-thick bottom lip, guilty as charged. Eyes the color of the Killing Curse—and that fit, tan-skinned body which kept surviving it—turned to their bed, expecting that Nebojsa would give in to his whims. The expression on his face said, _Why not? Waste not._ He was still holding the bottle of lube, refusing to give up hope. 

It wasn’t going to happen. It was bad enough to breach Harry’s trust—using his clothes without permission, gathering his essence from somewhere in his own house, borrowing his likeness with sexual intent…. All of it was wrong. They’d messed up terribly when trusted with Hermione’s body last fall. Nebojsa refused to make the same mistake, to commit the sin again, against Harry. One fuck up was quite enough weight on his soul. 

Nebojsa had learned his lesson. Dmitry hadn’t. The sin of it was precisely what made Dima’s dick hard… or in this case, Harry’s, the heavy line of him visible through his crotch-hugging trousers—the clothing in Draco’s taste, bought to accentuate what Harry himself would never think to call attention to. For a married man, Harry was in so many ways still pure, unattuned to how the world at large regarded him as a sexual being. Outside Harry resembled a grown man, but his interior world remained that of a much younger spirit. 

Nebojsa cast his eyes to the ceiling so he wouldn’t have to see Harry Potter’s hard _kurac_. Again. It was awkward enough knowing Harry’s body as well as he did—having lived in it for the better part of a month. He’d pissed through Harry’s cock, dressed and undressed Harry’s cock, woken up on Draco’s sofa in the middle of the night with a hardness in that cock from which he’d nearly cried. Harry was thick, and the amount of blood needed to fill him left Nebojsa with weak knees and his head swimming. 

It was a unique experience to have an erection whilst in another person’s body, let alone an orgasm. Harry’s were blinding, mind-erasing, like having his soul ripped out of his body and stuffed back in. It felt like being reborn, giving new meaning to ‘The Boy Who Lived.’ Nebojsa had never come so hard in his life. Giving himself that solitary handjob as Harry Potter wasn’t something he could forget. More than once he’d considered Obliviating the memory for his own sake. He could lose those weeks at Hogwarts and have a lighter conscience for it… but that was the coward’s way out, a sinner’s escape. He had to face his sins if he meant to overcome them. 

He knew Harry’s prick. And he didn’t want to be seeing it now, controlled by Dima. His love was a lost cause, when that much power in his veins met the lack of processing power in his tired brain. Dima couldn’t handle being in Harry’s body. And he certainly couldn’t be responsible with Harry’s _kurac_. 

The proverbial walls between them and the Potters were becoming too thin to bear the weight, the strain. Something was going to buckle, to come undone. Nebojsa wouldn’t participate in that destruction; every day he worked against it, trying to get out, dragging Dimka kicking and screaming behind him like the petulant, spoiled brat he sometimes behaved like. It was harder to reach him when he was like this—horny, grandiose, not having slept for days, deaf to reason. He could only hear his own clamor, the voice of his father in his head, urging him to be this immoral, self-obsessed creature rather than the good and loving man Nebojsa knew lay battered and beaten, choked unconscious somewhere back there in the deepest reaches of Dima’s heart. 

Anger and compassion fought in Nebojsa’s mind; he wanted to take care of Dima—he was sick—but his behavior was egregious and had to stop. Once again, Dmitry couldn’t be trusted on his own. Until he slept, Nebojsa and Misha would be on him in shifts. He hated recruiting Misha, pulling him away from his quidditch training but… Misha was used to it. Together they’d been watching over Dima for years, tag-teaming. Someone always had an eye on him. It was easier back when Vuk was alive, or even on the run with Chereshko and the guys—they’d had back-up, helping Dima feel less like he was being watched… babysat, for everyone’s safety. He hated that, feeling like a prisoner because of his condition. But they had to isolate him until he had control of his faculties. There was no other way. 

“This is messed up, Dima,” he told the ceiling in Romanian, washing a hand over his face; physically pressing against the wrinkles in his forehead which threatened to become permanent every day they lived in this limbo. “We are _not_ under any circumstances going to have sex using Harry’s body. Even if we had his permission—which we don’t. And I’m disappointed you would think this was a good idea after everything that’s happened.” 

Dima never saw a problem with their use of Hermione’s gift of Polyjuice; he figured having access to her form gave him the right to use it as he saw fit… like a costume in his closet he could put on. He didn’t see that he also held her secrets, her reputation, a part of her spirit within that form. She’d trusted them to do right by her: they’d failed her. 

And then there was the unique problem of Harry Potter’s body. The suggestion that a sexual encounter with Harry Potter’s body could literally kill Nebojsa sailed right over Dima’s head—if Harry’s Blood Sorcery powers came with his form, Dima wouldn’t know how to control them, and he’d likely kill Nebojsa just as Harry nearly did when they’d started work at the Ministry. In Dima’s altered state, the very real danger to his lover’s life never occurred to him… let alone the breach of Harry and Draco’s trust. 

Dmitry’s brain was disconnected, and he was left to think with his _kurac_ instead. 

“Oh,” Dima simpered back, moving Harry’s body in a way Harry Potter would never move—pressing his front to the dresser, his low back arched, ass popped out, leveling his eyes at Nebojsa so clearly thinking of taking clothes off and grinding if only to pleasure himself in that gorgeous body. “I think it’s a wicked idea.” 

Nebojsa glared at the ceiling. “You’re incorrigible.” He turned his back to get a grip on himself. 

Dima stole the roll of papers stuffed in his back pocket, unraveling them, not even bothering to ask. The papers had been the reason he started looking for Dima in the first place. He sorted through them using Harry Potter’s hands, squinting to read without the glasses Harry needed to see properly. 

The pages were various properties for sale in London. He’d spoken with Hermione to confirm his twelve-year-old boy’s understanding of muggle banking practices; asking if it might be less expensive to purchase a place to live and pay a mortgage on it rather than renting. Misha wanted to stay in London for at least the two-year period of his contract, and it looked as though he and Dima would be hired-on as Hit Wizards at the end of training. Nebojsa didn’t have much to his name, but already his broom cupboard at Gringotts was filling with coins—his generous Hit Wizard salary—and their living expenses were quite low whilst bunking with the Potters, only groceries and entertainment to be funded out-of-pocket. Harry refused anything Nebojsa tried to hand over as rent: Harry barely let them pay for their own food or drinks when they all went out together. 

If Dima and Misha were willing to front the down-payment from their inheritance, then the three of them could have a place of their own for less per-month, and be able to modify it to suit their needs, adding muggle-repelling devices and additional security. They might even find a set of Vanishing Cabinets to set up a quick and easy, drunk-idiot-proof portal back to the palace. 

Dmitry flipped through the properties for sale which Nebojsa and Hermione had printed at the office. All were easily below their means—nothing glamorous, but comfortable, some within walking or cycling distance to their new office. 

“What’s this?” inquired Harry Potter’s crisp accent.

“Warehouses for sale. They’re less expensive than a traditional building, and you can use the extra space for painting.” 

He knew that having somewhere to paint was the one thing Dima missed about home. He didn’t want to muck up the Potters’ home with his supplies and inevitable spills. Dima was usually drunk or high when he painted, which made for amazing art… and a bit of a mess as a byproduct. Dima might steal Harry Potter’s beard-trimmings out of the bathroom, but he’d never damage their friends’ home; his love had a warped, wizardly sense of right and wrong. He didn’t care if his choices were hurtful, only whether he could get away with them. They had Tihomir to thank for those interwoven steel plates of self-interest and hedonism making up Dima’s thick skull; but it was Dima who wouldn’t fight his hellish instincts, who would rather sink into sin than take the hard path of raising himself up. For all his muscles, Dima was the weakest of them all. 

It hurt his heart to manipulate Dima like this. He was luring his love away from the Potters, using his calling as an artist as bait against him. It had to be done. To save what remained of their tarnished, ripped-asunder souls. Dima wouldn’t leave the Potters unless he saw something in it for himself; he couldn’t see that being true friends to Draco and Harry was more important than anything they might want for themselves. 

Dmitry’s face softened, bringing down Harry’s features to something like joyful tears. He was speechless. 

It seemed both Dima and Harry were so much more emotional lately… one more reason to separate them, giving each the space to breathe, before they fed off of each other even more. 

“Do you wanna go have a look?” Nebojsa asked. “London properties move fast, within a few days. We’d need to move quickly if you like any of those.” 

A hand pressed over his mouth, desperate to keep the emotion in. Dima never let his feelings make it to his face… but Harry Potter’s eyes looked back at him in wonder. Green became as wet as the sea, churning. He wanted to go, wanted a place to paint here in London. He gestured down his body. _Go outside… l_ _ike this?_ he asked with only those green eyes. 

Nebojsa shrugged. “We have a couple hours, right? Guess I’m looking at property with my _boyfriend_ , Harry Potter,” he mocked, a hint of his anger coming through.

Dima snorted, Harry’s dark laugh leaving him. “That makes you Harry Potter’s mistress.” 

Nebojsa echoed the sound, taking his papers back. “I prefer side-dick,” he snarked. “That would be the male equivalent to a mistress, right? And I’m destroying your Polyjuice when we get back.”

“What—all of it?” Dima protested. “Even Hermione?” 

“ _Especially_ Hermione. We shouldn’t be trusted with it.” The sin had to be laid equally on his own hands; Dima wasn’t as much of a narcissist as his father, but Nebojsa enabled him, gave in to him more than he ought. He’d lost his purpose, failed to do what was difficult but right, when given the choice of a fantasy over reality. They’d been given a second chance at life, and so far they were blowing it. “I’ve done unconscionable things, Dimka. And you know I’ve never asked for anything in return, or held you responsible for my own choices. But I won’t keep doing _this_ ,” he gestured between them, his finger landing on the sight of Harry Potter being worn like a coat before him. “They’re our family, Dima. We can’t keep using them to please ourselves and expect that relationship to survive.” 

He was forcing Dima to choose between fantasy and something real—Harry’s respect. They had this moment to turn around, to stop and do what was right by Harry. 

“I hate you.” That was Dima’s petulance in Harry Potter’s tone, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he forced himself to swallow his emotions. This childishness was something Harry had grown out of over the course of the war; it had no place in his earnest features. Dima had yet to grow beyond the ethics of a child, and that was Nebojsa’s fault for coddling him as much as it was Dima’s failing. 

Dmitry liked being spoiled, getting what he wanted without ever seeing consequences, or what his whims did to other people. His whole life he’d been taught there was no such thing as consequence; only excess, equal parts unchecked violence and pleasure. Other people held no more value than your own entertainment. Tihomir Ionescue had done his best to turn his sons into equal monsters. Dima had rarely suffered consequences before: Nebojsa always threw himself into the fire to spare the man he loved from pain. He had to stop doing that, sacrificing, accepting martyrdom. There was nothing left to be learned from suffering. Dima needed those hard lessons now. Nebojsa’s duty wasn’t to make Dima happy, but to teach him, to help him learn and perhaps become a better man. Somewhere along the way—in the midst of fear and one near-death experience after another—he’d lost sight of what it meant to be the leader, the dominant, in their relationship. 

He had to reach for what was good, that which came from real love. To reject selfishness. To stop the easy descent into sin. He’d fallen. Now it was time to make the climb back up. And that started with releasing this weight, this yearning for the Potters like an anchor around their necks, keeping everyone from ascending. 

“Good. Better you hate me than betray our family.” 

Suddenly irate—wounded at being accused of hurting Harry, the wizard he thought himself in love with—Dima hurled the bottle of lube across the room. As it smashed against the wall, Nebojsa put it through a Time Syphon—zooming back through the air to land squarely on the dresser, undoing Dima’s temper tantrum with a flash of wandless magic. Nebojsa could perform the spell without a wand or incantation: the problem the last time he cast it had been Harry Potter’s influence. Without it, the magic didn’t harm him at all. 

It annoyed Dima that his partner had developed so far in his sorcery; it was only a matter of time before Dima caught up. Every time he took that searing white light into his skin, he became a fraction more formidable. He had to get his ethics in order before his power built or he’d crumble, falling from the Hit Wizards into a cell in Azkaban. 

“Don’t destroy what we have,” Nebojsa asked of him: not to ruin the few nice things they’d made together, including their relationship with the Potters, and all the good witches and wizards who came with them. This was their second chance. Nebojsa didn’t want to waste it. “You’re better than that, Dimka.” 

Dmitry looked himself over, standing forlorn in Harry’s skin. “Am I?” 

Nebojsa jerked his thumb toward the door, suggesting they get on their way. 

“This is your chance to prove yourself. Are you gonna stand there trying to seduce me into hurting our friends? Or are you gonna steal Harry Potter’s shoes so we can go?” 

It was a joke. Dima was so far gone, he took that sarcasm as a convoluted permission to steal more of Harry’s belongings for himself, to make his twisted, tributary love-costume complete. 

Dima spritzed himself with a bit of Givenchy for luck—leaving Harry Potter’s skin smelling elegantly of sandalwood, lime, and crisp, masculine quidditch lawn as he slipped by… sure to unnecessarily graze Harry Potter’s enviable ass against the front of Nebojsa’s trousers as he passed, on his way to pinch Harry’s shoes when he _ought_ to have spelled a pair of his own the right size rather than steal from their friend yet again. Dima failed that test, his ethos still more flexible than it ought to be in his profession. 

Dmitry was a slow learner—even worse when it came to suppressing his self-absorbed, disrespectful, trouble-making urges. But he was taking these first begrudging steps. One day he might not have his boyfriend hovering nearby to slap his hand when he made the wrong choice. One day he would feel the consequences of his actions. If he kept on like this, then someday soon Nebojsa wouldn’t be there to fall on the sword for him. 

Nebojsa decided to bite his lip, and follow. He would remove Dima, and himself, before they caused any more hurt to Harry… or Draco… or anyone else they cared about. It was past time for them to go.

**~ * ~**

 

 

Finally, their dueling instructors Vlad and Ævi decided it was time for an exhibition. And they’d chosen Harry and Nebojsa to fight each other as an example to their peers. 

The Auror trainees had left them, and they were down to eight Hit recruits: Dima, Nebojsa, Harry, Ron, Iga, Karine, Jai, and Mads. Harry hoped they’d all make it through. Karine had to watch her temper; Jai desperately needed to improve his English; and Dima couldn’t get caught pulling any more pranks at Fenchurch or they’d throw him out. 

Meanwhile Ron was doing incredible—he’d cut just over a stone and still managed to build muscle while losing what a summer of living off his mum’s sweets had put on. 

Harry thought Ron might miss playing pick-up quidditch with his brothers more than he’d admit; he went flying with Misha a lot, getting to know his sister’s new boyfriend. There was nothing _not_ to love about Misha… except, perhaps, his constant ‘chill’ attitude—as though he were lightly stoned all the time. He wasn’t; that was the guy’s genuine personality outside the pressure-cooker that was the war. Misha never got worked up anymore, never raised his voice, and every day found something to smile about. Harry envied that naturally happy quality.  It was rubbing off on Ron the more the two of them hung out. 

If anything, Nash might prefer Ron as an employee over Harry, as Ron came with fewer conflicts and was therefore much easier to deploy in the field. In a way, Harry needed this duel to demonstrate to the instructors and senior staff _why_ he was here, what he brought to the office despite his fame and many conflicts of interest. 

Harry and Sia faced each other at the old Ministry premises, in the same padded training room where Harry had traded spells with Mad Eye Moody the night the war broke out—the night Alastor died at the hands of Philippe and Laron Didier outside Harry’s front door, sacrificing himself to save The Chosen One. It was an unusual feeling to be back in that room a year later, and a completely different man physically… and perhaps mentally, too. He’d learned, suffered, lost. And now he was back to be tested again, to prove what he’d learned through blood and sweat and fear for his fucking life. 

His fellow recruits and chief instructors looked on, waiting for the pair of them to bow and begin. 

Harry's eyes raked over his friend—something wasn’t quite right. 

It wasn’t so bad to duel with Nebojsa. At least he was up against someone he knew and not a total stranger—those were the hardest fights, trying to read your opponent as you went. At least with Sia he sort of knew what to expect… the best Durmstrang had to offer, darkly-trained and dangerous as fuck. 

With a jolt, Harry realized what was wrong. "Where's your wand?" 

Nebojsa's eyebrows rose. He mocked Harry's tone under his breath. "Where's _your_ wand?" 

Because, fucking idiot, Harry didn't have his either. He’d left it in his damn office, right next to his cup of coffee. Maybe he should’ve drank that—he might not have forgotten his ruddy wand! Rookie mistake. 

Sia spread his arms, cracking his shoulders and upper spine audibly with just the force of the muscles on his lean body. The guy was something like six percent body fat, which combined with his reflexes and experience made him a ridiculous fighter. Not only was he wickedly fast, but his thinness, his pin-point responsivity and dance-like footwork made him nearly impossible to hit. The fabric of his plain black robe took up more space than he did. 

" _Come on, sssssorcerer_ ," he hissed pleasantly. He couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth turning up, showing a hint of his tall teeth. " _Hogwartsss verssussss Durmsssstrang. Fight me_." 

He was practically laughing outside of snake tongue. To everyone else it might’ve looked like the Serbian wasn’t taking their duel seriously. Anything but. Harry knew—Nebojsa laughed when he was excited. 

Nebojsa knew something secret, too. He knew how well Harry could do magic without a wand—in his sleep, sometimes. Harry woke up with blankets he hadn't gone to bed with, Summoning them in the night when he got cold. Sometimes his clothes set themselves out in the morning. He couldn't blame house elves or a loved one like Draco or Charlene because it happened when he lived alone, too. When no one was there to take care of him, Harry's magic pitched in. That's how it always was. Harry grew... no, he flourished under pressure. He'd learned to do this out of necessity. 

Maybe Nebojsa had, too, locked in a Death Eater prison cell. 

Harry squeezed his empty fists, cracking his knuckles. " _Think you can handle The Boy Who Lived?_ " 

Sia smirked. " _Let'sssss find out_." 

They bowed to one another, wandless, confusing the rest of the group. They didn’t bother with walking a few paces away and turning, setting a space between themselves as though fighting in a tournament or those round-robin championships where Sia used to trounce everyone back at Durmstrang. 

Nebojsa came for him the second their heads were up—throwing his first spell wandless and non-verbal, with no warning, just like a Death Eater would in real life. 

Harry had to drop, a jet of red light passing by where his head had been a second before. Physical fitness counted for something, even in magic fights. It was more efficient for him to dodge than to spin up the complex web of defencive magic capable of stopping a Dread Hex. Of course Nebojsa opened with the Dark Arts—that was Durmstrang Dueling 101. 

Rather than hover and become a static target, Harry carried his momentum, rolling, flicking a nasty Incarceration Jinx at his friend—the kind with a ball gag, rope and handcuffs, like Draco taught him. It would travel right through a Light Shield because it was classified as sexual magic rather than combative, and most people weren’t guarding for that. 

Nebojsa’s shielding was intuitive. He had protective runes inked over the top of his hand, swirling up his arm. The tattoo lit up like a muggle light bulb, illuminating when he activated its magic. All Sia had to do was lift his left arm, palm shielding his face, peeking through his fingers to keep an eye on his opponent, and the spell on his skin did the rest. His Light Shield was automatic, able to repel most attacks like a muggle constable in riot gear. His defencive tattoo gave him a definite advantage. Harry would have to work much harder to get anything past it. 

His ropes missed Sia, springing around thin air as he backed out of the way, adjusting his shield. But the leather of the ball gag strap slapped him across the cheek, the bite-ball nearly materializing in his mouth despite his dodge. Harry followed his jinx with a hail of tiny rocks, peppering Sia, more of an annoyance to distract him than intending real damage. Nebojsa barely got away. Skinny fingers flexing, splayed out to protect himself, he turned the rocks to flower petals which fell harmlessly around him, dusting his shoulders, some in his hair. Harry’s ropes, handcuffs, and gag disappeared before they could hit the floor, foiled. 

“ _Fighting dirty, brother!_ ” Sia accused, circling. He loved it, though. Sia liked being challenged, tested from time to time. He regularly did pull-ups to exhaustion—close to two hundred reps after a year of steady work—pushing himself, wanting to know how far his body could go before he failed. 

Nebojsa didn’t bother giving Harry the chance to talk back. That would be too easy. He shot one spell after another, dancing Harry across the room. He didn’t speak his spells—he didn’t have to. Jets of light shot from his fingers. Hex after jinx after curse, some of which Harry didn’t recognize. They all came at him so fast, like dueling two or three wizard opponents at the same time. That was the advantage of not having to use incantations or follow complex wand motions: a sorcerer could cast as fast as he could think. It was a part of what made the gift so deadly. 

Their audience had to back out of the way, giving them space as they traveled. Harry could feel eyes on him, observing critically, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t spare to split his focus, to care how he appeared or what others might think of his tactics. He needed every ounce of his concentration to fend Sia off once he got going. 

Chased across the mats, Harry had to stop thinking too, to let his instinct take over and allow himself to react in the moment. He quit using incantations in his head; they were useless against Nebojsa, anyway, and only slowed him down trying to remember and recite the Latinized words. He just threw his hands out, or dodged, rolled, flung his arm... whatever he needed to do. Harry had to let himself get angry for his magic to really work. Strange spells flying at his face did the trick to piss him off. 

Growling, Harry got his shots in. Sia was fighting hard, his robe flying around him as he was forced to dodge, too. Harry caught him across the cheek, cutting him open. A slap of air threw his long hair in his face… it was dumb of him not to have tied it back like Harry did. 

Harry was able to get close—two strides forward and he was in-range. He physically kicked Sia in the stomach, a Muay Thai tiep, winding him. He stumbled back, his forearms coming up around his face to guard against another direct hit to his face—even sorcerers weren’t immune to head injuries. All it took was one good shot to the head to knock you out, and Sia knew it, sacrificing some of his freedom of movement to protect the spot in which he was most vulnerable. But he didn’t rest the onslaught of magic. Harry repelled several jinxes, looking for his next opportunity to press his attack. 

In a way, Nebojsa was holding back. He wasn’t using his blood power—that white light he used to kill Tihomir Ionescue. He didn't use it out of fear that it would harm Harry. If this were a real fight with a Death Eater or other enemy combatant, he'd surely have used it by now. Wouldn't he? To defend himself? To prevent the criminal from getting away? To reduce the chances of innocent people getting hurt in the crossfire? Surely he would. 

Harry had to fight dirty. He used his own blue light, taking it into himself, making his spells stronger. It was the only way he could get a leg up—he wasn't sure if he could win, even then. Nebojsa had years of dueling training from Durmstrang, whereas Harry had only started seriously studying and practicing last year. Dueling and the Dark Arts were core subjects at Durmstrang. Sia didn’t strike Harry as significantly stronger, merely more proficient through years of practice and real-life experience. Nebojsa didn’t always follow the standard rules of dueling because, in fighting for his life, he’d found deviations and personalizations which suited him while confounding his enemies. 

Finally, another of Harry's spells made it through Nebojsa’s impressive shields—a lump of condensed air whacking him hard in the chest, blasting his arms open so that for a split second, he couldn’t defend himself. Harry followed up with _Ariculo Absum_. Only the shield on Sia’s skin saved him from going temporarily deaf. 

He stumbled back... smiling. " _There it is_ ," he wheezed, keeping his arms open—egging Harry on by presenting himself as a target just waiting to get smacked down. " _Come on!_ " 

His eyes. He was enjoying it. Come to think of it… Harry had never seen Nebojsa look that happy before. When he smiled, his top and bottom teeth separated, kind of like a dog’s excited panting; he looked sort of silly and endearing at the same time. 

With contact lenses in his eyes, Harry had full use of his peripheral vision. On the sidelines, he caught Dima’s expression at seeing them fight: the Romanian was grinning like an idiot, too, proud of what his boyfriend could do. Dima so rarely let his emotions shine through. 

Harry couldn’t help the laugh bubbling up in his throat. By their actions alone it might well have looked like he and Sia were trying to kill each other again, had gone crazy, hissing and cackling as they were but… they were having fun. 

He’d always trained because his life was under threat. He’d known that since age eleven. That sense of danger remained at the back of his mind, a shadow looming over every dueling and sparing experience up until this summer. For the first time he could remember, Harry allowed himself to enjoy a duel—because there was no more Voldemort trying to kill him, and what had been a very serious study to defend his life was now what it ought to have been all along, an exercise of mind and body. 

His hands flashed, catching Sia in that rare moment of bombast. Harry turned the floor beneath his mate to sand. Sia immediately lost his footing. Harry’s other hand wet the sand, then froze it, his opponent slipping on the slick, unpredictable surface. Sia had to turn his focus from Harry to his suddenly precarious floor. A gust of air slammed his back, another cracking him across the face in tandem. Black hair whipped, a direct slap turning his head, blood oozing from the cut on his cheek. Harry probably made his ears ring. 

Sia’s gaze dropped, figuring out how he wanted to get rid of the icy mess under his feet. 

With Sia’s eyes elsewhere, Harry attempted to subdue him with a simple binding—the thin and biting jute rope he used on himself back when he’d practiced _kinbaku_ , learning bondage for Draco, the rope manifested unconsciously from his memories. His magic sailed through Nebojsa’s defences once again because of its sexual characteristics, where a traditional rope conjuration likely would have been rebuffed. He got his binding around Sia’s upper arms, locking them to his sides, ropes twisting across his chest like the vines of a killer plant in a muggle horror film. 

Hands still free, Sia fought back. His fingers turned the rope to tiny snakes which, as they dropped to the ground expanded rapidly in size, until several king cobras were slithering Harry’s way. With his snakes on their way and claiming Harry’s attention, Sia was able to fix the floor and get his balance back. 

Harry turned the snakes into the tiny saw-whet owls he knew from the woods around the Harpers’ house in Ohio; turning the Transfigured and transformed creatures back on their caster in a flurry of brown and tan feathers, sharp talons and biting little beaks. Harry threw in a Blinding Hex which Sia deflected, but that took his attention from the birds, which were nearly on top of him. 

"Aha!" an excited shout from behind Harry—a visitor to the training room, a wizard with a thick accent caught between Italian and French. " _This_ is why we recruit our Hit Wizards from Durmstrang!" 

 _Somebody_ didn’t recognize The Boy Who Lived from behind. Then again, none of Harry’s distinguishing features—glasses, green eyes, lightning bolt scar—were visible from the back. Adding to the visual confusion, his hair was long enough that he tied the top half back with a muggle hair band. He kept a supply in his gym bag and desk now, after having to borrow off of Sia until he remembered to pick some up at the chemist’s. He’d never had a need for hair ties before, thinking of them as a mainly feminine object until suddenly he was picking them up at Boots. Long, slightly curly hair in a half-ponytail wasn’t something most people associated with Harry Potter. 

Harry didn’t need to turn. He recognized Head of Law Enforcement Training Luca Bisset, originally from Monaco, by his distinctive accent. 

Harry used the added distraction of Bisset’s appearance behind him to his advantage, charging Nebojsa behind the owls like a Kreutztoll Drive in quidditch. Except, as soon as Sia spotted him behind the feathery wings and started constructing a shield, his fists up to protect his face in the event Harry tried to punch him… Harry Apparated, re-appearing behind Sia, going low as Sia’s long arms went high, getting him around his slight middle in a tackle which would be highly illegal in rugby, but worked just fine as a take-down. 

Once again, Sia’s quick thinking Transfigured the attacking birds into sawdust, a woodsy-smelling cloud of dust which floated harmlessly to the ground.

Nebojsa had been training with Jai Cardoso, too, picking up some Jiu Jitsu on top of their Sambo lessons with Chesnokov. Harry’s momentum got turned against him. Sia whipped his elbows down, their sharp points jabbing Harry’s forearms, breaking his hold as they went forward together, Harry’s chest flush against Sia’s back. His attempt at a take-down had been interrupted, his grip broken, and they were both free-falling face-first towards the ground. Nebojsa was all sharp bones and sinewy muscle shifting beneath his robe. Nebojsa gripped Harry’s forearm, took a knee, and flipped The Chosen One over-top of him. 

Sailing arse-over-tea-kettle before he thudded to the mats, Harry got a handful of the guy’s robes. Holding him by the fabric at his shoulders, Harry’s grip and upper body strength was just enough to take Sia down with him. 

Sia had options: he could Vanish his robe, Apparate out of his clothes, or get dragged to the ground and end up in a wrestling match. He chose to stay clothed and be dragged down, rolling with Harry… which, though modest, was not particularly bright. Harry had a distinctive weight advantage, and stronger legs which would give him dominance in a wrestling match. 

Jiu Jitsu was all about controlling your opponent on the ground. Harry had learned only basic wrestling at Hitori’s dojo last year, focusing on counter-moves, disarming and take-downs. Still, he knew more than Sia, who’d likely only been on the ground in a sexual context most of his life, since fights at school or on the street would rarely make it to the floor. Nebojsa wouldn't have much wrestling instinct. 

Sia thought to curse Harry as they struggled. Suddenly it got quite hot in Harry’s robes—he recognized an intense Heating Charm. Sia was trying to smoke him, to expend Harry’s stamina and wear him down that way, knowing he couldn’t match Harry for strength. It was a smart move, all things considered. Harry countered by icing them both with a blast of cold air that ruffled cloaks around the room. Both their breath made chilly clouds, which would’ve fogged Harry’s glasses. 

Sia was lighter, built long and wily, ridiculously lean. He had a hard time countering Harry’s more centrally-focused body weight as they rolled; gravity and a solid grip on Sia’s robe landed Harry on top. His hand naturally went to the guy’s throat—he was used to rolling on top of Draco’s similarly narrow body; straddling, crushing down with his significant difference in weight, choking, giving that intense pressure, ferocity and nearness which drove his husband over the edge. 

As soon as Harry felt flushed skin under his hand, he reacted on instinct, his hand closing over the _cruce_ on his friend’s skin… his magic-infused cross tattoo which peeled off from his body. It came away easily, fitting snug in Harry’s hand. The metal was a warm weight against his palm, heated by living in Sia’s skin. 

Harry raised the symbol of faith which doubled as Sia’s weapon of last resort, ready to strike with the sharp tip. 

Nebojsa had exactly the same idea, conjuring a stiletto dagger in his free hand even as his secret defence was taken from his body. Holding Harry by the front of his robes, Sia surged up. He never stopped fighting, his skinny blade pressing into Harry’s throat in the same moment his hand came down, miming a lethal blow of his own. Harry stopped his strike short, tapping the point of the cross against Sia’s forehead, giving him a playful little _bop_ right between his blue eyes. 

They were in a deadlock—would’ve killed each other—they were so evenly matched despite their differences. 

“ _Zayebis!_ ” That was Dima. Harry knew the word because he said it sometimes in response to a song he liked. It was a crude way of saying something was _fucking awesome_. 

“ _Yebat’-kopat…_ ” That was Iga swearing, too; a rhyming phrase of surprise.

“Potter!” And that was Bisset yelling to get their attention. “Radić!” 

They were sort of… panting in each other’s faces, locked together, breath like smoke from the mouths of snarling dragons. Sia had Harry by the front of his robes, a knife to his throat. The bite of cool metal actually felt really nice against his sweaty skin. Sia fit under him just like Draco did—narrow protruding hip bones digging into the insides of Harry’s thighs as he straddled his friend, their legs and the extra material of their robes muddled, tying them together. 

It wasn’t sexual. Sia was just looking at him, breathing hard, his icy eyes bright. _That was a blast_ , he seemed to say. Even getting his air back, chest heaving, he never stopped smiling. 

 _Too bad we never did this before,_ Harry thought. 

“What the _hell?!_ ” Bisset raised his voice further, bellowing—not at Harry and Sia, but the two dueling instructors standing near the edge of the rubbery mats, looking sheepish as their boss stalked over. 

“ _You good?_ ” Harry hissed to Sia. 

“ _Great_.” 

He meant it. 

Harry rocked back onto the balls of his feet, crouching in a wide stance, brushing his robe out of the way so he could get to his feet without tripping. He tossed Sia’s _cruce_ into his opposite hand, offering to help him up. Sia accepted, allowing Harry to pull him to his feet… showing there were no hard feelings between them. Harry thought the puppy-like smile on his face was evidence-enough. 

Upright, Harry handed back the heavy metal cross. Nebojsa pressed it back into his neck with a soft twitch, making the operation seem about as sensitive-but-normalized as when Harry put a contact lens against his eyeball. 

Bisset snapped at his instructors. “I told you Nash doesn’t want those two fighting each other. So what did you do?” Bisset’s shaved scalp turned russet with his rage, shouting his last sentence. “Had them fight each other for everyone to watch!” 

Ævi looked appropriately guilty. Feeling attacked, Vlad the former Russian Auror folded his arms across his chest, puffing himself up. “Vot vere ve supposed to do?” he argued back. “Zhe two of us against one sorcerer? Hardly teachable.” 

“And _that_ is?” demanded Bisset, pointing back at Harry and Sia. 

Because while the higher-ups grumbled amongst themselves, Harry and Sia had been flicking their fingers at each other, sniping, taking pot shots. Harry turned Sia’s long hair purple: Sia vanished Harry’s shoes. Harry spelled Sia’s robes to be on him backwards: Sia removed just one of Harry’s eyebrows, leaving him ridiculous-looking. Several people burst out laughing. 

When the instructors looked over, each sorcerer waved a hand over the other, correcting the damage and then standing there with barely convincing smiles on their faces. Nebojsa was choking back a laugh, the cut on his face not yet healed, and Harry had trouble keeping his shoulders from hitching, too. His shoulders would be sore tomorrow from Sia’s impressive throw, and the resulting force with which he’d hit the mat. 

It felt good to let loose. Not to hide what they could do. To experiment and have some bloody fun with their abilities for once. While Bisset was yet looking at them, Sia charmed Harry’s robe a bright shade of baby pink without so much as moving his hands. He seemed to blink the color change into being, not moving a muscle, not even looking. He seemed to know his magic could do it. 

Harry retaliated with the first thing to come to mind—he made a black-papered cigarette appear between Sia’s lips, right over his spider bite piercing, the fag already lit and smoking. 

Nebojsa’s eyes widened; he’d never seen a trick like that before. Harry had never actually done anything like it, either; before that moment, he’d never known he could. It had always been a glimmer of thought at the back of his mind, that perhaps he could conjure a cigarette for Draco out of thin air after they fucked rather than having to buy them. Apparently, he could. 

Sia puffed on the cigarette, testing it to be sure it was right, that it behaved as it should even though Harry had conjured it into existence with nothing more than a wish and a blink of his own eyes. The fag worked just fine, pinched between Nebojsa’s pointer and the pad of his thumb like a joint because that was just how the man held a cigarette. He blew a smoke ring into the air. And then he laughed out loud—impressed, excited, nearly giddy, a cloud of smoke falling from his mouth. He thought what Harry could do was amazing. 

Bisset seemed to think the pair of them were beyond saving. He shook his head, going back to Vlad and Ævi. “They’re not supposed to fight, got it? Make sure this doesn’t get back to Nash. Or Robards.” His gaze went to the rest of the recruits, staggered along the mats where they’d watched the sorcerers duel. “We don’t tell Robards,” he reiterated, receiving nods all around. 

The Director had only cautioned against their fighting because of the incident their first day—the accident with the Time Syphon and Blood Sorcery. But they had it under control now, knew their boundaries, and could observe those limits. Harry couldn’t use his power to boost Nebojsa, that was all. They could duel… in fact, they probably should start fighting each other more often. 

Harry pinched his thigh—a reminder to have a chat with Nash, to let the boss know that Harry and Sia had things worked out and he could lift the ban. Harry didn’t want his instructors or Bisset getting into trouble if he and Sia got caught dueling each other again. Because, after today… it would be happening a lot.

 

 

 

 

In the locker room at Fenchurch, a ringing mobile echoed off of every hard surface, producing a generic tune which repeated every four bars. The echo made it harder to pin down which locker it was coming from—had to be somebody who lived in the muggle world, to carry a cell phone. 

“Bloody hell,” mumbled Ron. “Somebody gonna answer that?” He recognized the sound of a mobile phone now. 

Nebojsa came around the corner, rubbing his long hair with a towel, having to dry it by non-magical means after his shower. Harry understood—his own longer hair took a while to dry. The muggle in him still preferred to air-dry. Back in Romania he’d sat out in the sun and let the summer weather do the work; his deep tan from so much time outdoors still hadn’t faded, in small part from his regular morning runs, but mostly the strength of the sun closer to the equator. He’d hadn’t been this tan since his summers of forced-yard-labor at the Dursleys. 

“ _Žao mi je_. Zhat’s me.” Nebojsa owned to the ringing phone. He flipped his big white towel over his shoulder with a little splat against his shirt, opened his locker, and dug the bleating mobile out of his gym bag. 

Harry tried not to eaves drop as he buttoned up his muggle dress shirt. But the conversation was happening in English only three feet away from him, so it was rather hard _not_ to overhear. 

Their offer was accepted. And their mortgage was approved. 

A smile broke across Harry’s face—Dima and Sia had bought a house… or a flat… someplace to live. Together. They were staying in England, and this made their move permanent. 

Nebojsa hung up with their estate agent, turning, looking for Dima—needing to share the news. 

“Congrats,” Harry whispered. He held out his hand, offering to put the phone away so Sia could go find Dima right away. 

Sia didn’t smile. He just bit the side of his lip, catching his muted metal lip ring between his teeth. The guy hadn’t thought he’d live to this point. He’d never allowed himself the fantasy of buying a house and moving in with his boyfriend. He had every reason to expect they’d turn up dead in a ditch somewhere—for being with a bloke in a part of the world where people still went to jail for being gay; for rejecting blood purity and the Death Eaters; for being who they were, queer and kinky and complicated, sometimes beyond Harry’s limited understanding. Nebojsa was feeling a lot in that moment, his emotions locked behind his pale eyes which seemed to flicker with magic barely held back. 

He ought to be having this experience, these feelings, with his boyfriend. Harry wasn’t the right one to share this moment with. So he wiggled his fingers, asking again for the phone. “Go,” he said—a suggestion, permission, encouragement.

Sia’s fingers itched, but he dropped the bit of plastic into Harry’s outstretched hand. “ _Hvala_ ,” he said. _Thank you_.

**~ * ~**

Draco received a rather formal letter from a Mr. Haamid Gamal—one of his father's hired lackeys—asking for a meeting at Gringotts. Gamal’s only job was managing the Malfoys’ many investment properties; rental housing and places of business across multiple magical communities on several continents. Draco held onto the man’s letter for a few days before asking Harry to come with him to see Gamal and review the numbers. 

Harry could tell by Draco’s hesitancy and body language that he wanted Golden Boy, Chosen One to take the lead on this—in his thorny grieving process, Draco didn’t want to deal with anything reminding him of his father... and maybe he saw Harry as somewhat of an authority, someone an adult wizard like Gamal would listen to, still viewing Draco as a child because of his looks and lack of professional experience. Draco had only ever followed his father around, observing and learning. In his mind, he wasn’t capable of taking the meeting with Gamal on his own without some sort of higher power as back-up should he falter. 

It sounded important, not something they should put off any longer. Harry agreed and set the appointment.

 

 

 

 

In a private conference room at Gringotts, Harry and Draco were presented with earnings statements. Buildings owned by Lucius Malfoy continued collecting rent from tenants, nothing changing with the man’s incarceration or death. The properties were held by a magical company, of which Lucius Malfoy had been the only stakeholder; now he was dead, the company and all its holdings became Draco’s. 

Harry was made to understand that the contracts signed by tenants stated rent could be raised every other year, and it was time to make a decision about how much to charge in the coming two-year period. 

Draco looked at Harry, his eyes vacant. This wasn't who he wanted to be anymore... a miniature version of his father, in charge of an empire, lording over people. That’s everything Draco was trying to get away from, in marrying Harry and reshaping his life. He was in the process of remaking himself, and being confronted with this shit was only dragging him back into a dark hole where he couldn’t see that image of the wizard he wanted to be, blinded by the blackness of his own thoughts and feelings. 

To be fair, no one expected a manic-depressive eighteen year-old musician with blue hair and a short temper to be their landlord, anyway. It was a good thing they had someone like Haamid Gamal to handle things on their behalf, because Harry quite frankly didn’t have the time, patience, or experience to manage Lucius Malfoy’s properties any more than Draco did. 

Harry proposed, “What if we lowered rent? By say five percent?” 

Gamal protested. He didn't think it wise to charge any less. 

“I didn't ask for your opinion yet,” said Harry calmly. “I'd like to see the dent in our profits if we lowered rent for every tenant by five percent, please.” 

He scanned through, using a spell to do the necessary maths. 

“A decrease of five percent _would_ put yourselves into a more favorable taxation bracket,” Gamal admitted with a tip of his head. He had a hint of an Egyptian accent on his confident Queen’s English. Harry suspected Gamal spoke other languages, too; likely French and German, as a fair few of the Malfoy properties were in France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. A couple were in the Middle East. “Without any decrease in the budget for maintenance and salaries for facility staff, the losses would be two thousand nine-hundred eighty five galleons per year.” A third of Harry’s annual Hit Wizard salary, or nearly fifteen thousand pounds... or, what Draco spent at Prada, Dior, and Versace last year. But Draco's annual take was close to sixty thousand galleons, or not quite three-hundred-thousand pounds in muggle money. Harry was getting better at converting back-and-forth in his head. Harry saw fifteen thousand pounds as a more than acceptable loss of income which would in turn make a lot of people's lives easier. 

Harry turned to Draco, whispering in Parseltongue in his husband's ear. “ _It's not that much of a hit for us. And reducing the cost of housing means more people living in magical communities, spending their money in shops, supporting businesses. Lots of families have lost a wage-earner in the war and are down to a single income. Businesses have lost employees, and it’s gonna be a struggle to hire and train new people with a reduced population. It would be a big help to everyone to drop rent, even by a_ _few galleons every month_.” 

Draco bit the inside of his cheek. The expression was reminiscent of his mother—making him look as though he'd smelled something off, his face drawing long. Now that Harry knew the meaning behind the look, he understood why Narcissa's face always seemed so unpleasant in public. She was terrified of doing the wrong thing and having it get back to her tyrant of a husband. Draco was scared to do the wrong thing now, his face looking like he’d smelled hot rubbish on the street. 

“ _It seems..._ ” he hissed back, contemplating something no Malfoy would have ever suggested. “ _Well, it's exactly the opposite of what my father would do… or, would have done,_ ” Draco corrected his tense. They never talked about Lucius. It was difficult for Draco, even speaking about his father in the past tense. Harry could tell Draco was muscling his way through the conversation by thinking about literally anything else—probably debating in his head where the nearest bar was, or whether they could fuck in the loo without getting caught and scandalizing the goblins.

“ _He increased leases at every opportunity. We'd be undoing the last six or eight years of his work. So... yeah, let's do it._ ” He glanced at Gamal, reverting back to English. “Yes. I agree to the five-percent decrease. Make it happen.” 

The Egyptian jotted down a note to himself. He chose to completely ignore the Potters hissing at one another in Parseltongue; there were rumors, which he’d likely heard. 

“The tenants are going to question—” he began. 

Harry cut him off. “Tell them their previous landlord died in the war, and the new owners are sympathetic to others who've lost loved ones. We want to make things easier wherever we can, and cutting into our profits is the least we can do to take care of our community.” 

Draco tittered, a nervous-squirrel laugh escaping through his pointed nose. Because it was precisely the opposite of what his father would have said, too. Sympathy. Understanding. Compassion. These were _flaws_ to someone like Lucius Malfoy, not virtues. 

Gamal faithfully wrote it all down, knowing he'd be asked about the reasons behind the change and wanting to be able to repeat back what Harry had said, exactly as he’d said it. Gamal was a loyal employee... probably because Lucius Malfoy had scared the living crap out of him for however many years he'd worked for the Malfoy family. 

“Please give yourself a three percent raise as well,” added Harry. 

“W-what?” the man stuttered, his eyes going wide. He thought Harry didn't like him? 

“As our thanks for your service—in managing all this through the last few years. It couldn’t have been an easy job,” Harry explained his motivations. “We'd appreciate it if you would continue taking the lead going forward, but please don't hesitate to bring something to us for consideration if you feel it's important. We value your experience and expertise, and we want you to be fairly compensated for your work.” 

Again, the exact bloody opposite of Lucius Malfoy. 

It wasn’t hard to do the right thing… one only had to give a shit about other people. Harry’s investigative training made him notice a whiteish-yellow splotch on the shoulder of the wizard’s black robe, a trickle of a stain which looked suspiciously like baby spit-up. And on Gamal’s left ring finger was a ribbon of distinctly paler skin, as though he’d worn a wedding band for years but didn’t anymore. The owl which delivered Gamal’s note had been rather harried looking, suggesting he could use a second bird. Harry put the pieces together—Haamid Gamal was a widower, and a newly-single dad. He had at least one little person back home who was counting on him. Money wasn’t everything, of course, but a raise might help Gamal get a second owl, compensate whomever he had caring for his child whilst he was working, provide a happy life for his kid, and perhaps start dating again when the time came. 

“I... I... thank you, Mr. Potter, Mr. Potter.” He inclined his head to each of them. He couldn't believe it. “I… thank you.”

**~ * ~**

Harry was back in Regent’s Park after his morning run—he went to Soho to check on Fred and Taylor. Outside Grimmauld was a hired car, a plain sedan with a little sticker in the window from the company that rented it out. Dmitry was outside, loading a duffle bag and Durmstrang school trunk into the boot. His eyes widened when he saw Harry approach, raising a hand in what was both a wave and a gesture to block the morning sun out of his eyes. 

“Harry...” Dima shook his head as Harry slowed, stopping beside him. Gold eyes looked over him—sweaty, in nothing but his sunglasses, athletic shorts and running shoes. In a few days it would be too cold to run shirtless in the mornings, and he was taking advantage of the last of the decent weather. Harry didn’t have a wand on him nor did he need one for basic magic. “How do you not vorry about being John Lennon’d?” 

Harry frowned. “Being wot?” 

“John Lennon,” Dima repeated. “Musician. I believe he vos shot in zhe street outzide hiz front door, no?” And Dmitry gestured over Harry, standing outside his own home with no visible protection should some nutter try to whack him. 

The Boy Who Lived licked his teeth. That was the difference between himself and Dmitry. Dima was crippled by a false belief that no one deserved good things, that it was only a matter of time before the worst befell you, no matter how good you were or how hard you tried—a gift from his father, a kind of psychological scar which would last forever. A lot of Dima’s apparent confidence and bravado was actually his way of bolstering himself up. Under that thatch of sun-lightened brown hair churned a mind full of worry and doubt, berating himself in his father’s voice, constantly concocting death scenarios, fearing the loss of yet another person he cared for whether that fear was rational or imagined. 

Whenever Harry suspected he was spinning his own wheels thinking about what bad things might happen, he forced himself to instead come up with what his response might be, or what actions he could take to reduce that risk—that way he had something he could actively do to improve his situation. He could make himself safer, worry less, and get back to enjoying his life. 

Then again, Dima had heard his dad murder his big brother through a collapsed wall; Dima was right there but unable to stop it. All he could do was comfort Misha and try to escape with their lives. In the war, he’d watched many of his friends die right in front of him. He’d fished the love of his life out of a collapsed building and spent days nursing him away from the brink of death. Those experiences invariably fucked you up. Dima had his reasons for thinking and acting the way he did. 

If Harry had been old enough to recall his mum’s death, he figured his thinking might be more like Dima’s. As it was, he found himself a bit twisted when he thought too long about Sirius or Dumbledore or the friends he'd lost in various battles over the last few years. He tried to allow himself to experience grief without slipping into unhealthy territory. 

“Good trivia,” Harry bumped Dima's shoulder with a casual fist. “But God, you’re morbid.” _Even for a Russian_ , Harry thought. 

“Seriously.” Dmitry’s eyebrows came down. He was sincerely concerned someone would try to assassinate Harry... partly because he, Sia, and Misha wouldn't be living there anymore, wouldn’t be around to help if someone tried to hurt the Potters. 

“I guess...” Harry took a few breaths to slow himself and, as Dima had asked, to get serious for a second. “After seven years of Tom Riddle on my heels, living under constant threat and surviving everything I did... I stopped letting fear of other people's opinion govern my own actions. Their reaction is their problem, you know? I'm not gonna put my life on hold because some nutter might not like me or approve of my choices. That type of thinking puts the nutters in charge instead of me.” 

Dima knocked the boot shut. His eyes stayed on the rented car. Harry watched his friend swallow, sorting through his words before he spoke them. 

“I’m going to miss yoo, Harry.” 

Harry nodded. In a strange way, he was going miss living with his best friends. But this was what was best for everyone. 

“I know. But nothing major is changing,” insisted Harry. “You’re still gonna see me every day at work. We’ll hang out on our days off. Have band practice. We’ll go to Misha’s games, and have holidays together. The only difference is we won’t be fighting each other for a hot shower in the mornings.” 

Dima snorted. “Yoo and Draco use all zhe hot vater.” 

It was true, Harry had always taken long showers. It had been his only respite from the Dursleys as a kid, and once he went to Hogwarts the bathroom was one of the few sacred places where no one tried to strike up a fucking conversation with The Boy Who Lived. He liked the hot water, too. It was relaxing. He’d enjoyed swimming in the ocean for that very reason, and was quite insistent they go back to Romania to spend many more days at the beach... even if it _was_ a nude beach. He’d gotten over that, and even learned to appreciate the odd sensation of hot sunshine on his naked butt. 

Harry spread his arms. “See? Best of both worlds. You and Nebojsa deserve to have your own space, too. That’s part of... I dunno, growing up or something. You two’ve never really been able to be alone together—there was always something getting in the way. This is good for you guys, too.” 

They couldn’t bunk together indefinitely. Living with a bunch of other guys reminded them all of their school days; group living made them feel safe because it was familiar, and they knew what to expect. There was always someone around, something to do. Grimmauld and the palace had been a weird sort of roving summer camp where they hung out, bonded, had new experiences and made memories. But it couldn’t go on forever. They had to get on with their lives. 

Dima and Nebojsa deserved to have their own space. So did Misha, especially now that he was dating Ginny; she would probably feel awkward as hell coming to Grimmauld to visit her new boyfriend under her ex-boyfriend’s nose. And Misha had every right to bring his girlfriend back to his place. Their relationship needed some space. Eventually Harry and Draco might have a family of their own, and what then? He didn’t expect Dima and Sia to stick around for thirty years, changing nappies and playing the part of live-in uncles. They had their own lives to live, and perhaps wanted their own family in time. It wasn’t fair of him to hold on to his friends... to hold them back from their future.

Their summer had been amazing. But to keep his friends around, hovering in limbo… that would be selfish. Harry was learning that selfishness had no place in true affection; it was a poison he wanted out of his own heart, something left behind by Voldemort for him to always be fighting against. 

Dima was looking at him… was putting on a brave face and making cracks about John Lennon because secretly he was afraid. His overactive mind probably whispered to him that Harry was kicking them out, that they weren’t wanted anymore. His fucking father had given him that drive to be pleasing at all times. Dima defined himself by it—it kept him safe. So moving out like this made Dima feel like he’d failed somehow, that he was being punished. 

Harry touched his shoulder. He would’ve given Dima a hug if he wasn’t so sweaty. “Have us round tonight? We’ll bring drinks,” he suggested. “And help you unpack.” 

Dima snorted. “Ve do not have much.” Everything they had in England fit in the rented car, actually. Even their guitars and the clothes they’d bought over the summer. Two years living on the lam was screwed tight into Dima’s brain, and possessions slowed you down when you were running for your life. Maybe having a place of their own might help Dima’s feet stop moving, might help him feel safe enough to stop and breathe. 

Harry took off his sunglasses, making sure Dima could see the hard look in his eyes. “I wanna see the place, dummy. Talk to Nebojsa and have us over. Soon.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Translations For The Curious:**  
>  “ _Yebat’-kopat_ …” Literally translated, “fucking dig,” or "a hole full of fucks." This is a rude phrase, not something one would say to a grandparent or around the office if your supervisors speak Russian. Iga’s got a mouth on her, and doesn’t care if instructor Vlad hears her swear—she thinks Harry and Sia’s display has earned an exclamation. The phrase’s intent doesn’t translate directly into English. It can mean exasperation or surprise or being impressed. An English speaker might say “holy shit,” or the British “bloody hell.” Its often an exuberant phrase; think in Beyonce’s _Flawless_ when she sings, repeatedly, “God damn, God damn, God damn,” marveling at her accomplishments and personal growth. That’s kind of what _yebat’-kopat_ would be, as far as alliteration, repetitive rhyming, and intended meaning.
> 
>  
> 
>  **AUTHOR'S NOTE:**  
>  Another 18k. This beast's gonna be maybe 420k when all's said and done. I'm a verbose motherfucker--this is long-established.
> 
> We're approaching a major event--arguably _the_ biggest incident of _Raffica_. Especially in a story about PTSD, the triggers and events need time to compound. Often we see PTSD represented by outbursts, immediate reaction to triggers, and direct relation back to trauma. When in actuality, PTSD is breaking down crying over a shoe, or losing your temper with your spouse for not properly putting the lid back on a jar and you find it having dried out in the fridge and you just go off; its years after your trauma and you're not even thinking about it, then suddenly you're reacting and your reaction doesn't make sense in the context of the situation, you can't see any rational connection, and you realize, "Oh shit. I didn't mean that. I was really having a delayed reaction or memory of XYZ. Crap." 
> 
> That realization happens with therapy and self-awareness and a lot of work. Harry has reached that level of being able to identify his PTSD and start self-correcting. Misha has it down solid. Nebojsa's getting there. Draco's not. Dima's actively resisting help. And Ginny's not even close. 
> 
> As always, I can't wait to read your thoughts and banter in the comments.


	12. Fight Test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Past choices come back to bite everyone in the ass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** PTSD, lots of talk about money, a person with an anxiety disorder hiding in a bathroom to avoid an awkward conversation with their crush, existentialism, disassociation, war crimes, mention of alleged rape and murder, Imposter Syndrome, grief, Martyr Complex, social pariah, recollection of past child abuse, religion, a memorial service, an epistemological crisis, revisiting the sites of past battles
> 
>  **AUTHOR’S NOTE:** This is a dark fucking chapter. It’s also about two months late due to the chapters which follow it demanding they be written first like needy little children. Also, I’m out of Malmsey. And gin.

 

  

_To fight is to defend._

_If it's not now then tell me when_

_would be the time that you would stand up and be a man?_

_For to lose I could accept_

_but to surrender, I just wept and regretted this moment_

_Oh that I, I was the fool._

_I don't know where the sunbeams end and the star lights begin._

_It's all a mystery._

_And I don't know how a man decides what's right for his own life._

_It's all a mystery._

_'Cause I'm a man, not a boy_ _,_

_And there are things you can't avoid._

_You have to face them when you're not prepared to face them._

 

 

"[Fight Test](https://youtu.be/fye1XtXQn9s)"

The Flaming Lips

 

 

 

The ceiling of Sirius’ old bedroom was burned into his memory after all the hours he’d spent staring at it. Harry knew it bathed in morning sunshine or as it was now, a network of dark shadows slashed by weak light from the muggle alley behind the house. 

Harry liked to lie there, letting their sweat dry after they fucked. Draco never complained about Harry’s preference to stay close after sex, refraining from washing up if they didn’t have to. Draco liked the smell of his sweat, and Harry fancied his husband’s too. Draco smelled like quidditch—lawn clippings and leather—with something like sage and lemons, a sour-sweet crab apple bite Harry couldn’t help but want in his mouth forever. 

A wave of Draco’s fingers banished the mess spread on their stomachs, leaving only perspiration behind. He didn’t apologize for having worked up a sweat… if anything, he wanted to lie in it too, luxuriating. 

Raindrops tapped against the windows at either side of the bed, distorting the shapes cast on the ceiling, making the shadows slide and run like wet paint on a canvas. Harry lay there, Draco’s head a delicious weight in the crook of his shoulder, observing patterns on the ceiling as his body cooled and his breathing dropped back to normal. 

"Can I ask something weird and possibly rude?" 

Draco snorted. "You _are_ weird. And rude. Go for it, Wonder Boy." 

That wasn’t bitterness in Draco’s voice, but teasing; bluntly accepting who his husband was, a mixed-blood straddling two worlds, and often not entirely at home in either. Harry was often accidentally inappropriate, uninformed, blundering. Just as Draco was often sharp or critical. They were both still adjusting, deciding who they’d be. 

Harry turned his face, pressing his lips into the soft, forgiving sapphire of Draco’s hair. "Do you know if Mads Østergaard is part Veela? I was always really effected by Veela when I was younger, and I get this odd sense from him around the office—not like he’s hitting on me, but maybe flirting with someone else? And I’m getting the run-off from it because he’s… you know, using Veela magic or something? But I dunno,” Harry shrugged his free shoulder. “I guess it's inappropriate to ask that sort of thing—someone’s blood status. I was wondering if you knew anything, since...." Since they used to get drunk together during the TriWizard, and they'd slept with some of the same people. Harry could see how someone who was attracted to Draco could also be into Mads; appearance-wise they had a good amount in common, as well as bright brains in their heads and quick, acerbic wits. The ability to crack jokes on the fly was greatly esteemed among purebloods. 

His husband answered in a curiously flat tone, words a little thick in his mouth as though his jaw hadn’t quite recovered from all the sucking and snogging. "You don't know." 

Draco rolled over, repositioning on his stomach but staying in the cradle of Harry’s arm. He propped himself up on his forearms, one hand stroking idly ver the hair on Harry’s chest, regarding him with narrowed eyes. Draco’s dark blue hair blended with the night around him, his eyes standing out even in the dim light—streetlamps reflecting off of puddles in the alley, faint light bouncing its way up to their window, refracting in Draco’s silver gaze. 

Harry shook his head, waiting for the story he sensed on Draco’s lips. “Tell me?” 

"His mother is Veela. Pure Veela. People say she seduced Mads’ father, Einar, away from his first wife. No one really knows for sure, and Mads certainly doesn't talk about it. The Death Eaters picked up Einar quite early-on, just after Durmstrang. They wanted his money, of course; a steady contribution for the war effort. When Einar wouldn't budge, they tried to ransom him to his wife. Supposedly she let the Death Eaters kill him; because she wouldn't bow to pressure… _or_ so the family fortune would fall under her control. Who's to say for sure?” Draco’s brows twitched, the corner of his mouth lifting—it wasn’t a smile. His expression was too tight, too close to home. “But they executed Einar. Dumped his body on the front lawn, decapitated, head on a spike. It was in the papers… more-so the international publications than ours. Maybe you missed it."

"Fortune?" repeated Harry. 

Draco rolled his eyes. "You fucking muggle,” he whispered, exasperated that he had to explain these basics of wizarding culture to his own husband. Draco deigned to state the obvious at the tail of a heaved, heavy sigh; as though saying the words were against his pureblood religion. “The Østergaards own Mrs. Skowers." 

Harry blinked. Mrs. Skowers was the most popular brand of magical cleaning products. It was ubiquitous—everyone owned and used Mrs. Skowers products. They had advertisements on the Wizarding Wireless Network. Institutions like Hogwarts and St. Mungo’s bought the stuff in bulk. If he remembered correctly, Mrs. Skowers had been one of the sponsors at the last Quidditch World Cup. 

Harry had no idea Mads was another wealthy, dynasty heir like Chereshko, Vuk, or Philippe. Then again, those were precisely the sort of blokes Draco would be on a first-name-basis with, his available pool of social peers and drinking buddies. They were all of them in the same boat back then—crushed by their fathers, with very little opportunity to branch out aside from risky behaviors like drugs, alcohol, and sex with people they oughtn’t. That was how they soothed themselves growing up under the thumbs of great and powerful men, waiting for their own turn at the helm of their respective ships. If they survived to adulthood, anyway; they didn’t all survive their fathers.

"So… what happened? Did Mads' mum get the money?" 

A sly grin turned Draco's mouth. It was wildly inappropriate to discuss such things according to his upbringing, his pureblooded position nose-deep in magical culture. Draco was breaking his own rules just to gossip like this. Certain rules Draco very much enjoyed breaking… for Harry. 

"Einar’s daughter from his earlier marriage came forward—Mads' Danish half-sister, Freja. She's fighting them for a controlling share—mostly Mads and Viggo, his older brother who runs the company now. Apparently Mads decided he'd rather fuck off and play Hit Wizard, make some gold of his own until the legal battle is over with. They're having a hell of a time with the jury, with Mads and Viggo being... well...." 

"They're half-Veela," Harry inferred, thinking out loud. "Everyone's too busy daydreaming about getting into bed with them and can’t be objective about the trial?" 

Draco snorted out a laugh. "I was gonna say Mads and Viggo have slept with half the magical northern hemisphere between them. But your way is nicer." 

Harry looked at Draco a long while in the light. Even with his hair charmed jewel-blue and his eyebrows darkened, there was something of a Veela's looks in him, too. He had that same _je ne sais quoi_ as Mads. Sex hung around Draco like cologne in the air, trailing after him… and it wasn’t because they’d just done it. Draco was an inherently sexual person from an early age, there was no denying that. Harry simply hadn't known what it was growing up, what made people so crazy about Draco when he was such a screaming little asshole all the time. It was that magnetism, something primal and sexual, something unlearnable… something perhaps beyond his control… in his blood. 

"Do you know if... uh, that is," Harry stalled, not knowing how to ask it. He’d started too soon, before the thought fully formed in his head. "You and Mads, you both have...." 

"I never fucked him," Draco supplied easily, his tone almost distracted. He spoke matter-of-factly, without any hint of discomfort or embarrassment. It had never bothered him to talk about his past partners so long as the hook-ups under discussion had been consensual. The only ex Draco wouldn’t talk about freely was Philippe—with good reason. The topic of the Frenchman was distressing. Harry never brought him up, for Draco’s sake. 

Harry nodded against his pillow. "Yeah, I know you didn’t.” He tapped his temple, reminding Draco that he had the whole of the man’s sexual history on instant replay if needed. It was something like Legilimency on steroids between the two of them. “It wouldn't bother me if you’d slept with Mads. That’s your past, a part of who you are. I was gonna ask if there’s... um, if there were any Veelas in _your_ family? Because you, and Mads, and Fleur.. you have a… a certain quality." That seemed the nicest way to put it. _Intense sexual magnetism_ wasn’t something Harry wanted to say out loud, even to his own spouse. Draco’s ego would shoot up to the attic and possibly punch a hole in the roof. 

A smile stole over Draco's features—a real, flattered smile, lifting the apples of his cheeks, crinkling the corners of his eyes. Eyebrows turned brunet raised conspiratorially. 

"There was a _rumor_ that my great-grandfather Septimus Malfoy had a Veela for a mistress, and that my grandfather Abraxus was in fact her half-Veela by-blow passed off as a legitimate heir—as the only male child Septimus ever sired.” Draco had a habit of talking about reproduction in his own family tree like Aunt Marge discussed breeding her show dogs. Harry supposed that was how Draco was taught to view lineage; not as a history of affection but rather a consolidation of power, and a continuation of their significant history. 

“These were rumors, mind you: nothing ever substantiated, never discussed in the family.” Draco’s lips turned even further upward as he allowed himself to explore the possibility. No one was going to beat him now for wondering about it out loud. No one would ever beat him again… unless he asked for it, consented to it, wanted it. “But my grandfather Abraxus was quite influential, politically; he was always able to cajole politicians and law-makers to do as he asked. He could close a deal which seemed impossible or had terms overwhelmingly in his favor. And being Veela would explain the hair,” Draco cited his signature, strikingly white-blond locks. Draco’s all-over paleness from his head to his feet was one of his most noticeable physical features. He looked like a painting where the artist only had access to shades of white, peach, and gold, with a limited supply of oranges and browns to make the tiny freckles dotting his upper body. His colors made him luminous, like some celestial being come to visit from another world. 

“Before Abraxus the Malfoys were brunettes, all the way back to The Most Serene House of Condé.” The Bourbon princes of southern France. The closest muggle Draco was biologically related to had been royalty, relatives of French King Henry IV, back in the sixteenth century. “It would take something like the introduction of Veela’s blood to turn four hundred years of brown hair light... so maybe it did." 

He said it so simply, so calmly. It took a lot for Draco to consider the idea with such serenity—that he might not be the pure wizard blood he’d been raised believing in. 

Harry thought about it—what if his spouse wasn't completely human? It didn't change how he felt about Draco. "Would it bother you?” asked Harry. “To be an eighth Veela?" 

More than a question about his family or their history, it was a question leading back to Draco’s real views on blood purity. If he believed as his father and the Death Eaters did, then being anything less than pure human would be repulsive to Draco. Harry suspected that the violence in people like Philippe Didier came from self-hatred; Philippe loathed himself for having a Veela for a grandmother, the same as Voldemort hated his muggle father and viewed his mother as weak for having lusted after a muggle man. If Draco held the same views, then it would drive him off a bloody cliff to think he had anything less than pure human blood running through his veins. 

Draco laid back down against Harry’s shoulder, using his husband as his pillow; his sweaty blue hair still clinging to his forehead, silver eyes on the ceiling, sincerely considering Harry’s question. 

A car pulled through the alley behind their place, headlights sending two beams of light through the rainy darkness. White light came into their bedroom at an angle, striking a mirror, giving Harry a highlighted view of his husband’s sharp profile against his own chest. 

Veela or not, Draco was the most beautiful person Harry had ever seen—it came from his spirit, his artistic nature, as much as from his physical form, an outer expression of his deep inner desire to be pleasing, to evoke a sort of opulent, languid sex with every ounce of his existence. He had a royal quality; like his ancestors he was aspirational, the embodiment of a higher ideal, the closest mortals came to touching godliness. No wonder Dima painted Draco so often. He belonged in art—because it was a part of him, a reflection of his own creative soul. 

“I... I don't see how putting a name to it changes who I am,” said Draco slowly. “If I were part-Veela, I would still be me.” 

Harry liked that answer. It was how he felt about the legend of The Boy Who Lived, and the prophecy of The Chosen One. He didn't care what other people might call him. He couldn’t care less how he was labeled. What mattered was that he kept following what he felt in his heart. And for Draco, it mattered that he kept being himself; imaginative, uninhibited, intrinsically sexual. To deny those parts of his spirit was to deny who he was at his core. 

They were done denying, done hiding, for the sake of making other people comfortable.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

"Okay, walk me through this." 

Draco groaned loudly. 

Harry was inquiring how Nebojsa and Dima managed to buy an entire building in downtown London, as wizards, without violating the International Statute of Secrecy by tipping anybody off. Because there would’ve been nearly a dozen muggles involved in the process of purchasing a non-magical property, and not one of them had been alerted to the existence of magic over the course of the transaction. Harry found it fascinating. But to Draco, Harry was being a nosy muggle git asking about money when it was none of their business as far as the pureblood was concerned. 

Financial discussions still made Draco supremely uncomfortable—but it was one subject on which Harry wasn’t willing to make concessions, even for his husband’s feelings… and not for Dima’s sensibilities, either. Finances were too important to do some polite little jig around; here they needed to exercise plain language, and that included having frank conversations with their friends about money. 

Misha kept himself ostensibly neutral. Dima appeared to be on Draco’s side, suddenly pretending he needed to take a slash in order to quickly leave the conversation. The big Romanian scuttled out of the room like a kid running away while his parents had an argument. 

With the hundred kilo Romanian powerlifter hiding in the bathroom, Nebojsa took the lead and explained. "Hermione and Susan have made records for us, zo we exist as employees of MI5. Ve have zalary receipts, ID numbers, everyzhing a muggle vould need. Zhen Gringotts makes a muggle-type bank statement for Dima, showing he and Misha have gold converted to British pounds. Zhat is how ve get zhe loan." 

Aside from some gymnastics in generating their paperwork, they more-or-less had a traditional muggle mortgage. Buying property was smart—it would help them in the process of getting more permanent citizenship, as their flat combined with their employment showed their intention to make England their home. 

"And the cars downstairs?" inquired Harry. 

Their new place was a warehouse in Southwark; a three-story brick building with concrete floors and plain windows in black metal frames. It looked more like a place goods would be manufactured than anyone's home... and maybe that was a good thing. It was unobtrusive, at least. The word ‘Spartan’ came to mind. 

The ground floor of the building had massive garage doors, and parked inside were at least a dozen black cars. 

"Limousine dizpatch company," said Sia. "Zhey lease zhe bottom and middle floor from us. Downstairs zhey park zheir cars and do maintenance. Zecond floor is zheir offices. Ve live up here." He gestured around the third floor, which had been converted to a simple open-concept flat. 

The walls were exposed brown brick, and the many squares of glass making up the windows were dirty on the outside but clean inside the flat. There was a small kitchen against one wall, and on the other side of the wide open space, dry-wall had been put up to make a private bedroom, a laundry and utility room, and the loo where Dima was currently pretending not to exist. 

Their things took up very little of their new space—gym bags tucked against the wall, guitars and equipment in one corner, a collection of Dima’s art supplies in front of one of the big industrial windows to take advantage of the abundant light. Most of the windows faced south, so the space would remain bright all day long. Nebojsa had either conjured or purchased a clothing rack where a few items hung, leather jackets and shirts Harry recognized. A mattress had been delivered, their bed frame a simple platform with drawers underneath shoved under one of the windows. Dima and Sia intended to sleep in the common area, giving the private bedroom to Misha. 

They had more furniture on-order: tables, chairs, a sofa. At least there was an elevator up to the third floor in addition to a set of stairs. The guys had an entire floor to themselves, and no neighbors to annoy if they wanted to blast some music or have band practice in the evenings. The undefined space suited them—Dima could spread out with his projects, they could have some work-out equipment, and still not be tripping over anything. Sia talked about putting a rod on the ceiling and hanging a curtain to separate their sleeping area from the kitchen and general living space. 

“So, you own the entire building?” Harry clarified. “And the limo company pays you rent, which offsets your mortgage every month?” 

Nebojsa and Misha nodded. Harry and Sia had less contact with the muggle world once they started school, resulting in a child-like understanding of how mortgages worked; presumably Sia had educated Misha as he learned more. Dima likely hadn’t been any help at all. Harry imagined Misha and Sia dragging the duke-to-be’s petulant, ever-complaining ass to get the paperwork signed; the mental image made Harry snort. Dima could be as churlish as Draco sometimes. Both men were equally stuck in certain beliefs. It was only human to cling to what you knew. 

“We spend less than any of the flats in the neighborhood,” Misha shrugged. “London rent iz crazy.” His accent was practically gone after spending two months as a student at Hogwarts, and training daily with his new teammates now. There was a tiny zing to his S sounds and that was it. In a few years Misha’s accent could fade completely, leaving him indistinguishable from a born Londoner. His friends were putting down roots nearby. 

Harry smiled. “That’s brill. And the place is awesome. Congrats.” 

Draco looked like he was about to gag. The concept of saving money wasn’t so offensive to him as mentioning it in the first place; he acted like they were whipping out their pricks and comparing size. 

Nebojsa came from the muggle world—he understood Harry wasn’t being rude but rather checking on his family; making sure they weren’t overextending their resources, wanting to be sure that their financial situation wasn’t at risk of slipping back into the dark hole they’d been in at the start of the summer. Their new home was a sound investment. Even if something horrible happened—if Dima and Sia broke up, or if they were killed in action and left Misha completely on his own—it would only take one of their salaries to keep the flat. 

Maybe it was morbid to think about… but Harry had developed the ability to plan for his own demise, and he saw a reflection of that dooms-day practicality in his friends’ choices. In buying this home, they were looking after each other. If Dima and Sia split for some reason, the Serbian wizard would have a place to live which he could afford while Dima pulled back to the palace. And if they stayed together, they now had this place separate from the palace, so that when Misha eventually got married and took over the family estate, the young prince wouldn’t feel as though he was kicking his big brother and his boyfriend out of the palace with nowhere to go. They were being smart, planning for every eventuality. 

It felt good to see his friends using their heads rather than acting out of desperation or fear. Draco didn’t understand that perspective, as money had often been used as a weapon against him, a way to control him; he couldn’t see the other side of the coin, locked in his own perception about what the discussion of gold and accounts meant. At least he was able to stay in the room, confining his reaction to the making of rude faces, rolling his eyes at his husband. The fact that Draco didn’t interrupt them or try to shut it down was a huge step forward. 

From his pocket, Harry pulled their band’s shrunken-down drum set which he’d transported securely inside an empty pack of cigarettes. He changed the subject for Draco’s sanity, asking, “So where should I put this?”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry received an unexpected letter, born not by an owl but a tropical jungle bird. It was from Suku’ari—an elderly wizard from Burma, and an Animagus with the form of an Elephant—whom Harry met a few times at Arty Lachland’s Sanctuary. He’d made a truly unique network for himself over the course of the war, and it amused him when people he’d known in various battles circled back to him in peacetime. 

Suku’ari wrote of an impending crisis in the magical community; he was reaching out to all influential peoples he knew in hopes of discussing the issue and finding a solution, averting an international calamity. Suku’ari asked that everyone meet at Arty Lachland’s home in four days, and to please bring their spouses or adult children, as well as anyone else they may know with a deep humanitarian interest. 

He was calling for philanthropists. Influential people. Harry could sense a major disaster on the horizon. This was a kind of civilian peace council, a group of people getting together to try to avert a much larger problem before it effected thousands of lives. 

It still scared Harry a little that he would be considered one of the most influential wizards in the world. As much as he’d grown in every respect, he couldn’t stop himself from seeing the kid in the cupboard when he looked in the mirror sometimes. Other times he felt larger, like a soldier, or a newlywed, or a student; because aspiring to learn, and keeping an open mind through it all, leant the greatest power he’d ever known. He recognized there was yet a great deal he didn’t know or understand. And that was part of why he had people like Arty Lachlan and Suku’ari in his vicinity—even a king was only as good as his advisors and councilors, the people he listened to. And this summons, this call from Suku’ari and Arty Lachland… it had to be something important. 

Harry asked Hermione and Ron to come, along with Viktor Krum. He also asked Dmitry, Misha and Nebojsa. And—weighing his fledgling relationship versus the good of many people around the world—he invited Mads and his brother Viggo, too.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The Potters arrived by Portkey to Arty Lachland’s home; a beautiful mansion in a magical community outside Vancouver. The house’s design was a fair bit like a castle, a remembrance of Lachland’s years at Hogwarts—long ago Arty was a Hufflepuff who became unlikely mates with Slytherin Leon Harper after they were both bullied by Prefect Tom Riddle. 

Lachland’s home was like Hogwarts, with stone floors, high ceilings, curving wooden staircases, and plenty of stained glass windows. It was a monolithic space, if old-fashioned, and rather like a cathedral or a museum to Harry’s tastes. He couldn’t imagine living in a place so stiflingly formal. He half expected to see the ghosts of Henry VIII or Anne Boleyn around the corner. Draco seemed comfortable there, slipping into his Malfoy manners, a cool shadow of his father. 

This was Draco’s world—hobnobbing, rubbing shoulders with the ultra-rich. It was what he’d been groomed to do from the time he could walk. Draco would have had to work a room like this, getting others to invest in commercial properties and projects, following into his father’s line of work. 

Draco was a descendent of the House of Bourbon, one of his ancestors a seventeenth century de Conti witch Princess married off to an English wizard lord—back when magical people used to meddle in muggle politics, charming or fucking or just plain terrorizing their way into titles and social power. Draco’s ancestors were precisely the type of tyrants whom the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was created in 1692 in large part to curtail. Yes, the burnings were a serious issue… but a more long-term threat was averted by stopping a few arrogant wizards getting themselves too closely involved with muggle politics. Without the Statute of Secrecy in place, some ancient Malfoy could have started a war on legitimate claims and made himself King of France. And it would have taken another wizard mobilizing another country’s army just to stop him. Back then, magical involvement in muggle politics could have only ended in a bloodbath—mostly the blood of non-magical people. It was better that magical people recused themselves, until their morality caught up to the muggle world. They still had a ways to go before they might be considered civil. 

Sometimes that was how Harry saw his husband—a little wizard sun king, gloriously handsome, resplendent in fine clothing, surrounded by luxury and refinement… and desperate to be worshiped by all around him. As much as Draco relied on inanimate things to provide himself entertainment and something like happiness, it was people who both pleased and wounded him most. Draco would always retreat to something like alcohol, weed or music to settle himself because he never learnt how to connect with people beyond getting what he wanted. Draco built up palisades between himself and the rest of the world, like a king in a bunker, riding out a lifetime of war. 

Tonight Draco was on-edge; physically he embodied that aloof Malfoy coolness which had been beaten into him since childhood. Internally, his defences were mounted. Draco fully expected to be the center of the room, the subject of gossip and roving glances. 

Little did Draco understand these weren’t his father’s people. They were _Harry’s_ people—philanthropists, givers, socially-conscious do-gooders. They might look like Draco’s former social circle, but the people gathered here tonight upheld Harry’s kind of values. 

They were shown by a house elf to an entertaining room which was basically a small ballroom, complete with two silver chandeliers in the ceiling and extra candles floating in the air—just like Hogwarts’ Great Hall, bathing the room in a soft glow. Lachland definitely loved his time at school, despite having been terrorized by Voldemort and his cronies. Harry understood about loving a place where you had both happy and sad memories. He felt that way about the castle, and his own house sometimes. 

Harry and Draco were some of the last to arrive. There were perhaps thirty people already seated in the room, talking amongst themselves—speculating as to why they were gathered and who else might’ve been invited. Harry was able to pick out a few faces he knew, either from newspapers or the war. Ron and Hermione saved them seats at the very front—Hermione’s doing, since she habitually sat in the front row of every classroom and now in meetings, too. She didn’t want to miss anything. It was a manifestation of her deep desire to learn everything she could. 

Nebojsa, Dima, and Misha were hiding at the back of the room, hoping not to get noticed. Fat chance. People still looked their way, naturally suspicious of the sons of a notorious Death Eater despite their known friendship with the Potters. They were talking with Chern Toleanu’s widow, Zoe Lebanc, Dima holding the little bundle of blankets which was his dead friend’s infant daughter.

Harry stopped a moment, looking. That sight encapsulated the war for him—widows, orphans, fatherless babies and torn up families. But they were getting on with their lives. They weren’t giving up. Draco told him Chereshko was gay, but like Harry Chern had found that one person he was drawn to so strongly that his feelings defied gender preference: soul mates regardless of the bodies they inhabited. After losing Vuk, Chern wasn’t about to let Zoe go. They married quietly at The Sanctuary. Zoe was a few months pregnant when her husband died at the Battle for Hogwarts, leaving her and the baby with a vineyard in Moldova and the reigns of Cleansweep Broomstick Company. At least Zoe knew her way around a broom, having played for the Haileybury Hammers before the war. She was only twenty-one years old. 

To Harry, Zoe looked like every other recently widowed single parent he knew—dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep, her hair limp and tied back so the baby couldn’t grab at it, slouching from stress, a few dark spots on her sleeve where she’d Vanished baby barf. Zoe was exhausted but doing her best… they all were. Sometimes it didn’t feel like nearly enough. 

Seeing Dima with a baby in his arms was… striking. Perhaps because Dima would never have kids, biologically-speaking. Harry could read the emotional conflict in the hunched line of his friend’s broad shoulders—leaning over Chereshko’s child, her tiny hand holding his big finger. She could never understand what her existence meant to him; the improbable child of his dead brother’s dead friend-with-benefits, there as evidence that anything was yet possible when it came to love and magic. 

Dima looked at her like a creature of magic. He’d been forced to kill a creature once, as a teenager. And it was expected of him that he’d make a child someday, or die. The same choice was given to him over and over again—kill or die, destroy or die, hurt others or die. Those experiences made him violent and distrustful, since those were the only actions he knew to preserve himself. The way he looked at that baby girl said he wondered if so many deaths were simply the price owed for life… purer life, better life. 

Harry could _feel_ these thoughts. Like he was in Dima’s body, having these bitter feelings with him. Harry’s own throat tightened—it was hard to breathe.  

“Oi,” whispered Draco, elbowing Harry. Hermione was waving, signaling they ought to come over and sit. Big silver eyes flickered, embarrassed. “Before Granger has an embolism.”

Harry had trouble swallowing. It took a moment  to find his voice. “Hey,” he chided. “Be nice to Hermione, okay?” 

“Why?” 

Harry leaned to whisper against the top of his husband’s head, venting a bit. “Because I asked you to. Because you’re both important to me. Because I don’t want my oldest mates and my husband to make a scene by being rude to each other in a room full of people I respect.” 

Draco’s face pulled long—the expression he made when he was thinking, pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth in consideration. “Fine. You’ve sold me on the merits of civility. Might we sit? Bitches are startin’ to stare.”

 

 

 

 

Lachland and Suku’ari introduced a tiny elderly witch called Thordis Ragnarsdóttir. She walked with a cane and was probably pushing a hundred and thirty years old. Wrinkled, sun-spotted hands gripped her cane, her hair a shock of white threads tied up in a bun atop her head. Harry couldn’t help but think she looked like the old crone who showed up at the beginning of allegorical cartoons—fables and fairytales—warning the characters to be good… or else she would be part of the curse which might afflict them for doing wrong. 

Her presence gave Harry an ominous, worried feeling in the pit of his stomach—he could tell Thordis meant him no harm, but her expression was so grave he couldn’t help but feel it. 

“Thora joins us from Iceland,” Lachland informed his guests. “And she is here to tell us about the dire situation facing her people.” 

Thora leaned on her cane, addressing a small crowd of the wealthiest and most influential people across the magical world. She didn’t seem to mind, speaking plainly to them as she might to any other room full of magical strangers. 

“Thirty years ago, the resident magical population of Iceland was approximately twelve hundred witches and wizards. Nearly all of us live in a town hidden in the mountains: Hölmfröst.” Draco whispered to Harry that the town was a fully concealed settlement not unlike Hogsmeade, though almost double in size. “Hölmfröst is known for three things: our natural hot springs, our herbalogical farms, and our athleticism. Hölmfröst has produced more Aurors, Hit Wizards, and professional quidditch players _per capita_ than any other magical settlement.” She rattled off the names of famous witches and wizards born and raised there, many of whom Harry recognized from _Quidditch Through The Ages_ … and a few of whom were his co-workers, instructors, and supervisors at the Ministry. 

“In Herbology, Hölmfröst provides critical potion ingredients to multiple hospitals, as well as apothecaries and supply shops. There are three strains of algae native to Iceland which are used in certain life-saving potions, including Blood Replenishing and pre-natal potions for expectant mothers. 

“Now, the problem,” Thora raised a gnarled old finger, looking more like a tree branch than a limb. Harry thought of her as part-witch, part sentient-tree Ent from the _Lord of The Rings_ books Hermione loved so much. “Between the two wars with You-Know-Who, many of the Aurors and Hit Wizards who called Hölmfröst their home went to work for foreign powers, and were killed in action. When these brave witches and wizards died, their families were left without a provider; leaving them with the difficult choice of either becoming reliant on the community for survival, or to move away—closer to other relatives who could support them, with the hope of finding work abroad. No one came to Iceland to replace these lost soldiers, meanwhile more and more grieving families were forced to leave for economic security.” 

Harry started to see the problem. Like ancient Roman outposts, a town comprised almost entirely of soldiers could be wiped out by war. The damage wasn’t limited to lives lost—but also to their economy, and the prosperity and potential of those left behind. It wasn’t just grief Iceland was dealing with… dead friends and loved ones were bad enough. The town was going to collapse economically due to the severe depletion of their labor force. 

Thordis explained, “There were fewer people available to socialize with, to marry and do business with and employ. Slowly, businesses began to close because there weren’t enough customers to remain solvent. We lost our book shop, our pub, both of our restaurants, our child-care facility, the quidditch supply shop, then the quidditch training facility, the bakery, the homewares store, even the distillery and liquor store… slowly, everything closed. And with fewer employers in Hölmfröst, more people were forced to leave to find work. 

“It has only been thirty years,” said Thora, which was a bare fraction of her lifetime, though one-and-a-half times Harry’s existence. “Yet our entire population is now just one hundred thirty eight souls; forty-eight of whom are children. Another fifteen are elderly, or unable to work because of poor health. We have only seventy-one adult witches and wizards, twenty-two of whom are occupied in caring for our children and the sick now that we have no hospital, and no childcare. We have just forty-nine working adults, who together operate the five businesses remaining in all of Hölmfröst: an owlry, an apothecary, a clinic, a grocery, and the algae farms.”

Hermione had her hand over her mouth, shocked at the condition of their town. Ron was trying to process the numbers in his head, visualizing ‘forty-nine working adults’ as just a few more bodies than the Gryffindor boys’ dormitory, when thirty years ago they’d had three times the population of Hogwarts. 

People like Viktor Krum and the Ionescue brothers were nodding soberly, having experienced the war’s destruction first-hand. They were saddened, but they weren’t surprised. Viggo and Mads exchanged a worried look between them—being the sons of a successful business man, and possessing a firm understanding of supply and demand, they could see the precariousness of magical Iceland’s present circumstances. 

“We are thirty-one families living in a ghost town,” said Thora. “I know every witch and wizard left in my country. Homes have been abandoned and are beginning to deteriorate. Shops are empty. Hölmfröst has almost three hundred abandoned buildings.” She paused a moment, letting them imagine what that looked like—entire streets empty, buildings covered in winter snow, no lights and no movement anywhere. The homes of friends and family members, emptied and left to the elements. “Over the summer we lost almost some two dozen structures to fire, collapse, and the like. With every winter, more structures are taken over by wildlife, or are deteriorating, filling with debris. 

“We have no Ministry. The witches and wizards who remained in our government office called a town meeting; admitting they could no longer maintain the facility, let alone govern. We, the people of Iceland, surrendered ourselves as a protectorate of the Ministry of The Americas, and have been using their Field Operations Teams as law enforcement and emergency services. We marked two years as a protectorate in July. 

“I am one of two Herbologists in the whole of Iceland. Myself, my colleague Malthe Magnusson, and eight employees maintain the algae production which supplies the entire magical world.” 

There was the crisis. If something happened to Thora or Malthe, or their employees who knew how to operate the farms, there would be no more algae for prenatal health, no more Blood Replenishing Potions, and so many other critical remedies. 

Thora warned in no uncertain terms: “If three or four more families move away, Hölmfröst will collapse. If Malthe or I were to become sick or die, thousands of people will suffer. If more people do not move to Hölmfröst, bring their families, open businesses, and spend their gold in our town, we will collapse in a few short years. And…” her hand on her cane shook. “I do not want to think about the world health crisis which would be created if our life-saving algae were no longer in production, or should the strains unique to Iceland become extinct.” 

Harry felt bereft, devastated on behalf of Thordis and her people. He had no idea the war had taken this much of a toll on a single town, which was their entire magical country. 

Suku’ari stood up, standing with Thora. Between them they had close to three hundred years of knowledge and life-experiences. The old Burmese wizard had an idea to save Hölmfröst. 

“Three kilometers down the mountain-side is a luxury muggle resort; it is a large campus with a hotel, private cottages and villas, and extensive spa facilities—water baths with saunas and steam rooms as well as several natural hot springs. This property has been put up for sale.” 

Suku’ari suggested establishing a muggle business entity comprised of magical investors to buy the property and turn it into a private, members-only resort for magical people. To sell day passes and more expensive year-round memberships to the magicl public to fund the business and pay magical people to work there. 

But one business wouldn’t be enough to save the town. They needed to do something radical. 

Suku’ari suggested making the town a kind of commune—a shelter for witches and wizards with disabilities. People injured in the war, those with blindness or deafness or medical problems which made it difficult for them to participate in society without magical aids. They could accommodate banshees and werewolves and even vampires with a few modifications. To welcome these people and their families by providing them with a free home if one member of the household was willing to work at the resort for wages, or to open a business within one of the many abandoned shops in the town. They could create a Trans-Location barrier from the center of town to the resort’s hotel lobby, allowing staff and visitors to travel between quickly and efficiently while keeping the resort secure to outside access.

“This might be enough to get the town back on its feet,” said Arty Lachland. “The presence of a large-scale business would draw people to populate the town, and the combination of tourism and local traffic would rekindle commerce. 

“But first, we needed to raise sufficient capital to buy this muggle resort, to renovate it to suit magical people, to publicize the project in order to get people to move to Hölmfröst, and to pay staff while they’re trained and the premises made ready for guests… all before the resort can open and start producing income.” 

Harry had no idea what an endeavor like that would cost. 

Draco leaned back in his chair—finally understanding why they were here: Lucius Malfoy’s tremendous vault of gold, combined with the Black family fortune. It was a pitch… though far from the type Draco was accustomed to hearing. It was a pitch absent all the usual documents of projected earnings and profit sharing. Because they weren’t expected to make their investment back in the conventional sense… he saw this project could be successful; there hadn’t been anything like it in over a hundred years, a private resort for magic-kind. It had potential to do quite well if executed to taste. But this group, this room, wasn’t looking to replicate their gold. They expected to rescue the people of Iceland. 

The amount they needed was staggering—Suku’ari, Thora and Arty estimated they would have to raise twenty-two million US dollars to do it. 

“Please talk amongst your families,” Arty encouraged. “We must discuss every option available to us to help save Iceland and avert this major international health crisis.” 

Hermione Granger leapt out of her chair as chatter began around them. She marched right up to Lachland, Thordis and Suku’ari. 

“I might not have the financial resources to contribute,” she prefaced, “but I know plenty about the muggle world. I can set up the shell company. I’m in Human Resources for the Ministry—I can help manage the hiring process and train others to do what I do. I have contacts for professional people—barristers and accountants and such—with knowledge of the magical world, who might be willing to work with us at a reduced rate.” 

Draco wasn’t surprised when Harry left his seat, too, going to stand beside Hermione, lending his thoughts to her impassioned stream of ideas. 

“We don’t need to worry about publicity,” The Chosen One assured them. “When the time comes, I’ll write another article in _The Prophet_. We’ll get more attention than we know what to do with.” 

Harry looked back over his shoulder, meeting Draco’s eyes. With a soft sigh, the pureblood pushed himself out of his chair. Like it or not, he knew a good deal when it came to magical regulations for businesses and buildings; information learned from preparing his father’s paperwork—which he’d considered house elf treatment at the time—but perhaps it might be useful now. 

“There may be an issue with reclaiming properties,” Draco pointed out. Harry and Hermione shifted, making room for him to be seen as he drawled out his thoughts on the issue. “You’ll need someone knowledgeable to track down the beneficiary owners of the abandoned homes and businesses—to see which properties can be legally seized by the town, and which would need to be donated or acquired. Each parcel has a rightful owner somewhere out there, some living relative who survived the war. Buying back property could increase your up-front costs significantly,” he raised his brows. The burden of buying adequate housing could tank the entire project if families didn’t want to part with their land for a reasonable sum. “Best to start compiling a list of structures which can be reclaimed immediately, occupy those to begin with, then buy up additional buildings as needed, once there’s income from the resort to cover the cost.” 

The older witches and wizards nodded. They weren’t likely to convince many to donate their land, even if the structures on said parcels were ruined. If the owners thought Lachland’s group stood to profit from acquiring the land, then they’d be downright foolish not to seek compensation. 

 _You never talk about money,_ Harry thought. They didn’t have to be looking at each other, or even touching—not when Harry’s feelings were broadcasting like a damn radio. 

 _Yes, well…_ Draco stopped dead, his eyes flickering up to the side of Harry’s head. His wavy hair covered his temple, hooked behind his ear to expose his bearded jaw. Draco could read something else in Harry plain as day. _Merlin! That turns you on, Potter?!_

Sheepish, Harry bit his lip. _Kinda. Yeah._  

Around them, important people were coming forward, adding their ideas to the growing plot. And Harry Potter was attempting to conceal the tinge of pink on his cheeks because seemingly anything Draco did gave him a stiffy. 

As the conversation turned to attracting businesses to Hölmfröst, Harry leaned into Draco. “What about Luna?” he suggested under his breath. “She’s got a broken printing press, no one to run it, she’s blind, and living on the generosity of her relatives in America. She might be interested in this.” Lighting up, Harry elaborated: “A free place to live. A community of other people who have health challenges, and a vital business for the residents of the town—their own magazine. People could work as journalists, writing articles for Luna. And they could use the press to produce promotional materials for the spa and other businesses in the town.” 

Draco shrugged. “We can floo-call her and offer. The worst she might say is to sod off.” 

“I think she might fancy it,” insisted Harry. 

“Then you can tell her all about it, Chosen One.” 

The prospect of charity made Draco vastly uncomfortable. Until Harry, he’d never encountered the like of it. Harry was better at this sort of thing, anyway—reaching out to people, offering them help with no strings. Coming from Draco, the offer would immediately become suspect. He would rather not taint this elaborate plan, on which so many people depended, by having his involvement be known. 

Hermione and Ron peeled off, speaking with Arty’s wife to coordinate and exchange information. Into the space they left stepped Dmitry and Misha. Harry reached out, an arm around Dima’s big shoulders, readily kissing him hello—once on each cheek, familiar, before repeating the gesture with Misha. Harry was sending a clear message: the Ionescue brothers were his friends. Despite their father’s reputation, they deserved to be here as much as anyone. 

Not one to make a fuss, Mikhail captured Thora’s attention, speaking softly to her—the English words ‘six million’ on his lips. Three million each from himself and Dima. 

With the generosity of one family, they made it a quarter of the way to their goal. Thordis started crying, and Misha hugged her. News passed quickly around the room, Arty Lachland shaking both their hands. He wouldn’t let go of Dima, stunned, looking so pleased. 

Golden eyes downcast, Dmitry murmured, “Zome of our ancestors vere terrible people. Using zheir gold in zhis vay, ve start to erase zheir legacy.” 

 _That’s a neat trick,_ thought Draco. _Dima opens his mouth but Nebojsa’s words comes out._

Harry saw Sia standing by himself—leaning against the wall, his monk’s hood up to conceal his face—watching as Dima and Misha gave some of their inheritance away. Harry figured that Nebojsa and Misha had probably leaned on Dima a bit to get him to do it; left to his own devices, Dmitry would keep that mountain gold in their Gringotts vault for himself, hording it like a mythical dragon on a pile of loot—thinking he needed that much to provide for his own family and keep them safe. It was Nebojsa’s attitude to give to others, even when you had nothing yourself. Nebojsa would give a stranger the robe off his back. 

Unfortunately, Harry knew from his own life that being a generous person could get you taken advantage of. There was such a thing as giving too much, leaving nothing for yourself. Harry still thought it was better to give and get burned than to hide yourself away with a pile of treasure and forget to live your life. 

Mads and Viggo Østergaard put their blond heads together—whispering back and forth in Norwegian before deciding that they would buy-in to the tune of five million US dollars… providing that Mrs. Skowers would be the official cleaning products of the spa and hotel once it was operational. 

Harry hadn’t formally met Viggo, but he looked familiar—and not just because the family resemblance was quite strong. Viggo was perhaps five or eight years older than Mads, had narrower shoulders, with a short mustache and goatee surrounding his mouth. Harry realized why he knew Viggo’s face: he’d been runner-up to Gilderoy Lockhart for Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile several times over, and many witches at Hogwarts had Viggo’s picture pasted inside their school planners. It took Harry a moment to erase the mental image of little hearts drawn around the guy’s face, but he recognized him. 

Viggo assured Arty and Thora he would be able to provide a significant discount on the cost of supplies. If the resort was successful, he’d eventually make his money back in free advertising… which made Viggo sound like a business man, of course, but at the end of the day he was gambling five million bucks on an old Herbologist and a wrinkly Burmese elephant. If the resort flopped, Viggo would lose money just like the rest of them. It was a gamble, a risk, with no promise of success and overwhelmingly unfavorable odds against them. 

Harry touched Draco’s arm, wanting to know his thoughts. Draco let him in. 

 _You wanna do this, Wonder Cunt._

Harry almost laughed. Draco knew him too well. _Yeah, I do. How much do you think?_

 _I don’t know American money,_ Draco admitted. His father never had business in America or with people who lived there, so Draco wasn’t familiar. It seemed that when it came to their finances, Harry would continue taking the lead in their relationship despite Draco’s considerable knowledge on the subject. It was just easier that way, less stressful for Draco, and Harry didn’t mind. _How much is a quarter-million dollars?_  

Harry converted currencies in his head. _Um… about a hundred eighty thousand pounds_ _, or thirty-eight thousand galleons_ _._ Or two-thirds of what Draco’s inherited properties brought in over the course of a year. It was a massive amount of money to gamble with. But Draco had always been a risk-taker. Sometimes he leapt before he bothered to look, relying on magic and pure dumb luck to stick his landing. 

 _Yeah. D’accord, let’s do it._  

Harry’s hand slipped from Draco’s upper arm to his back, resting between his husband’s sharp shoulder blades, feeling him beneath the blended wool of his fancy embroidered robe. He rubbed a little circle, Draco’s spine against his palm.

 _Thank you. This is a very big deal for me. I’ve never spent this much gold in my life._

_Well,_ Draco mentally sighed. This was what it would be like, having Lucius Malfoy’s money. _Best g_ _et used to it._

 

 

 

 

Draco was very good at picking up details in his peripheral vision without allowing his eyes to noticeably wander. It was how he assessed his surroundings… and how he secretly checked people out in bars. No one would be the wiser where he was looking as he stood at Harry’s side, listening. 

 _My father would’ve broken his own arm to get in a room with these people_ , was the first clear thought to surface. Their names were known to Draco. Their faces, too. Ferrard Lachland, owner of the Stonewall Stormers—arguably the best team in the western hemisphere, and one of the top five most-winning teams in the history of professional quidditch. Devlin Whitehorn, owner of up-and-coming Nimbus Broomsticks. Gaspard Shingleton, inventor of the Self-Stirring Cauldron. Arturo Moreno, chain-restaurant owner and arguably the richest man in North America. And the sons of Einar Østergaard, now controlling two-thirds of the Mrs. Skowers brand. 

Under no circumstances would these people have set foot in a room with Lucius Malfoy, suspected Death Eater.  

Before becoming a Potter, Draco couldn’t have gotten within spitting distance of this crowd. He only knew Mads through Vukasin and Chereshko—the Durmstrang underground of blokes who fancied getting blitzed and fucking other blokes. And even then, Mads wasn’t permitted to socialize with Vuk outside of school due to Tihomir’s reputation. Their fathers were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, exerting their influence down onto their children… the same as Harry did now, using his unimpeachable reputation to shelter Draco, forcing present company to accept him despite his background and past affiliations. The Potters were a package deal; post-war, nobody could get The Boy Who Lived to show up socially without Draco. 

Of course Draco paid particular attention to Suku’ari. He’d always wanted to meet the wizard he regarded as the best pro Keeper of the last three hundred years. Suku’ari retired before Draco was born, becoming a referee and popular strategist, writing numerous books which were considered by many to be the closest thing quidditch-mad wizards had to a holy bible. Suddenly, Suku’ari left quidditch all-together—retreating from public life completely after getting married. Draco understood his wife, Kyoko, had some type of rare muscular condition which prevented her from walking. She needed to use flying carpets, or broomsticks, or was levitated everywhere she went, as any pressure on her legs or spine left her in agony. Her condition prevented her from being anywhere near muggles—she could use a wheelchair, but it was so limiting compared to using magic to live more fully with her condition. They withdrew from public life, leveraging his considerable fortune to start a magical community in Burma where they could live with others who had medical conditions preventing them from blending in with muggles. 

A wizard like Suku’ari would sooner burn a letter from Lucius Malfoy than read it. Nor would Lucius have cared to reach out, no matter how a relationship might have benefited his own reputation… never mind how happy it might’ve made his son to meet a famous player and strategic thinker he’d looked up to since he could walk. 

The occasional photo in _The_ _Prophet_ of Suku’ari and Kyoko—on a magic carpet together, her hand resting on his knee, the way he was always leaning towards her or looking right at her like the rest of the world stopped existing—gave Draco his mental fantasy of what marriages entered into for love ought to be like. For Draco, knowing he was destined for an arranged marriage, Suku’ari had always represented a dream, a type of relationship he would never have… which no one would even believe Draco Malfoy was capable of wanting if they heard, public opinion of his family being so set-in-stone. 

These days, many people questioned him and Harry being together for that exact reason. Other people wanted to see in Draco a perfect reproduction of his father. But he wasn’t—not at all, disappointing as that was to Lucius. Draco was creative, salacious, rebellious. His artistry came from his mother, who was otherwise a reserved, deferential woman. Draco’s other primary traits came from somewhere else in their genetic heritage, long-buried gems come back to life after a few dormant generations. He grew to be his own man, perhaps in spite of Lucius’ iron influence.

Draco tried to be an obedient child. But he’d been horrible at it, requiring threats and then rapidly increasing levels of violence to be kept in line. In the end, even Voldemort threatening to kill him couldn’t get Draco to toe the line. Narcissa saw he needed to get out, and she gave up everything in order to give him that chance. 

Anyone who had ever known Lucius would still see a miniature of him when they looked at his son. He still _looked_ like Lucius, _sounded_ like Lucius. He always would. It was hard to forget the influence of a man like that. Even married to Harry Potter, Draco would always and forever be Lucius Malfoy’s son—a Death Eater from the cradle to the grave. 

So it stunned him utterly speechless when Suku’ari stepped into the bubble of open space beside Draco, a hand coming to rest on his shoulder… touching him. Suku’ari was touching his shoulder in a grandfatherly fashion, his hand large and strong and comfortably warm. 

The Burmese wizard wasn’t much taller than Draco. He was nearly eighty years old now; white taking over his hair, his body thinner than Draco remembered. The last two years had been hard on everyone; Harry was probably the only one who managed to get bigger. Most people had trouble keeping food down last year.

“I hear…” the famous old wizard began, speaking measuredly from the side of his mouth. His words were specifically for Draco, angling with his shoulder to make it clear to others they were having a private conversation. “You have had to make some difficult decisions of late.” 

Draco’s choice to lower his wand and not kill Dumbledore. Escaping the Death Eaters. Running to Harry… giving in to his feelings for Harry, and the whirlwind which came after. He went from being an unwilling, fumbling assassin to the target of attempts directly on his own life. All because of the choices he made—the choice to be with Harry, and to do so publically, taking chief position on everybody else’s complaint list. Draco made the choice to stick a permanent target to his own scrawny arse. 

Draco pushed past the lump in his throat. “Yeah, tough choices. One could say that.” 

“I regretted we did not have the opportunity to meet last year, at Arty’s Sanctuary.” 

Harry never talked about who-all was there during the war. He kept strict boundaries between the war and their home-life; in his way, Harry was compensating for the times the war burst in and disrupted their lives, Death Eaters storming Hogwarts grounds or pointing wands at Draco in the underground. Because those things happened, Harry refused to bring the war home to his spouse if he didn’t have to. The fact that Harry and Suku’ari knew each other hadn’t come up in conversation—though Harry certainly knew Draco’s leanings towards _laissez-faire_ referees like Suku’ari and Hassan Mostafa. 

Harry wasn’t one to brag. He’d likely intended to arrange a meeting like this one after the dust settled, knowing Draco would enjoy the opportunity to meet a wizard he’d looked up to for the better part of his life. 

“My apologies,” prefaced Draco. “Harry had me in hiding. We had death threats, attempts were made… poisoning….” He stopped himself. Compared to what he’d heard of Suku’ari’s life the last two years, Draco didn’t want to appear to be comparing battle scars. 

“We cannot control the minds or actions of others,” Suku’ari said sagely. He sounded as though he were speaking to a grandchild… which, come to think of it, his grandchildren would have been about Draco’s age. “It is our duty to reduce pain to all beings within our influence. Sometimes this means harm is done. To harm another is not a decision any wise man makes lightly.” 

He was talking about Draco’s attempts to assassinate Dumbledore. Because, had he not tried, it would have meant his own life, and his mother’s… and someone else charged with the task after he was gone—perhaps Pansy or one of the Greengrass sisters. They were as unlikely assassins as Draco. Maybe it was better that he’d tried and failed, that he’d suffered. His actions saved his mother’s life, such as she was now, and prevented countless others from being pressed into the same unfortunate circumstance. It was a no-win situation he’d faced, with no feasible way out. He’d chosen the path of least harm, least pain to the least number of people. Yes he’d tried to kill Dumbledore. And yes, he hurt others, innocent people, in the process. But countless more might have died had he acted otherwise.

At the time, Draco hadn’t seen any way but forward. Harry called that _gaslighting_ , a type of duress and brainwashing not so unlike the Imperius Curse. Harry, Kingsley, and the Ethics Committee were hard at work devising new laws to aid the victims of what they deemed ‘psychological torture.’ 

“I… thank you,” Draco deferred. “I suppose there’s some small comfort to be found in that.” 

He didn’t know how Suku’ari lived with it. After Durmstrang, the Death Eaters went to his village in Burma, the community he’d built with Kyoko. Details differed—Draco suspected some of the Death Eaters he heard boasting about it were exaggerating but… it was hard to know. He once heard Antonin Dolohov brag about executing Kyoko in front of Suku’ari, taking both their wands as trophies. Imbri Sokolov implied he’d kidnapped the prettiest of Suku’ari’s granddaughters after raping the rest. Augustus Rookwood claimed they’d murdered every one of the old couple’s children and grandchildren before their eyes. No matter what was true, it was all ghastly. 

Standing beside Draco, Suku’ari had a wand again—a serviceable Kiddell strapped on a bracer under his voluminous robe sleeve. But he had no family with him. Draco would have recognized Kyoko, and none of the Asian or darker skinned people in the room bore any resemblance. Perhaps portions of the stories were true. 

The Death Eaters took everything from him. And here he was about to do it all over again, to build a new paradise which could be struck down at any moment.

 

 

 

 

Harry watched faces he knew spout off ridiculous numbers. 

He recognized the owner of Nimbus broomsticks, Devlin Whitehorn, whom he met at his braintrust meeting at Leon’s last winter. They’d argued over the place of the Dark Arts in the greater arcana of magic. Whitehorn was in for a million dollars. 

Arty put down two million of his own money. Malaya’s dad, Arturo Moreno, threw his hat in at a million, his wife smiling at his side. Viktor Krum was footing the bills for Charlie’s extensive medical treatments—but one hard look from Charlie in his wheelchair and they were in agreement that Viktor could spare a hundred thousand dollars to the cause. Zoe Leblanc offered half a million, as her infant daughter was the sole heir to Cleensweep Broomsticks; Zoe named her baby girl Vasilisa after her mother-in-law, Durmstrang’s professor of Defence Against The Dark Arts, who died defending her students against the Death Eaters. This was the sort of project her late husband and mother-in-law would have stood behind. 

Leon and Charlene Harper stepped forward, offering a quarter million—which was a good chunk of their retirement savings, but they believed in what Arty, Thordis, and Suku’ari were doing. 

In a single night they committed over sixteen million. That was enough to get started, to begin publicizing and offering smaller shares in their company for sale to the public. 

Harry sat down for a moment, watching the flurry of movement around him, listening to conversations. A tremor went off in his hand—a twitch he hadn’t experienced since he was fourteen and his name came flying out of a fiery goblet. Again, he had the sense of not belonging in his present company. Any moment they’d see he had no place here. It was surreal to him, to be sitting in a room where sixteen million dollars was just thrown at a hope, given out as charity with every endeavor for success… still knowing it might not work. This… this was the world he got to live in. In times like this, it felt like a dream, like he was still dead and this was the afterlife he imagined into being.

Nebojsa slid into the seat beside him. The Serb conjured a simple glass of water, pressing it into Harry’s hand. 

“ _Breathe…_ ” he hissed gently. 

“ _What, am I having a panic attack or something?_ ” Harry wasn’t precisely joking, because he suspected it might not be possible to lie in Parseltongue. Everything hissed had some grain of belief, if not truth. And a part of him worried he was disconnecting, falling apart, or just shutting down. He accepted the glass of water from Nebojsa and chugged it.

“ _No, brother_.” Sia refilled it, encouraging with a lilt of his brow that Harry should drink some more. “ _You’ve helped make this happen._ _You’re happy, and you don’t know how to be_.” 

Harry downed the cool water. It was what he needed. His hand stopped shaking. He felt more solid, grounded. He hadn’t realized he was breathing so quickly until he started taking deep breaths through his nose again, air filling his low stomach instead of his chest. 

Fucking hell. He really had no clue how to allow himself to experience happiness? His mind was so busy looking for the fault-line, the next disaster or betrayal, that he couldn’t give himself that relief, the pleasure of enjoying this moment, this tiny personal victory. He’d done something genuinely good for once—had been a part of getting all these people in a room together to solve problems and help others. Instead of the joy and pride he ought to feel… his mind gave him this ache, this flutter in his chest like the Dark Lord was behind him, poised to strike. Because the last eighteen years had taught him he could never _be happy_ without something going terribly wrong a second later. His heart was already hardening for it, his body expecting a fight. He had to go to war with his faulty instincts, bringing himself back down, being present, breathing, doing something as simple as drinking a glass of water. 

Harry had to give himself permission to feel joy. Like a bird never let out of its cage, suddenly he had to teach himself to fly. 

“ _I think you’re right, brother_.” 

“ _Can you blame him?_ ” That was Draco, standing behind them. He’d come up out of nowhere. Like Harry, it seemed Draco could sneak up on anyone. “ _The last time Harry tried to be happy, it killed him_.” 

He was talking about himself. The last time Harry tried to be happy was when he married Draco. A love, a choice, for which people _still_ wanted them dead.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Draco had never been a morning person. Any engagement scheduled earlier than nine o’clock risked bodily harm. 

Knowing this, Harry often brought Draco breakfast in bed on his days off. It was a habit he’d begun when they first started dating and living together, a way to get his then-boyfriend up and moving at a reasonable hour… which typically resulted in some action in the shower as well. On more than one occasion they didn’t make it to the loo, fucking in the hall or on their bedroom floor once Draco was properly caffeinated. One of the many advantages of not having housemates anymore—they could once again bugger all over the house. No room in Grimmauld Place was safe. Bending Harry over various pieces of furniture had been a pastime of Draco’s from the start; their difference in height only forced the pureblood to get creative, using spells and a variety of angles to get the job done these days. 

Bringing Draco breakfast in bed became a kind of weekend ritual—a way Draco would accept Harry looking after him, showing affection and care. It was one romantic gesture Draco could tolerate. 

He was probably spoiling Draco a bit. Harry reasoned with himself that Draco had brought him back from death, so bringing Draco a coffee and something to eat in the mornings was really the least he could do to show his husband how he felt in return. 

Today wasn’t going to be an animalistic sex-in-the-hallway kind of day. 

Harry had a large cup of coffee and an almond croissant for Draco. It was raining, so he’d skipped his morning run in favor of a few bodyweight exercises and shadowboxing in the empty dining room. He didn’t feel right if he didn’t get some type of athletics in before starting his day, and he knew Draco wouldn’t be up for a shag. Not today. 

He opened the bedroom door with his foot, breakfast tray in both hands. He set the food on the night stand before sitting down on the side of the bed, a hand on Draco’s bony hip, feeling his nakedness under the blanket, giving him a little shake. 

“C’mon, luv. We have to get going.” 

Draco’s eyes opened to slits, his ashy-colored lashes not wanting to pry themselves apart and let the lamplight in. A wiggle of his returned-to-blond eyebrows cast a Tempus Charm, informing him it was a hair past five in the morning. 

“Fuuuuuuuuck,” he groaned. Face mashed into his pillow, he grumbled. “Why does it have’ta be this fuckin’ early?”

Harry brought Draco’s coffee within smelling distance, hoping he’d stop whinging and sit up to drink it. “You know why. There are miles of tunnels. It’s gonna take them at least a day to search it all, maybe more.” 

“Yer tellin’ me we might have’ta do this again tomorrow?” 

Harry sighed. “Yeah. Maybe.” 

The Ministry had agreed to accept the Potters’ help in searching Malfoy Manor. Their best Curse Breakers had been unable to penetrate some of the most ancient sections of the catacombs. Wanting to finish their investigation and free up the man-power for other projects, the Ministry consented to Harry and Draco’s assistance in getting past the dangerous wards set up by Draco’s ancestors. 

The Curse Breakers had requested they arrive in Devizes by six o’clock—which, to Draco, was nothing short of torture.   

In Harry’s mind, Draco deserved a life where the worst thing which happened to him was having to wake up at five in the morning on occasion. Death threats, battles, and actual torture were well behind them. 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

 _No._  

 

It was the only word in his head.

It was too damn early. And in a way, it was too damn late—too late to save the Malfoy name, too late to bring him back to this place and claim it was his. Draco had nothing to do with this house anymore. It didn’t even look like anything he remembered, standing in the drive, Curse Breakers and Ministry staff all around them, shepherding them inside that crumbling, burned-out, abandoned-looking building.

He didn’t recognize the front doors—because they’d been destroyed and replaced with these utilitarian boards cobbled together. He didn’t recognize the floors, spattered with dark stains and pools of water from… yes, from broken windows they’d failed to repair or close up, and holes blown in the roof they’d neglected to seal before winter. He didn’t know the debris—the broken furniture and smashed antiques still littering the place, pushed aside like so much garbage to create a walking path through the carnage. 

He didn’t know these walls. It wasn’t his home… it had never been his. 

 _No_.

Harry was at his side. _Draco…_ _darling_ _, you okay?_

 

 _No_.

 

 

 

 

Their footsteps echoed in the abandoned, dead space—a dusty shuffle of boots and robes in the stillness. The mansion was in absolute ruins. Harry spotted a family of stoats having made a home in the pile of a broken velveteen sofa. 

The Curse Breakers with them didn’t even bother to spell the mud off their boots as they entered the house, making a path of dark brown footprints on the floor which faded as they made for the tunnels in the cellar. 

Wandlessly, Harry waved his hand to spell the mud from his and Draco’s shoes, scrubbing the boot prints left by their guides—cleaning what he could, a drop in an endless, bottomless bucket of need. The house was uninhabitable… perhaps beyond saving. 

He was the master of Malfoy Manor now. Legally, this was _his_ property which fellow law enforcement employees were occupying as a crime scene. And though the place was a pile, he didn’t appreciate the idea of anyone treating Draco’s childhood home so poorly. Muddy shoes were the least of it. They’d nearly let the place fall down in a year; that was how little they cared for Draco… the sorcerer who’d saved them all in the end. 

Harry hated the idea of bringing Draco back to the Manor. But the timing worked out. Nebojsa was out of the office—most of the Eastern Orthodox population of the Ministry was out, since it was the one year anniversary of the attack on Valaam, and they all took the day off to attend a memorial service on the island. Over a thousand people had been killed, a year ago today. It had been one of those battles which shook the world. They were still feeling the vibrations of it now. 

With half their training class gone for the day, Harry would’ve been sitting at his desk, twirling his thumbs, or rattling around in the gym for hours. At least with this approved field work he got to spend the workday with his spouse—that was literally the only silver lining to this endeavor. 

Sometimes he worried about Draco being bored, home alone for hours every day. His husband got really good at GTA and Mortal Kombat; he could kick Harry’s ass now, which made video games slightly less fun when it was just Harry getting creamed in the first thirty seconds, over and over again, to Draco’s merciless taunting. The guys left Draco with some CD’s to listen to and sheet music to practice. Draco taught himself a few solos. Sometimes Harry came home to catch his dragon at the piano arranging a song, re-imagining it for their nameless band. Draco turned pop songs into metal, and metal into ballads with haunting melodies. 

Draco refused to show any of his compositions to the guys, claiming they were rubbish. Harry couldn’t convince him otherwise, and he didn’t have it in him to steal one and bring it to Nebojsa just to have him say what Harry already knew—that Draco was gifted and his work was inspired. He wouldn’t betray Draco’s trust like that, so his music sat scattered over the top of the piano at Grimmauld with speckles of wine stains or the occasional smear of cigarette ash marring their beauty, only heard by Harry and perhaps their neighbors when Draco was drunk and played loud enough. At least he sang. 

Harry worried what this day would do to Draco. Seeing his childhood home gutted, destroyed, left to seed because the Ministry didn’t give a shit about saving the property of a convicted spy.

They’d cleared the upper floors of anything deemed dangerous or illegal, and today would be focused on the miles of tunnels under the property—catacombs of dead ancestors, used by previous Malfoys as storage for wine and unused furniture; and before that ancient lordly tyrants had carved holding cells into the stone where people were tortured. The Death Eaters had revived many spaces to that purpose, and Malfoy Manor was no exception. In some cases, the four-hundred year old iron manacles were still fixed to the walls. Harry knew—Draco had been chained up in them, left to bleed when his torturer took breaks to eat or sleep or shit. 

They would have to walk by some of those torture cells in order to get to the oldest tunnels, for Draco to shepherd Curse Breakers past the wards so that they could remove any contraband and catalog it for the Ministry. 

Harry and Draco were helping the Ministry find more reasons to issue fines against themselves. The crimes were Lucius Malfoy’s, or Bellatrix Lestrange’s doing, but they’d pay the price as the surviving family of criminals, the evidence left behind in a house which was now legally theirs… though Harry had only been here a grand total of one time, and Draco ran away a year and a half ago, a refugee, a prisoner of war seeking asylum. 

This was what they had to do to get Draco’s childhood home back, so today Harry wasn’t going to buck back against the system. It wasn’t worth the risk of being denied. Malfoy Manor was a bargaining chip, something the Ministry could hold over their heads to make them dance to any particular tune so long as they wanted the property back. Harry wanted Draco to have what was his due, so he hiked up his robes and did the necessary jig. For now. 

Harry never really had a proper home. But he was starting to understand how people attached themselves to places which held so many happy memories. He wanted to think Draco had good memories here… maybe enough to outweigh the bad, or maybe not.

It wasn’t easy to see hundreds of years worth of your family’s hard work gutted and left to the elements. At least down in the tunnels there wasn’t much destruction or deterioration to see. There wasn’t much of anything except miles of stone walls and low curved ceilings. Harry walked down the middle of the passage so he wouldn’t have to duck down. Draco was nearly a head shorter, comfortably striding beside him without smacking his blond head on the lower ceiling. 

Harry was technically working, so it wasn’t in any way appropriate to hold Draco’s hand—and the pureblood would’ve surely smacked his fingers away should he try. But holy fuck did he want to. 

Draco knew his way better than the Curse Breakers did; after all, he’d scurried around down here pinching from his father’s liquor stores from age thirteen. Harry wondered if Draco would know the exact cell he’d been held prisoner in if he happened to see it again. Likely so. Draco’s memory was near photographic. 

The Curse Breaker escorting them was a short, basalt-skinned wizard with a Dutch accent called Smets, and a quarter of an hour deep into the tunnels they were joined by a frizzy-haired Scottish witch, MacLeay, who could’ve passed for a Weasley. Both bore a few scars visible on their faces and hands, and likely a few more beneath their robes. Harry placed their ages somewhere between thirty and forty years old, though it was hard to tell with Smets because he was quite muscular and shaved his head. 

The hired Curse Breakers struck him as competent, professional, and experienced. Both were also uncomfortable as hell—so said their stilted conversation and stiff body language. Neither were ready to apologize to Harry Potter for the state his property was in. As Curse Breakers, they’d been responsible for mapping the tunnels and determining their safety; taking care of the property above had been the Ministry’s responsibility. Smets and MacLeay wanted to do their jobs and be on their way. 

Draco’s face—hard like the stone around them, paired with Harry’s constant glower—probably didn’t make the atmosphere any easier. Then again, no reasonable person could be expected to affect a congenial face when presented with their multi-million pound, five-hundred-year-old heirloom house reduced to a critter-inhabited wreckage. 

Harry began to see sections of the walls with indentations, as though there’d once been a door or archway there which had been removed. 

When MacLeay noticed Harry’s eyes straying to the doorway-like indentations in the stone, she explained, “That’s where the Blood Wards were installed. We’ve dismantled all but the oldest and most powerful of ‘em.” 

Harry had some limited experience with Blood Wards. He knew Yuri and Gregorovitch employed them to keep Hogwarts’ perimeters safe, and again around Dima and Misha’s property. They’d been heavy surrounding the quidditch players’ Sanctuary as well. As much as Harry encountered them over the course of the war, he didn’t understand much about how they worked.

“People misunderstand Blood Warding,” Draco offered. He seized upon the opportunity for idle banter as they went along, knowing they’d have quite a ways to walk. “They think it has to do literally with blood, because it requires a bit of blood to create, and blood to alter it or feed it over time. But that’s not entirely accurate. The magical field isn’t reading blood, but rather the magical signatures within our blood.” 

For Harry’s benefit, he extrapolated. “I could pass a Blood Ward created by my father, my mother, my grandparents, my aunts, and any first cousins.” Except Draco only had _one_ first cousin, Tonks. Harry didn’t want to think about Bellatrix Lestrange having a kid. “Possibly my great-grandparents or a great-uncle or great-aunt. But beyond that, the magic is unique to the point we’re no longer identifiable as of the same immediate line.” 

“So a Blood Ward to be re-tuned, or fed, every few generations?” Harry guessed. “So it can continue recognizing the right people, and count out distant relations.” 

“Precisely,” said Smets, listening in on their conversation. 

“Can they be set to something other than recognizing family?” Harry asked. Because the wards he’d experienced at The Sanctuary had been of the traditional variety—allowing guards, staff, and resident families safe passage, while keeping out more distant kin who might be Death Eaters. 

“Sure. A Seer might create a ward to keep out all but other Seers. An Animagus could do the same. Yura and Misha tweaked the wards at Hogwarts to temporarily keep out Animagus or—”  Draco cut himself short of saying _anyone bound to a_ _magical_ _creature_. That practice was so taboo, so untenable, that most magical people didn’t even know it was possible, let alone that there were wizards or witches out there who could transform into magical animals. Though Harry was quite familiar with magical law these days, he couldn’t think of one restricting people from binding themselves to creatures—it was so unthinkable, believed impossible even by magical lawmakers, that they hadn’t thought to outlaw the practice. 

“Wizards like Tiho,” Harry said, letting Draco know he got the idea without tipping their hand. It felt nauseating to call the mass-murdering psychopath Tihomir Ionescue by such a familiar, chummy nickname, but it was necessary to keep their current company in the dark. For all the Curse Breakers knew, Harry could be talking about a Metamorphmagus or wizard with some other naturally-occurring, perfectly legal shape-shifting ability. 

“Exactly.” 

Harry glanced back down the catacomb hall which seemed to go on forever, with passages jutting out here and there, twisting and winding off into the distance. Supposedly these catacombs stretched half-way to Stonehenge. Memories of Draco’s early teenage years included his walking some two hours through this underground maze just to steal a hundred year old bottle of champagne in order to impress his first girlfriend, a gorgeous French witch named Margaux. By Draco’s estimation, there had to be a fifteen kilometer radius of tunnels spreading out from the Manor, perhaps more. Draco’s ancestors had a good number of bodies to bury, and a great many relics and such to hide. 

He was already lost. Everything down here looked the same, and there were no markings to guide them. Draco knew the way by heart—from pilfering the alcohol his family stored down here where it was cool and dry. Or from being tortured, held in a cell somewhere, a place his ancient ancestors had used to imprison those who disagreed with them without trial or due process. Chatting about the properties of Blood Wards was giving Draco something else to focus on. 

Harry asked, “So… will I be able to get by any of these Malfoy Blood Wards without you?” 

Draco walked a bit closer, his legs at their full extension to keep up with Harry’s longer stride. “The binding at our wedding took care of that. You should be able to walk through any ward I can.” 

“The magic knows we’re married? That’s… sweet and creepy at the same time.” 

After perhaps thirty minutes of idle banter they came to what looked like a bit of wet gauze fabric hanging from the ceiling, stretched between the walls. Harry figured that had to be the magical webbing of the Blood Ward, picked at and exposed by the Curse Breakers over hours of careful examination… perhaps days. Harry recalled it had taken Draco nearly a week to fix the family tapestry in their home, and that was presumably less complex magic than this—or at least less dangerous. Blood Wards could cause severe physical damage to anyone not permitted who attempted to cross it. One mistake and a Curse Breaker could get their arm sliced off, or worse. 

“Here we are, then,” said MacLeay. 

Draco didn’t reach for his wand. He simply lifted his hand, palm flexed to face the ward, and extended his fingers. They were long and pale, with nails neatly trimmed, and the light shadow of a bluish vein over the top of his hand forking out, supplying his fingers. Draco’s hands were elegant, Harry had always thought, even with the slight twists in the bones of his fingers where they’d been broken and repaired some thirty-plus times during his torture. He broke his hand one more time playing quidditch last year. Draco could still play—piano, guitar, quidditch. His hands might’ve been hurt, but he healed. And he still wanted to make music, to fly around the pitch… to hold Harry’s hand. 

He sighed, and the gauzy field crumpled into nothing.

“Next,” he said to the Curse Breakers, sounding bored. 

Smets and MacLeay stared at him, speechless. Harry knew the staff around Fenchurch and the old Ministry liked to gossip about his being a sorcerer. Talking about The Boy Who Lived gave them something to do; an interest in Harry Potter was everyone’s common ground after the war. Because Draco didn’t have much reason to do magic in public, the sorcery rumors were more or less confined to Harry. Smets and MacLeay were private contractors, not Ministry employees, so there was a chance they might not have been exposed to the office rumors about Harry. And they were too old to have friends who attended any of their summer parties in Romania where Draco was seen performing wandless magic. 

People didn’t want to believe Draco was Harry’s equal—in social station, in power, in his accomplishments. They still held it against him that his father had been a Death Eater, and that he’d been roped into it after a lifetime of brainwashing and direct, unrelenting threats of physical harm which would break anyone down. 

Seeing Draco’s Dumbeldore-like abilities made some people intensely nervous: because his skills were rare in someone so young… and because they still questioned his allegiance. The wedding ring on his aristocratic finger wasn’t enough for them. His husband standing at his side wasn’t enough. They always thought of Draco as the Dark Mark on his arm; they couldn’t see the quiet strength he’d found, his new courage, his determination to survive—the part of him which had fought back and killed the wizard who dared put that brand on him.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

After a ten hour tour and perhaps two hundred or more barriers brought down, Smets and MacLeay at last said they were done. But as one, Harry and Draco turned down a narrow side passage in one of the oldest parts of the catacombs. The bones on the shelves had literally turned to dust. 

They felt the same pull. Harry knew it from when he and Draco had first started dating. It was a magnet in his chest, dragging him whether he wanted to go or not. Or a carrot on the end of a string, being pulled by whatever lay at the end of this hall, coaxing him along. They’d stopped their work to take lunch: this wasn’t a physical hunger but a magical one, power calling to power, a cry from the crypts which only the Potters could hear. 

Draco felt it, too. He experienced this prophetic pull after Harry died, when he’d taken up Gryffindor’s sword. It was an Imperius-like drive, out-of-body. 

 _Prophetic instrument, my arse_ , Harry thought. _I hate this_. 

Draco concurred. 

The Curse Breakers tottered behind them, saying something about how they needn’t go down that hallway. Their words were like the hum of bees, their hive high up in tree branches above, barely discernible over the breeze.

The tunnel ended in a round alcove, a kind of altar carved into the stone. Separating them from the altar was a visibly angered Blood Ward. It glowed a deep crimson, pulsing as though alive.

“Voldemort made this,” announced Harry flatly. Nothing short of Tom Riddle’s magic could have drawn them down this particular hall. 

This had to be the real reason the Ministry didn’t want to give up the property. It wasn’t safe to hand over magic made with Voldemort’s blood. 

Draco clasped his hands over his low stomach—twining his fingers. He didn’t bend them, a sure sign of anxiety. He was merely thinking, idly rubbing the pads of his thumbs together as he considered the Blood Ward before them. 

“Let’s test Snape’s theory,” he said, falling into Parselmouth so the eaves-dropping Curse Breakers wouldn’t be the wiser. “ _If Voldemort had a horcrux in you, expanding your abilities, and then your horcrux was in me,_ ” he verbally traced the line of power-exchange, “ _then I ought to be able to walk right through._ ” 

Harry didn’t protest. All he said was, “Be careful, _mon ange._ ” 

When Draco stepped forward alone, Smets and MacLeay began to protest. Harry and Draco tuned them out—Harry’s eyes fixed on his husband as he walked through that gossamer curtain of magic left behind by Lord Voldemort. 

Draco passed through it like a bird shooting through the mists of a waterfall. It touched him, assessing, wetting his wings as he stepped to the other side. 

“Nothing,” Draco said, puzzled. “There’s nothing here. Come see for yourself.” 

Harry walked through next. Voldemort had shielded what appeared to be the burial site of one of Draco’s French ancestors. The round stone cove had a larger stone set into the wall, engraved in elaborate lettering covered over in cobwebs. Harry picked out the name _de Conde_. This was the burial place of the French royalty Draco descended from. 

On a long breath, Harry made a suggestion. “Do you reckon Voldemort might’ve kept a horcrux or other object here, then moved it? But left the ward up in the event he needed to stash something else later?” 

If Draco had more than stubble, he’d have been stroking a beard in thought. As it was, he rubbed his knuckle against the bone of his jaw, following the sharp line from under his ear to the middle of his chin. He stared unseeingly at the pale stone wall, thinking over the grave of his ancestor. 

“Probable,” he concurred. “The Dark Lord was mad for fail-safes. I would imagine he had something like this at nearly every safe house, to keep his horcruxes—or any other secrets—from his own followers.” 

“In case they were captured and rolled on him,” Harry inferred. 

“Because he never trusted anyone,” corrected Draco. He understood, perhaps more than most people, how it was to live such a self-isolating life.

 

 

 

 

Emerging back, Smets demanded an explanation of them. 

From his sleeve, Draco pulled the wand he carried. It was Harry’s—forming the perfect excuse. “Brother wands. Same phoenix feather core as The Dark Lord’s wand, from the same bird.” 

Harry pointed up to his own famous forehead, indicating his scar. “You-Know-Who bonded himself to me the night he killed my parents, giving me this.” Which was a reasonable means by which to pass a Blood Ward. He was marked by much more of Voldemort’s magic, but that wasn’t anyone’s business but his and Draco’s.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

On their way out—Smets and MacLeay eager to be rid of them—Draco veered off down a hallway Harry recognized. 

“Just a ‘mo,” Harry told the Curse Breakers before following his husband. He knew precisely where Draco was headed.

Pale hands released the golden door handles to what had once been his sanctuary, one of the few places Draco had felt like himself in all the world. His mother’s music room… the place Harry had found Narcissa floating last year, a shell of her former self. 

The piano sat off to one side. Fire had claimed the long bank of windows, now boarded up. The room was dark without them. The enchanted painted butterflies and birds along the blue walls seemed more like spiders, their dark forms scuttling along the moulding and onto the ceiling, sometimes hiding in the cobwebs there. It was a terrible, abandoned version of paradise. 

Draco stopped in the center of the room. It was so far from what he remembered. 

Harry stepped up behind him. “I found your mum here,” he whispered. 

“I know.” Draco tapped a finger against his temple. They shared so many memories, so many visions. Legilimency was how they talked sometimes. Harry forgot how much of his life and experiences bled over into Draco. He was always aware of how much of Draco’s burdens he carried: he was glad to carry that weight. Anything to make Draco’s life a little easier. Maybe Draco felt the same? 

“She loved this space,” Harry offered into the silence. “You should remember her the way she was… here…” he gestured around, his hand coming to rest on Draco’s upper arm, giving him a squeeze of reassurance. “All the things she taught you… the lessons. Her music. I think that’s who she was. An artist, the same as you.” 

Draco breathed under him—leaning slightly into that pressure at his arm, taking strength from it. After a few deep breaths he stepped out, going to one of the pillars where instruments were displayed behind glass boxes. They were clearly insulated with magic, to have survived the fire and then the elements which had taken their toll on the room. It seemed the branches and leaves painted on the walls were taking over, the space becoming a kind of wilderness without an owner to guide it. 

Draco reached out, the glass disappearing. He took in his hand a Chinese lute with a bowl body of pale blonde wood and a neck of jade; a beautiful, ornately-carved pipa which had been his mother’s favorite instrument, a gift from her father the antiques broker. Each time he traveled the world, he came back with a strange new instrument for Narcissa to learn. The pipa had always been her fondest instrument. Draco had memories of his mother playing going as far back as he could remember. Beside it was a pouch—spare silk strings, Harry imagined, and the finger picks Narcissa would have used to play it. Draco slipped the pouch into his pocket. 

He moved to the next pillar, taking from it what Harry recognized as the instrument Draco favored; a gu quin, looking like a lacquered meter-long length of wood with six strings, deceptively simple. Yet it was this instrument, with its emphasis on silence and the space between notes, which Draco had played with the greatest skill… as though he were trying on the outside to please others, to be quick and witty, ignoring the contemplative side of his soul because he was told it made him weak, left him open to ridicule at the hands of people like his father who didn’t value patience or self-reflection.

People saw the pipa player in Draco, the man he learned to be, firing back as fast as his tongue and fingers could move; few saw the quin side of his nature, drunk and sitting in silence, staring up at the stars. That part of himself he showed to Harry, one of the few he felt comfortable sitting silent with. 

There was nothing to be said. Harry held out his arm: instruments in hand, Draco came back to him, allowing Harry to shepherd him out of the wreckage of his former life. He had what he needed, all that he could salvage, all which he could save.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

The faithful gathered on one of the smaller islands of Valaam, to pray and sing in the only chapel left standing; a small building from the outside, layered with spells which concealed a cathedral-like space within. It was a hidden sanctuary surrounded by tranquil waters, a refuge to fall back on after the great domes of the holy site were destroyed. No one ever thought it possible… but it was the nature of Orthodoxy to hope for the best all-the-while laying in for the worst, and so they had this space to fall back to when the holy site itself was lost to the Death Eaters’ flames. 

It was one year since the fall. One year since they’d fought on this land as it burned.

It was tradition to hold a service dedicated to the dead on the anniversary of their passing, each year for seven years. No one had time for the three and six month memorials with the war tearing the world down around them. The faithful were scattered across the globe after the battle, so many refugees seeking asylum once more. There was no chance to mourn, to don black, to grieve. They wore black year-round, because death never stopped so long as they were at war. 

Dima complained he didn't want to go. “No one _want_ _s_ to go,” Nebojsa argued back. No one wanted to see the ruins, to relive that day. It was for Dušan, and for all the others lost that day. For their souls. 

They dressed in black robes and Apparated to the deserted islands on the border of Russia and Finland, where a year ago Nebojsa too had nearly died. 

As a child, he prayed that God would take his strange wizard’s magic away. He never wanted others to feel inferior, to suspect their own abilities were lesser for being unseen. That he could conjure a flame or turn a hat into a pigeon was somehow wrong, unfair, a mistake, when others had nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep, or no one to love them. Everyone had magic inside them: charity, courage, compassion. The greatest of magic had always been invisible, because love was invisible, but all-powerful. 

He never thought other people’s magic was lesser magic. Witches and wizards said that. Sometimes to his face. They said his people’s power was fake—a fraud and a scam, muggles trying to work other muggles over for money. They were charlatans, a stain on the face of _real_ magic. Among his own, his abilities earned him pariah status by the time he was seven or eight; their cold rejection drove him to the church and the monks who tended her. When he prayed, it didn’t matter what powers he had. On their knees before God, everyone was the same. 

It started with an odd letter; delivered by an owl, bearing a wax seal and addressed to him by name. 

He grew up in Savamala, Belgrade—a dilapidated industrial neighborhood constructed over what was once a bog. There were no owls around. And yet one turned up at the window of their apartment with an unusual note tied to its foot. A letter from a magic school in Sweden, claiming his long-dead parents studied there. That he was something called a wizard, and they wanted to teach him to use his magic? Madness. He didn’t tell anyone at first because they would surely think him insane… more-so than they already suspected, whispering as he passed, the neighbor boys taking every opportunity to hold him down and beat the strangeness out of him. He touched the letter each day, reassuring himself that it was physically real. 

He brought it to the monastery—to the monks who were his only real friends. One of the brothers asked to borrow it, showing it to his superior who trained at Valaam… and that was how Nebojsa learned about a magical culture outside his own, of others who could do the things he did. The heiromonk from Valaam knew about magic because of the hidden magical settlement on the island, existing in cooperation with the monastery and the muggles who lived there. The greatest monks, the schema, were a sect of wizard priests, wielding magic in the name of God, praying for sinners and using their magic for good. 

That was what Nebojsa wanted. All he ever wanted was for his magic to be real, and to be good. He devoted his heart to becoming a grand schema monk. To do it, to attain the highest order, he needed to learn how to be a wizard, how to use his magic. He wasn’t cursed after all, but rather blessed—chosen by God. 

So he left everything and everyone he’d ever known, traveling alone to Durmstrang as part of his path to become a monk. And he—the freak from the gutter, the dirty _ciganska_ —made friends with a Romanian Prince the moment they arrived.

Dmitry burst into his life, the rambunctious middle-child, having stolen his father’s wand before opening assembly and in desperate need of someplace to stash it before he was caught. Nebojsa’s second-hand uniform had a convenient hole in the pocket, which he offered as concealment before the irate Potions Master turned his wrath on his child, slapping Dima hard enough to knock him to the floor with no proof of his wrong-doing. When the two shaking little boys turned out their pockets, there was no wand to show—Nebojsa managed to tuck the onyx-lacquered Thestral hair and blackthorn Gregorovitch creation into the waist of his trousers through the convenient hole. 

His Grace never got his wand back; Dmitry insisted Nebojsa keep it, master it, make it his own to use someday when they were free of the Duke’s iron influence. How strange a twist of fate it was that in the end it was his own wand Tihomir dueled, its new master striking him dead with as much shock as that slap he rained down upon his child eight years ago. 

Nebojsa cut a small hole in his pockets ever since, a superstition of sorts, providing that symbolic outlet through which God and magic could influence his life. 

Soon he met Chereshko, the closeted heir to a mighty fortune in racing brooms, who became his first dueling partner. And shy Vadim, whose father owned the book store where they bought their textbooks each year. Vadik always brought extra books in his trunk for others who couldn’t afford them. Iga, who never fit into that role of a pureblood young lady she was forced to play. And Yuri—who was like Nebojsa, from the magical side of the gutter—whose family hunted in the woods, skinned animals, and dug in the dirt to feed themselves. Yuri and Nebojsa both came from nothing. Both were looked down on their whole lives; Yuri for being poor, and Nebojsa for being living proof that his dirty culture didn’t know everything about magic after all.

They formed their own world, the richest and the poorest, because they all had something to hide. None of them felt quite like they belonged. They protected each other, held each other’s secrets fast. 

So when Nebojsa finally made it to Valaam, the war was raging beyond any man’s power to stop. He was there because they had nothing and no where else to go. He brought his magical family to the only place he knew they’d be safe, loved, accepted—the heart of his church where no man was turned away from the sight of God. They came as refugees, servants, there to protect and serve, to fight to keep others safe. They knew little else but fighting—it was what Durmstrang trained them for, this war. 

At last, Nebojsa was where he’d dreamed he might end up, the life he hoped he might’ve earned. Reaching Valaam—serving and praying and rising, lifting his voice at dawn—was the culmination of everything he’d wanted for his life. 

His dream didn’t want him. Valaam burned to the ground. Slaughtered. It literally fell down around him—on top of him. The spires of Valaam tried to kill him. He barely survived. 

After his injury at Valaam, he gave up on priesthood, on monkhood, on his dream of a pious life of solitude and sacrifice. He began to question his fantasy of serving God.

God didn’t want him anymore. It took dropping a cathedral on his spine to get the message across. He was a stubborn man who didn’t always listen. 

In the name of God or not, he could serve others. And he found he could do that as a soldier, fighting alongside Harry Potter. 

He didn’t deserve to be a priest. Not anymore. That life rejected him, tangibly. He needed to try something else. He’d convinced himself that the priesthood was his calling, yet he was good at a great many other things. And he loved fighting at Harry’s side. They were both so similar—in their childhoods, their outlooks, their beliefs. He felt close to Harry, a kinship he’d only ever experienced with the monks and his friends from Durmstrang. 

He found Harry, but perhaps too late. Because Harry already had a soul mate in Draco. Nebojsa stayed close, as long as Harry kept saying he was needed. Being around Harry fulfilled his deep calling to serve, to be of use, to benefit everyone around them. When the euphoria of belonging subsided, he was left with the realization that he and Dima might not be _good_ for the Potters. Sensing the pressure their presence put on a young marriage, he withdrew. 

He thought the next path would make itself known. There was going to be someone else who needed his help. Karma or God, fate or destiny… something would guide him. 

But he kept finding himself at Harry Potter’s side.

 

 

 

 

At the chapel’s enchanted doors, they were met by a small army of priests—muggles in similar black robes, rosaries and incense burners clutched in their hands, their eyes squinting angrily at Nebojsa through clouds of their own smoke. 

He hadn't worn the robes of the Grand Schema, the wizard-monks who'd died protecting him. The highest order of monks had come to Belgrade after learning of the Death Eater _coup_ at Durmstrang… the schema falling to a man before they allowed the Dark Lord’s followers to take Nebojsa, whom they'd considered one of their own. The Death Eaters had taken him anyway—tortured his aunt at their apartment to learn where he was hidden, hanging her body from the window by a rope, the Dark Mark set over the building. Then they killed every person in the monastery—monks, priests, petitioners and orphans, everyone—before burning the sacred building and half of Savamala to the ground. 

These priests, these keepers of the ruins of Valaam, stared him down outside their final sanctuary. Their regard was cold, detached, arms folded across their chests. They stood in a line, baring the entryway. 

He wasn't allowed in. "We know what you are," they hissed.

They saw him as the reason for their destruction, for so much death and violence. 

He hadn't started it. He'd been a child, fighting back, fighting for his life. He made the choice to become a wizard. Just as he made the choice to give himself to the church... because a life with Dima wasn't an option. He fought _for_ them. For everyone. 

"You're not fit for God's house," they said. "Be gone, devil." 

The church didn't want him anymore. Someone or something had poisoned their hearts with fear—because he had a magic they didn't understand, because he'd survived when he rightly ought to have died. Never mind his sexuality, for which they’d have chased him out with brooms and pitchforks. They saw not the hand of their Maker but of Lucifer, temptation and sin. 

Yuri's chest puffed, ready to fight. Galina's mouth dropped open, hard words on her tongue. Iga reached for her wand up her sleeve. 

Nebojsa held up his hand, staying them. The last thing he wanted was another fight, more magic cast in anger, more fear on sacred ground. “No,” he said. “I'll stay outside. Pray for me?” 

Iga hugged him, followed by Galina. Dmitry glared at the priests and monks. They’d never been his people, his faith. 

"Go," said Nebojsa.

There was nothing to be gained by fighting with those who survived. They each grieved in their own way. These spiritual leaders were all that was left of their sect, just as he and his friends were all that remained of Durmstrang’s underground queer circle. They had ruins and graves. They had pain. He wouldn’t begrudge their denial of him. Whatever made them feel better, whatever they thought was right in the name of God. Whatever he was… he wasn’t one of them anymore.

 

 

 

 

Inside the chapel rang the celestial creations of Pavel Chesnokov; angelic melodies, the oktavist thrum of God's earth, rendered in mournful voices, lifted, echoing from the stone. He’d known these hymns from childhood. They were a part of him as much as his magic; he heard them in his sleep, and from the moment he woke—every time he closed his eyes or parted his lips, the benedictions were there, waiting, within him. 

He knelt in the church vestibule, covering his face, tears in his eyes. 

His friends were inside without him. They prayed, said the words, whether they believed them or not. They were there for him as much as to remember, knowing what it meant to him to have their support. His friends never expected to have the doors between them closed—with him shut out and them inside. It was Durmstrang all over again, except _he_ was the one left out for the wolves, the next to be devoured as they were powerless to stop his banishment. 

He was given the chance, the opportunity, to live again. And somehow he'd done it all wrong. He couldn't seem to do right, to be good, to please God. The Lord kept putting Harry Potter in his path, kept sending him these lost and broken souls to console. He couldn't bring himself to abandon Dima… and he couldn't abandon Harry, either; not when they kept saying they need him. But he wasn’t good for either of them. Together, all they did was drag each other down, further into sin. He didn't know how to lift them up, to lift himself up. 

After everything… he was a failure. He never learned how to conduct himself outside the church, how to live outside the strict teachings. It was too much. He lost his soul, leading this double-life. He should have never left the monastery. He ought to have died with the brothers, to have never learned magic, to be murdered and go to God. Because he didn't know how to exist, how to do right, in this world gone so wrong. 

He couldn't even be confessed. Even that sacrament had been taken away, the blessing of absolution. Forgiveness was the greatest magic, and he was exiled from it. He cried before God, music in his ears; sorry for the pain he caused, sorry for his offense, sorry for his well-intentioned mistakes. He killed—too many people in defence of a single life. God understood self-defence, protecting others, and he’d done that to the best of his ability. But he didn't have to betray a good and honest witch like Hermione. He didn't have to stay with Dima when he kept hurting everyone around them. He didn’t have to stay at Harry’s side... he could give up being a Hit Wizard, give up his love and the Potters and come back to Valaam barefoot and penitent. He could beg outside the chapel until they forgave him. He could remain here on his knees, for however long it took. 

He was locked out of the kingdom, kept apart from the closest thing to heaven on this earth—because _they_ didn’t believe in him, a wizard they barely knew. He didn’t fit their narrow view of what a priest ought to be, worthy of the sacrifices of so many great believers to keep alive. Everyone who saw greatness in him, everyone who witnessed his gift, sooner or later ended up dead for it. 

Their melodies rose in his ears—soaring. What they offered was a false hope if it wasn’t open to all. He wanted no part of a paradise which denied comfort to those in pain, withheld resources from those in need, wrapped itself in thick shrouds of liturgy and smoke to block out the sight of suffering and death around them. If the church continued to do nothing… there would be no church left standing. The spire through his back had been a clear message after all. 

He didn't want their forgiveness. He wanted God's forgiveness. And he wanted to be better. He wanted to be the man who deserved the chance at life he’d been given again. 

He collapsed face-first to the stone, weeping. Into the music he leant a scream.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **UPDATE NOTE:** I’ll be updating twice a week to catch up. I’m determined the whole thing will be written and posted in 2018. Portions of upcoming chapters have existed dating back to 2011, with notes and snippets of dialogue going as far back as 2009. This is always where we were headed.
> 
> We talk about our heroes—their valor, their great deeds in battle, their courage and bravery in the face of death. We don’t talk about what happens after, the descent, the rough ride down from incredible acts of heroism and self-sacrifice. This is it. It ain’t pretty.


	13. Hard Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco clings to what he’s got.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** PTSD, grief, disassociation, uppity bitches calling the cops, existentialism, and a hardcore sex scene (consensual sexual violence, buggery, rimming, masturbation, Dominance/submission, sadism, masochism, RACK, in-scene negotiation, self-bondage, movement restriction, predicament sex, spit fetish, impact play, slapping, spanking, punching, multiple orgasms, forced orgasm, verbal top, non-verbal bottom, sub-space, choking, breath play, broken bones, blood, dacryphilia, catharsis, interrupted aftercare, top-drop)
> 
>  **AUTHOR’S NOTE:** Raging pornography with the barest suggestion of plot. None of this was in the fucking outline. But as we say in the _Conscience_ universe, perhaps we’re better with it than without. When in doubt, throw a dick at it—like pasta at the wall to see what sticks.

 

 

 

_If you like the feeling of a hard rain falling_

_I have a seafull, I can give you an ocean..._

_We shouldn't have to work so hard to break this wave in our way_

_Shouldn't wanna walk away so you won't see the fear I face_

_Every time I look at you standing still, I wanna wait_

_But you never tell me no, baby wait, baby stay_

_So I'm trying to get us back together_

_Though we never been apart_

_Tryna find a shelter from the weather_

_Before the rain came down on us_

_You say it like it's easy but it's not easy, baby_

_Do you see me? Do you want me?_

_Do you need me to be near you?..._

_Love: love is a feeling_

_If you feel it, you feel it_

_Like it's raining_

 

 

 

"[Hard Rain](https://youtu.be/rnY-5PTxr1E)"

Lykke Li

 

 

 

 

They Apparated back to Grimmauld, Draco holding his instruments, one in each hand. Those silent strings were his anchors—the first physical reminder he had of his mother, of who she used to be… and who he’d been with her: a son, a child, before the war swallowed them both whole. 

“Draco…” Harry whispered his husband’s name into the silence. 

They stood in the hall outside the dining room, sharing the instinct not to Apparate directly into the foyer since Mrs. Black's portrait used to be there. Dima and Sia got the squawking matriarch down over the summer, and Harry had since replaced her with one of Dima's paintings—of the gardens at the palace on a sunny day, Misha in Granian form flying in the sky. Harry’s favorite colors dominated the piece, natural greens and blues with grey wings and white clouds. Dmitry had perfectly captured the light in Romania, its goodness, the way it warmed everything it touched. Two figures sat on the steps watching Misha soar, one blond and the other with messy black hair. Harry liked that Dima painted them so small—just two specs, a few smears of paint in a much larger, beautiful world. 

Mrs. Black’s image was gone—but still they whispered, tip-toed around their own house out of habit. Harry spoke Draco’s name again, louder. 

Draco seemed to be ignoring him. The pureblood leaned his pipa and quin against the staircase, unsure where they would live in his new home. The antiques seemed right, destined to fit with everything else eccentric and unusual in the old pureblood house. Draco stared at them a moment, speechless, observing these relics of his past. Grimmauld was the Black family home. In a way, his mum was a part of this house as much as he was. So perhaps her instruments belonged here, some piece of her coming home. At least, Harry thought so. 

Draco moved suddenly, taking Harry by the front of his robe to slam him against the nearest wall without warning. Draco was up on the tips of his shoes, leaning all his weight into Harry, kissing him. 

It was a savage kiss, biting and angry. He held Harry in it by his hair, demanding his mouth. 

Harry felt Draco hitch in his arms. He was shaking... about to cry, and he didn't want Harry to notice, or Mordred forbid _say_ anything about it. Harry tightened his arms, picking Draco up, snogging him back. There was no right reaction to seeing your childhood home destroyed. Violent snogging was fine. 

"Potter..." Draco mumbled, a fist full of his hair, letting Harry handle his weight. "Fuck me. Make it hurt."

Already holding Draco up, Harry Apparated to their bedroom. They appeared beside the bed rather than on it, the easier to get their clothes off. He didn't actually want to put Draco down, and ended up Vanishing his robe right off his narrow body. It reappeared a second later as a dark puddle on the floor, his pants and socks flying for the hamper. His shoes thudded against the back wall of their closet—Harry’s blind aim wasn’t perfect but at least they wouldn’t be tripping over Draco’s shoes in the morning. 

He had Draco in his arms, naked, kissing him roughly. Draco didn’t want to let him go, a hand rooted in his hair, the other ripping out the band holding it back. Freed, he raked his fingernails against Harry’s scalp, seeming to climb him, he was that desperate to get close. Harry held him, palm pressed to his spine, snogging back for all he was worth. 

He went to touch Draco's prick but got his hand batted away. "No. Jus' fuck me." 

He knew that feeling—Draco needed connection, needed to feel alive. Draco wanted physical pain to match what he was feeling on the inside. He wouldn't let himself react unless Harry was hurting him. An excuse, a mask for his emotions to wear. 

He set Draco down on the bed on his knees, their faces somewhat even. Thin fingers flicked, getting rid of Harry’s robe. Draco went for the button and zip on Harry’s trousers. 

Harry took his hands, guiding them away—sliding those long fingers up his chest instead. “I’ll do it,” he said. He didn’t want Draco to know he wasn’t hard yet. Even with the zing of Draco’s teeth still stinging his lip, even with Draco naked in front of him… after the day they’d had, he was gonna need a minute. And he didn’t want Draco to think that lack of wood had anything to do with him. “Bend over,” he growled. 

Draco didn’t bottom often. And when he did it was nearly always face-to-face… that was Harry’s thing. He liked being able to see Draco’s expressions, to meet his mirror-like eyes every single second, to kiss him, share breath, eat his screams. 

Turning Draco around bought him a few minutes to figure out what he needed to get himself up. 

The sight of Draco’s arse in the air helped. His husband swiveled on his knees, put his elbows to the mattress, and arched his back. He was narrow, but God damn that angle gave him the illusion of having an ass on him. Harry got himself a handful, Draco’s head tilting back when Harry put both hands on him. Tendons in his neck stood up, meaning he was clenching his jaw. Harry peered around to see silver eyes were screwed shut, biting his lip. 

“Come on,” Draco groaned, frustrated. He wanted to go. 

Harry ignored the agitation there, dropping to his knees. He bit Draco’s cheek, working his way down to the tea-stain of a birthmark he liked, taking his time until Draco started to squirm. Those erratic movements may have had something to do with Harry’s thumb sneaking closer to his hole—instinct driving him, forgetting Draco would want a Sanitation Charm first.

Harry didn’t care. Draco smelled amazing, and tasted even better. He traced Draco’s crack with his thumb, following with his tongue. He used his free hand to undo his trousers, trying to get out of his boots using only his heels until he remembered he had magic and just got rid of them, both hands back on Draco’s arse. Harry needed both hands to hold him still; Draco was gasping, his back heaving. Sweat beaded up along his spine. It had been months since Draco allowed his tongue this far south. He seemed to like the new feeling of Harry’s beard against his skin. Draco pushed back into him, groaning with each slow swipe of Harry’s tongue. 

He gave a jerk when Harry’s fingers returned, wanting to warm him up manually. Draco growled—he wanted that cleaning spell, and he wanted to skip this part, impatient to fuck. Harry palmed himself, needing just a few more seconds of Draco’s taste in his mouth, wigging around as he tried to deny to himself what he liked. 

Harry wanted to think he was okay at this—Draco was really good, being a top, and Harry learned to mimic what Draco did to him. The body under his hands jerked, whining each time the tip of his tongue pushed; barely inside him, curling and circling, encouraging him to open up a little. Harry would’ve preferred to take his time, to make Draco come… but that wasn’t what Draco wanted so he set his own instincts aside, gripping his prick instead, his hand sliding faster. 

Harry pushed to his feet, kicking off his trousers, hard enough to go. Fingers wrapping around Draco’s hip, Harry teased himself between those cheeks—no less than he remembered except that now his hands and everything else about him was larger… so that all of Draco _seemed_ smaller. Draco let out an agitated noise, getting louder when Harry’s prick had conjured lubricant on the next pass. It was gonna hurt if he went in this way—which was what Draco said he wanted. Harry paused to make sure he had the go-ahead. 

Frustrated, Draco did his own Sanitation Charm—mortified at the thought of Harry buggering him without one. After a year and a half of being with Draco, Harry didn’t so much care anymore. Peevishness made Draco flush, his neck and upper back turning as pink as his face assuredly was even if he was hiding it from Harry—hiding in the cradle of his forearms with his eyes closed so he wouldn’t have to look at the Dark Mark while they fucked. 

Positioned, Harry slid his hands to the top of Draco’s butt. He’d lost weight without quidditch or much desire to walk around London. Harry was able to get that pale skin to lift up, gathered in his hands almost like a tshirt, gripping hard. Draco gave a yelp when Harry’s short nails dug in a bit. And then he shouted for real when Harry pressed in.

That long line came up, reversing the arch he’d held to his spine. His hands went white; gripping, one in his hair and the other clamped over his mouth, trying not to make any more noise as Harry gave him what he asked for—pain. Draco’s body hadn’t been entirely ready. A quick bit of clearing magic wasn’t nearly enough to relax him. 

“Hurt?” Harry asked… maybe rubbing it in a little. 

“Gah!” Draco let out a tiny muffled gasp, his face presently mashed between his upper arm and the blanket—biting himself to keep from screaming. His clenched arms really showed off the lean muscle he had. It was hard to resist leaning down to bite the tendons visible on the back of his arm, but Harry didn’t want to move too suddenly before he was ready. Draco wanted this to hurt: he hadn’t said how much, making Harry determined to start off slow and ramp up only when Draco asked for it. 

Harry pulled out a little, getting ready to set a slow pace. The friction made Draco whimper. That sound did funny things to his self-control; Harry set his teeth, determined he wouldn’t cause any more hurt than Draco wanted. 

“I’ll stop if it’s too much,” Harry offered, hands holding Draco still by the top of his bum, gripping his skin like reins. “Just…” he was gonna suggest Draco tell him, check in with him. He stopped himself when he realized Draco wouldn’t say. It was on him to slow down, to discern by the bumps of Draco’s spine, reading them like Braille—when he’d had enough his back would lift, trying to get away. “Never mind.” 

He gave Draco half his length, rolling his hips up as much as forward, pushing into him, holding him there so he couldn’t worm away. 

He got another muffled whimper in return—suspecting Draco might have the blankets between his teeth but Harry couldn’t tell for sure. Draco was trying to keep himself quiet, as though a lack of noise conveyed some kind of dignity. Harry didn’t care—he wanted to hear Draco enjoy himself. He stared at the back of Draco’s bowed head. It was hard to ignore the way his haunches trembled, twitching under Harry’s hands, unsure if he wanted to press back into the pain or slither away and save himself. 

Harry got deeper, earning himself a quivering sort of scream. He waited to see if Draco’s spine would uncurl, if his fingers would stay white and gripping, if his toes would stop absently tapping out something like an S.O.S. Instead, Draco just held his breath and suffered through it. 

“Breathe,” Harry told him. No response. “Breathe or I stop.” 

Draco removed his forearm enough that Harry could see his face—bright red, flinched tight. He blew out a noisy breath for Harry’s satisfaction. 

“Good,” Harry told him, letting go of his arse to run hands down either side of his spine. Draco started to uncoil under his hands, loosening one vertebrae at a time as Harry started to rub. He gave a medium pressure through his hands, using fingertips and warm palms, holding his weight back—rubbing the way he did Draco’s hands, exploring him, one inch with each full breath. By the time Harry’s hands found his shoulders, the arch was back in his spine, and Harry was a bit further in. 

Harry got a grip on Draco, locking his long slender neck in the crook of his elbow before bringing him upright. Draco’s hands wouldn’t be able to reach the bed anymore, meaning Harry bore about a third of his weight on that arm, the rest distributed to Draco’s wide-spread knees. Draco got the pressure he liked around his throat without having to worry about his ability to breathe. The angle made it easier for Harry to thrust up… not to mention the curving C-shape it made of Draco’s spine. He was so flexible, his spine bent nearly the whole way back, his shoulders scant inches from connecting with Harry’s chest. Harry put his free hand to Draco’s spine—bracing between shoulder blades as sharp as his tongue—needing that leverage if he was going to thrust into Draco like this. The blond couldn’t be counted on to hold still once Harry got going. 

He turned his head—the mirror above the dresser caught them perfectly. 

“Look,” he told Draco. “Mirror.” 

Draco wasn’t hearing him, so Harry repositioned his arm at Draco’s neck, bringing his hand down to Draco’s clavicle, turning his chin with a firm knuckle. 

Draco moaned, seeing himself bent back like that; Harry’s hand practically around his throat, his backside looking plump when Harry pressed against him, lifting his small cheeks up. Harry gave a few pumps of his hips for Draco, showing him how his butt bounced on contact, showing him that Harry really could hold his weight and support him if he wanted to sag into it and let it happen. Draco’s mouth dropped open, eyes widening, for the first time _seeing_ what he looked like getting fucked.   

As beautiful as he looked, Draco didn’t seem that interested in himself. His consideration of their reflection was focused on Harry—his hair down and a bit screwed up, glasses on, the flex of his arms holding Draco in place… and, for a split second, he felt Draco laugh at him. Harry still had his socks on. 

“M-more,” he murmured. It would be hard to get his breath, bent back like that. He had to relax, let his breathing be shallow, let Harry support him completely. 

Harry’s hand crept back up Draco’s neck, thumb hooking behind his jaw—making sure his head stayed where Harry wanted it, making sure Draco watched. “ _Only if you keep looking,_ ” Harry hissed to him, making it clear what he expected. “ _I want you to see._ ” 

Storm-cloud eyes went to the reflection of Harry’s butt when he thrust, clenching, lifting up, sure to hit where Draco needed it—repeating it, setting a slow pace. Draco sagged into Harry’s hands, because he needed them now to stay upright. No chance he could do it on his own. He had no choice but to trust. 

A hum started under Harry’s hand, a rumble in Draco’s throat as he gave in. His fingers brushed Harry’s against his neck, watching in the mirror, encouraging that grip to tighten. “More,” he repeated with a bit more confidence. “Eungh... c’mon, really fuck me.” 

Harry picked up his rhythm, feeling the bones under Draco’s little arse meeting the tender spots above his prick, pressure building. He was breathing quick and shallow, too, watching Draco’s hands come around behind himself, gripping his opposite elbows. The pureblood used magic to show Harry what he wanted; conjuring a leather strap around his forearms, wrapping himself into the prone position, effectively locking his arms behind his back. He made himself completely helpless, giving Harry absolute control. 

He wanted Harry to grab on, to use the restraint for leverage to fuck him harder. Harry saw in Draco’s mind exactly what he wanted done to him. 

“Harder?” he sought that confirmation. 

Draco’s head bobbled _yes_ as much as he could with Harry’s hand holding his face, gluing his line of sight to the mirror. 

Harry transitioned his hand from Draco’s back to hold his forearms lashed together, getting his fingers into the straps and securing his grip to be sure Draco didn’t fall. He tugged a little, making sure Draco’s shoulder sockets could take the strain. 

“Mmmm,” he hummed again, vibrating Harry’s hand at his throat, enjoying even that little jostle—a preview of what was to come. 

“’S gonna hurt,” Harry warned him. 

Draco closed his eyes, hissing for him. “ _Yes. Please_.” 

Harry removed his hand, sliding off Draco’s neck, letting gravity take him face first towards the mattress. Years of quidditch instinct took over when Draco felt himself begin to fall—tensing, his calves squeezing in to find Harry’s legs as a grip as though he were on a broom. And of course his arsehole pinched, sucking Harry in further. 

It was a nasty trick. Draco bellowed, taking Harry further than expected at the same time his arms were jerked back, forced to take his own weight after having been in Harry’s arms. Harry locked his elbow, stopping Draco’s fall before his face hit the bed. The jolt pulled another shout from Draco’s lips. 

“Eugh-ugh,” he spluttered, inelegant. He wasn’t used to being tied up, and the restraint he’d set for himself was aggressive. His shoulders had to be screaming, shooting up his arms with a pressure in his chest equal to the weight Harry was controlling. “Fuck…” he mumbled, a bit strangled, figuring out how to breathe—through his nose and into his low stomach, past the sensation which was like a rather fat house elf sitting on his chest. “Fuck… oh fuck.” 

Harry set his teeth, unable to get a word out. When Draco clenched around him like that… the entire world warped around him, something like drunk tunnel vision, adrenaline making a squealing ring in his ears. The sensation was a more pleasant version of being clubbed in the back of the head. He gave his head a quick back-and-forth shake, trying to clear it, righting his vision like a muggle shaking a snow globe. 

Draco needed more lube for this to work and they both knew it. Harry didn’t move, probing around the edges of Draco’s mind, checking if he was allowed into his head seeing that Draco was mostly non-verbal. What his husband wanted surprised him, but wasn’t exactly shocking. 

They always conjured lubricant because it was what Draco was used to. His husband’s preferences were evolving over time. Draco started getting off to manual methods, which were a bit exotic to him. The muggle part of Harry turned him on as much as his magical side. 

Draco wanted Harry to spit on his arse and let it run down to reach where they needed it—picturing what Harry’s spit would look like sliding down his tender skin a bit like come. And Harry certainly had enough drool pooling in his mouth to get the job done, especially when Draco’s very visual fantasy played in his own mind. Draco watched in the mirror for Harry’s reaction—Harry checked in, gazes catching in reflection, before hocking one up and spitting. 

Draco’s eyes fell closed, waiting, anticipating, until he could feel Harry’s spit run down between his cheeks. It turned him on to know Harry was watching; Harry couldn’t get enough of watching, and Draco lived to be looked at. The sight of his prick up Draco’s ass was… more than he had words for.

Draco’s messy blond head dropped when Harry pushed his way back in—testing the glide, pushing until sharp bones dug into him, until he could feel the slight tremble to Draco’s legs. 

He bounced off Draco’s arse, shaking his entire body with each smacking thrust. Draco was going a bit pink around his neck and shoulders, and Harry knew exactly what that meant.

“Keep breathing or I stop,” Harry warned again. That got him a gasp, a demonstration of willingness to comply if not perfect execution. The pressure on Draco’s chest wasn’t something he was used to—it was easy to forget to breathe. 

It took a few seconds, but Draco started taking in air—Harry’s ever-watching eyes observing the flex of his ribs as his lungs filled. Draco hung his head, chin to his chest as he breathed, letting it loll as Harry fucked him harder so long as he kept breathing. 

Draco was beyond speaking. He sent Harry an image, the next level, what he wanted: to get hit, hard, around the meat of his arse. For Harry to smack him—spank him—and when his skin was warmed up, to outright punch him. He wanted the sting, then the impact of knuckles. 

Draco tolerated about five sharp swats before his resolve to stay silent broke down. He yipped, clenched up, but he never tried to back away. Harry pressed his thumb over the raised red skin of his bum, every accessible inch warmed from his fingers. He knocked his hips forward, pulling back on Draco’s bound arms—ramming into his tender backside, a taste of the hard impact he wanted from Harry’s fist. The diffused pressure of Harry’s hips against his smacked-red skin pulled a low moan from Draco’s lips. His head was totally relaxed, his hair swinging around his forehead and ears each time Harry gave him what he wanted. 

Harry couldn’t feel much of Draco’s mind. He was a dazed blank, given over to the rhythm, the sting, his own helplessness. He wasn’t thinking in complete words, blips of color and incomplete sound flying through his brain like Picasso’s famous melting clocks. Not much of Draco’s mind made sense. Through the trance-like, reality-bending fog, Harry picked out a significant detail: Draco was pretty close to coming. 

Harry encouraged the arch in his back. Pulling back and up on the binding around his arms found the perfect angle where the head of Harry’s prick rammed into Draco’s prostate with every thrust. 

His blond head fell back, neck loose, mouth open, totally committed to letting Harry do him into a stupor. Harry bit his way up Draco’s neck, hovering for long minutes over a freckle on the back of Draco’s neck near his hairline which Harry couldn’t get enough of running his mouth over—while drilling into Draco ruthlessly, holding him exactly where he needed to be. 

“You’re gonna come for me,” he growled in his husband’s ear, punctuating his sincerity with a good knuckle-heavy jab into the top of Draco’s ass. He had to time it just right—when he was fully seated, the barest bit of meat on Draco’s butt lifted, giving him the perfect target—otherwise Harry’s fist would connect with bone and neither of them would enjoy that. Draco yelped at the hit, unafraid to be loud; in his mindless state, he wasn’t afraid to react. His shout resonated in Harry’s ears “I wanna see that,” Harry added, falling into Parseltongue by rote. “ _I want you to get off on me fucking you. Show me how much you love it when I break you_.” 

The drive of his hips slid the heavy bed frame, scraping across the floor, leaving long scratches in the wooden boards. It was enough force to knock Draco forward, taking the wind out of his lungs on a strangled scream. Harry delivered an accompanying blow to his ass, pummeling into his prostate from every possible angle and forcing him to accept it. Head bowed, Draco saw himself go off over the blanket, his huge prick untouched, an unintelligible cry on his lips. 

He trembled from head to foot, every part of him shaking. It was a different type of orgasm, Harry knew from having them himself. He felt Draco go to another planet under his hands, that separation of body and mind, a searing white nothingness overtaking him. It lasted at least ten seconds—maybe more—a constant scream born of shock. Draco was starting to understood just how good it could feel if he let go.

Harry kissed his cheek, breathing him, holding tight. Blond hair was plastered to his temple by sweat, twitches rocking his body, convulsions of his stomach and core muscles rocking him, trying to comprehend this feeling ripping through him for the very first time. 

The feel of Draco’s stubble under his mouth wasn’t enough. Harry found himself nibbling at the sharp line of Draco’s jaw bone, trying to catch his lips. He needed Draco face-to-face. Scooping him close, Harry Apparated onto the mattress on his back, Draco straddling him.

“Can you ride me?” 

Draco’s answer was to fall boneless onto his chest, huffing into his pectoral as he landed, trying to get his breath back and mostly failing. His stomach kicked against Harry’s, his cock half-heartedly drooling a line of come to stick them together. It was kinda crazy but, like Harry, Draco somehow stayed hard. His brains were gone, though; and with them any cognizance beyond his ability to blink and pant. 

If he couldn’t manage to sit upright, then no, no way was he capable of riding. 

It took Harry a couple tries to get rid of the leather binding Draco’s arms behind his back, earning himself a satisfied sigh against his chest once Draco’s arms were freed. He let them flop, not bothering to control his body… he was in a trance, what muggles might call hypnotized, lost to the sensations, reliant on Harry for anything beyond his own breathing. 

Harry fixed a hand along his back, gripping tight. With his other hand minding the back of Draco’s head, he physically flipped that pudding-for-bones nine-stone body, landing himself on top to do the work. He didn’t need Draco to try. The fact that he flopped his Dark Mark’ed arm around Harry’s neck was more than enough—that cuddling gesture said he might be weak but he still wanted to be tossed around some more, handled, fucked until he didn’t have a brain cell left. 

He moaned into Harry’s chest on full re-entry, mouth open and teeth absently scraping. He let himself make a face against the firm wall of Harry’s chest. And he pushed back, hips lifting, asking for it. That was all Harry needed—response, participation, the mindless wail going up in pitch and volume as Harry seated himself, crushing Draco under him. 

“ _Can’t seem to do this without kissing you_ _, luv_ ,” Harry hissed against his lips before doing exactly that. “ _Best kisser of my whole fucking life, you know that_ _, right_ _? Even when you punch me first._ _Maybe because you’re still not afraid to punch me when I’ve earned it. Fuckin’ love it when you hit me back._ ” 

Draco’s breath was a whiny nasal sound, timed to Harry’s thrusts. His arm tightened a bit around the back of Harry’s neck, his tongue sneaking out to lick the backs of Harry’s front teeth. He always hooked his tongue and pulled a bit, sliding off one taste bud at a time. Harry saw it as an invitation, Draco dragging him into his mouth. It worked even better with Draco on his back. The kiss was like getting sucked into a black hole. Harry felt himself fall and it never stopped, an endless Wronski Feint dive. 

Harry worked one arm out from under Draco, counting rib bones in the path of his fingers moving up Draco’s side, over his chest to his neck. Holding him tightly by his trapezius gave Draco the web of Harry’s hand and pressure from his thumb over that thin, scarred neck of his. Harry cupped the back of Draco’s neck with his other hand, giving him that affection and assurance at the same time pressing over his throat; a more controlled, secure, indirect-pressure method of choking Draco lightly which still gave him all the contact and focused sensations of having Harry’s hands wrapped around his throat, choking him. His hand fit around Draco’s neck like it belonged there, like his body had grown to just this purpose. 

Draco chased his face, lips seeking lips no matter the weight he got on his throat for his efforts. Every few thrusts Harry would come back down, kissing him, giving him everything he wanted before taking it away to start the process over again. When he pulled away he made sure to transfer weight to his hips and wide-set knees, so that no matter what they were always connected, bodies always moving together, never losing that shared rhythm. He understood Draco needed to feel close, to have Harry's weight on him. That overwhelming presence made him feel safe, protected. Pain was how Draco accepted love sometimes. 

Harry gave as much as he thought Draco could take, not having bottomed in something like seven months. He was tight, and squirming, twitches running through him as he rode the edge, closer and closer with every appeasement followed by denial. The veins on his prick, no more prominent than those on the insides of his forearms, were standing up like rivers made of plastic straws under his skin. His cock was actually red, harder than ever and pointed right at his chin. 

“Wanna… make you come again,” Harry growled before smashing their mouths together. Teeth clacked, and a desperate scraping sound poured into Harry’s mouth so powerful it vibrated his cheekbones. “Do you want to?” He slammed his hips, making Draco scream. He couldn’t wait, spurred on by the noise Draco made. He growled right back in his face. “ _Now that you know you can come just from getting fucked… want me to get you off again?_ ” 

It took a second before Draco’s cries and screams could warp into anything resembling agreement. The open-syllabled “aaaaugh” from getting pounded in the prostate with every thrust slowly became a “yes.” Followed by a breathless, gasping, “Hit me. Hard.” 

The murk in his brain projected an image of what he wanted—to get slapped. Or better yet, punched in the face. 

Draco wasn’t gonna beg with words. He begged for it with the tremble of his stomach, shaking because he wanted it, shaking because he was so close to coming again but he didn’t want it to be over. Not yet. 

Harry kept hold of the back of Draco’s neck. He could tell it was working to keep him grounded—giving something familiar, affectionate, but also dominating, holding his head in place by his neck and hair so that Harry could pull back, creating enough space to get his other hand out and slap Draco. 

And the tears started in earnest. The ones he’d held back all day, thinking he had to be strong. The dampness gathered at the edges of Draco’s eyes as he screwed them shut, blocking out everything else to focus his other senses on Harry. Hitting him like this, face to face, left Draco with no where to hide. It was like he needed permission, this false reason to cry. 

Harry used his thumb to push Draco’s chin up, holding him there, creating that long and proud line of Draco's neck he was used to, giving him a bit of pressure under his jaw. His throat hitched under Harry’s hand, a fighting hiccup of intense emotion. Harry kissed the tears on his face, letting him know it was okay. On some level, Draco's tears turned him on. Not that he was sad and suffering but... because he was letting himself go, letting himself feel. Draco knew he could cry and scream and Harry would just keep loving him in any and every way he needed. 

Draco formed Harry's hand into a fist, Draco’s tears yet on his fingers as he’d brushed them away. He wanted to get seriously hit—knowing Harry could do damage even if he pulled the punch. Draco didn’t want him to hold back. 

“Do it,” he groaned through his teeth, his eyes still shut tight. It forced the tears out faster than he could cry them. “Please…please….” 

Harry's left straight broke his nose with a wet-skin-muffled _snap_ , like a lesser branch breaking off the Whomping Willow when the enchanted tree took a swing at something. From the even line of disturbed skin along the bridge of Draco’s nose, it looked like a fairly clean break. Draco’s head went into the mattress, saving his neck from whiplash. His ears had to be ringing. 

It took about three pumps of Harry's prick before the injury started bleeding, a gob of red trickling down from Draco’s nostril to paint his lower lip… then more blood. Harry didn’t have to look—he could smell it. And Draco’s skin was so pale that blood on him was like the deepest red war paint. 

Draco arched under him. The broken bone gave him the excuse he needed to really scream at the top of his lungs, anger in his crying. He used that suffering as fuel, his shriek echoing off the walls as his body contorted. 

If he had an alternate form, an Animagus animal or some bird-like alter-ego along the lines of his possible-Veela-great-grandmother, he’d be changing shape now. Bleeding transformed him, tapped into his power. Blood magic crackled in the air around him like an invisible lightning strike. Harry half expected to see sparks—fireworks and feathers and random conjurations, like testing a new wand for the first time. Draco was tapping into himself, finding his power again. It was fucking beautiful. 

He was coming—a dry orgasm ripping through him, shaking, shocking him. Twice in a row and Harry hadn’t so much as touched his cock. Draco hadn’t believed he’d be able to and yet it was happening. His eyes flew open… and Harry wasn’t even surprised when they were shot through with a glowing red, like embers living in the silver of his eyes, a flash of blood-colored lightning within a cloud. Harry couldn’t look away from that light as Draco thrashed under him, coming his brains out for the second time. 

Harry rolled Draco on top, wanting to give him some control, to have a moment to simply lie on his sturdy chest and recover. He didn't even care when Draco's bloody nose dripped on his chest. Warm blood mixed with the tears falling off the sharp line of his jaw. 

"No," mumbled Draco. And he rolled, clamping his knees and legs around Harry’s torso, getting the larger wizard back on top of him. That was how he wanted to be—smothered, looked after, protected from the world. He needed Harry’s weight like a human blanket over his own body. 

Harry wasn't gonna last much longer. Draco probably knew by the way he slowed down, saving himself, wanting to be sure Draco got everything he needed before he blew his load. Draco was still twitching, locked tight around him from the grip of his knees and a bony arm around his neck to the suckling pull of his arse as he rode through the last of his dry orgasm. Harry was surprised he’d managed to last this long—focusing on Draco made him forget about himself, because making Draco happy always satisfied him regardless of whether or not he came. 

He stared into Draco’s lit eyes, the magic rolling out of him along with sweat and tears and everything else. Harry was at a loss for words: all he could think was, _I love you. So much_. _You fucking idiot, I hope you know that. No matter what. I love you._  

Draco put Harry's hand over his throat. That was as close as he could manage to asking. He pressed with his fingers, locking them with Harry’s, showing the pressure he wanted by participating in it. Draco wanted to be choked out. It was a fantasy he visited often, but thus far hadn’t asked for, previously wanting to hold back and stay conscious. Tonight Draco didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts as he came down from post-multiple-orgasm bliss. It would feel too much like depression, like a car crash in slow motion. He wanted to go out on a high, to have his last conscious feeling be one of rapture. 

Harry obliged, fingers closing over the necessary arteries at the sides of his throat, Draco's pulse beating a hard rhythm against his fingers, Adam’s apple jumping up to lick his sweaty palm. He could feel Draco's pulse throughout his body, inside him, shaking them both with the music in his blood. 

He did Draco's spell to listen to his body. But he wasn't getting the steady beat of Draco's heart. He was missing beats, falling in and out, his rhythm too inconstant. Harry had to let up, to lessen the pressure of his hand and return proper blood flow to Draco’s brain. 

"Not safe, baby." 

Draco thrashed. He wanted Harry’s hand around his throat, to feel that connection as his vision went dark and he left the world behind. And he wasn’t a fan of Harry calling him ‘baby’—but he tolerated it because Harry’s cock was inside him, and he’d agreed that particular pet name was allowed so long as Harry topped like this sometimes. Draco wanted to feel safe, loved, and one of the easiest ways to do that was with words—even when he shivered or rolled his eyes or outright rejected those endearments. For his own ego, Draco was convinced he had to pretend not to like it when Harry called him ‘baby’… even when the utterance of that word produced a drip of viscous white come at the head of his overly sensitive prick. 

"I'll knock you out, I promise," said Harry. "Right after you come one more time for me." 

And he crushed Draco, mouth to mouth, hips rutting until Draco felt bollocks against his tight little arse. His hand went from Draco's throat down his body, following the twisting lines of scars, past soft hair, gathering his sweat and leftover, still-warm ejaculate from every dip until his wet fingers found that cut-up cock. 

He pulled, concentrating on Draco’s wildly inflated head, twisting his wrist and flowing back down in a constant stimulation rather than release. A half-dozen slams of Draco’s erratic heartbeat in his ears, and a brush of his thumb over the head of Draco's poor prick—biting his lip at the exact same time—and Draco came again. He screamed into Harry's mouth, bashing their foreheads together, long legs wrapping so tight around his ribs it was hard to breathe. Draco locked his ankles, beating his heels into Harry’s tailbone so hard he’d have odd heel-shaped bruises in the morning. 

Harry loved every God damn aching second of it. Mostly because Draco was out of his head, out of his mind, visiting a plane where he was a God: screaming, naked, and invincible.

" _Yessss_ ," Harry hissed. " _Come for me_." 

Draco bellowed in his face, eyes screwed tight, shaking, screaming to get every last drop of anger and hurt and pain out of his body. He practically sprayed himself on the chin as he went off for a third time—mostly from over-sensitivity and getting reamed in the prostate—coming in long tense seconds, toes curled, his legs digging into Harry’s sides, heels now punching against Harry’s hips as though to knock him away. But his forearms locked around the back of Harry’s neck said he wanted to be close even as he kicked, even as he gasped for air, breathing Harry’s exhale before mashing their mouths together again—licking Harry’s beard in his wild urgency. He sucked the breath right out of Harry’s lungs. And Harry let him, gave his very breath away, wringing the last from Draco’s cock like pushing poison out of a wound—knowing he would feel better for having been completely wrung out. 

Slowly, like he was gliding down by gravity-assist after flying in the clouds, Draco’s body started to go limp. His shins released their crushing hold on Harry’s ribs. His fingers uncurled, letting go of the bit of Harry’s hair he’d been pulling, and his fingernails disengaged from the skin at Harry’s shoulder where he’d dug in for the ride. But his mind didn’t leave that blissful world where nothing existed but pleasure and pain… because Draco enjoyed pain, so that was his idea of heaven. It was like an orgasm that never stopped, a mighty rush. Of course he never wanted to leave.

Draco wanted to be knocked out while in this head-space. He made that very clear. This was the state of consciousness he wanted to be in when everything went black.

Harry knew at least a dozen dueling spells to knock people unconscious. But he didn't want to hit Draco with a Stunner. Not like this. So he just kept kissing him, feeling the tension leave that smaller, compact body beneath his, the blood which pounded in both their ears flooding his lips, making them so thick Harry couldn't help but suck at them. 

Draco was the best person to kiss Harry had ever encountered. Especially right after he came. It had to do with how he relaxed, trusted, matching Harry's rhythm intrinsically, offering his lips, his tongue, the warm depths of his mouth. He gave himself over to it, every single time. He could be aggressive. He pushed for what he wanted. But there was a sense of his love along with the passion; he wanted Harry to experience him, and he offered himself now, letting Harry take control of him as though there were a connection from his mouth directly to his heart. He let Harry reach down into him. 

Harry put magic in that kiss. A sense of peace and calm. He wanted Draco to drift off in his arms, warm and looked after, knowing everything would be alright while he slept. 

He felt lashes flutter against his cheek. Draco was drifting off. He gave Draco one last sensation, as the pureblood had done to him a year ago. Draco had made Harry feel like he was flying with nothing but a touch to his temple. So, with a final kiss, Harry gave Draco the warmth of sunshine wherever their skin touched, a gentle and natural heat which would keep him cozy as he slept. He swept a breeze through Draco's hair, as though they weren't in bed but lying outside somewhere in the grass, the sun on their bodies, soft wind in their hair. Harry felt it against his own skin—Draco’s fringe against his forehead, and his own hair lifted off his shoulders, cooling his neck before his heavier curls came back down. It was a feeling like flying in slow-motion. It was the sensation Harry got all over his body whenever he saw Draco—fluttery, his heart lifting, skin warmed, and a hot wind which made him feel as though he really could fly. 

Draco had stopped moving, stopped kissing. Harry leaned back just enough to see his face. His husband was out cold, as though he’d taken a muggle sleeping pill, breathing noisily through his open mouth... practically snoring. 

Shit. Draco had blood all over his lips, smeared around his mouth and down his chin. Harry hadn't even realized they'd been kissing in it. Blood had gushed from his nose after the break, and they’d been too busy fucking—Draco was too busy coming—to care. His breathing calmer now, air audibly hissed through Draco's broken nose, forcing him to keep breathing through his mouth as he slept. Either Harry’s magic was quite effective or the pain wasn’t that bad, because Draco didn’t wake up. Draco’s pain perception wasn’t like most people’s, anyway. 

Normally Draco was a light sleeper; it appeared Harry’s magic had acted accordingly, to be sure Draco wouldn’t wake before morning… hopefully feeling as refreshed as he deserved. Harry figured he was okay to move Draco around without waking him. 

Gently, he rolled Draco so his hip slid down Harry’s onto the mattress, their legs tangled, pulling out. Harry couldn't care less if he came or not—the entire experience had been about Draco. His own hard on didn't matter, so long as it served its purpose and Draco got pleasure from it. He settled Draco's head on his upper arm, that gorgeous bloodied face to his chest, stroking his back, wondering whether an Episkey might wake him. Harry licked the pad of his thumb and started absently cleaning the blood off of Draco's upper lip as he considered how best to go about healing his busted nose. 

Harry started to attention when he heard a heavy, muffled banging sound which didn’t belong in their house. 

 

 _THUMP._ _THUMP._  

 

The noise was coming from downstairs. Harry thought he heard voices but they were too indistinct, and with the banging sound he couldn’t be sure. 

 

 _THUMP. THUMP._  

 

It was either a portrait knocking against a wall for some unknown, semi-sentient reason… or someone was knocking on their front door. He figured the front door was more likely. 

As much as he didn’t want to, Harry had to disentangle himself from Draco to investigate. 

Letting go of Draco’s sweetly unconscious body was pure torture of the soul: when he wanted to hold on, to be there, to heal and coddle and _cuddle_ in ways Draco wouldn’t accept when he was awake. Being forcibly unconscious was permission for Harry to go about what _he_ needed; because like it or not he had needs after something that intense, and those needs involved cradling Draco against him, cleaning him up, then running soothing hands over every inch of his body… possibly twice-over, just to be sure he’d healed everything Draco wouldn’t want lingering in the morning. 

Those were Harry’s needs—to be the one who took care of Draco after rough sex. Without his own fulfillment, the experience wasn’t finished, wasn’t rounded out, just as the bite of teeth against skin wasn’t whole until followed by a soothing tongue. Draco got his roughness: Harry had yet to finish his relief. 

But _someone_ was knocking rather forcefully on their front door. A second later, the doorbell sounded, the old 1970’s chime more of a gong-like _clang_ meant to be heard throughout the house as a warning that non-magicals were begging admittance. Thankfully the noise didn’t wake Draco—he stayed asleep as Harry slid his white-blond head onto a pillow, planting him there with a long, cautious kiss to the pointed tip of his nose. 

Harry stuck out his hand for a dressing gown, belting it as he left their bed on less-than-sure legs. He kept a hand on the wall for balance, shouldering open their bedroom door and rather falling through it than walking normally. 

In the hall, he glanced at his reflection in the mirror. Draco’s blood was smeared over half his face. He could tell even without his glasses. Harry wiggled his fingers, willing the dark stains and smears away. In an instant, he went from a blood-covered sorcerer to a blood-spatter-free one, though still equally exhausted-looking. There was nothing to be done about the state of his hair, which Draco managed to make a knot of. Harry felt the weight at the nape of his neck, sweaty shorter waves stuck to his temples. 

The doorbell _clang-_ ed again as he tromped down the stairs, holding the rail because he couldn’t see so well and his knees were admittedly less than one hundred percent. He was about to Summon his glasses before he got near enough to hear the voices on the other side of his front door. 

“Constables! Open up!” 

Motherfuckers. Just what he didn’t need. His body temperature skyrocketed, renewing the gratuitous sweat under his armpits, making his dressing gown suddenly wet against his back. 

Harry stuck out his hand. _Accio badge_. His credentials landed in his hand a moment later. 

He spelled the sweat off his skin—which made him irrationally angry. Half that sweat was Draco’s, smelled like Draco, and he _wanted_ it there. He had no desire to be rid of that scent on his skin. Satisfying Draco was one of the few things he could always do right, and the smell of his husband on his body was like a badge of honor. He wanted to walk around in it, fall asleep in it, wake up with it living on his taste buds. 

But it was a bad idea to answer the door stinking like semen and sweat… especially considering it was someone else’s semen. That would raise more questions than he could answer civilly. In his anger, what remained of his erection died on the spot. 

So it was with the warmth of a Hit Wizard who’d been screamingly hard two minutes ago and had to pull out of his husband to deal with whatever rubbish this was about to be, that Harry unlocked their front door to face no less than three muggle constables standing on the other side.

“What?” he asked darkly. He probably looked a wreck. 

“Sir, there was a noise complaint,” one said.

“Your neighbors reported it sounded like someone was being murdered—their words.” 

Harry closed his eyes. Merlin’s bollocks, they’d forgotten Silencing Charms or a Privacy Ward.

In the darkness, his mind started going its own way, playing a what-if game of Hit Wizard Damage Control. _Am I gonna have to_ _S_ _tun these muggles on my own front steps? Who’s on duty at Fenchurch tonight? Would Draco be able to sleep through the commotion?_ _Or might he wake up in pain if I left?_ _God I just hope nothing else fucking happens._  

Opening his eyes, he mechanically stuck out his hand holding his badge. He didn’t say a word, offering his shield to them like it might explain everything and he could go back to bed. The constables accepted his credentials, reviewed them, and one got on a squawk to call in Harry’s badge number. Fenchurch was fully registered with the muggle system, so he would clear even the most detailed inspection. 

“Everything alright, sir?” asked the female officer, looking him over. 

Seeing his street at night, the constable’s patrol car parked outside his house… he thought of the night Alastor Moody died. The air had been just like this—heavy, about to rain. He remembered the dead constables’ bodies in the street, blue and red lights flashing from their abandoned cars, and Philippe Didier shouting, challenging Harry to come out and die like a man. On that terrible night, he’d stood in the doorway just like this, stunned and overwrought, hidden beneath his Invisibility Cloak, helpless to stop the war, carnage all around him, fire and blood in the streets. 

His face probably said that nothing had been alright in a very long time.

His words were stilted, but he made them. “I… active combat. PTSD. Nightmares.” 

The woman said something to him but he couldn’t understand. She repeated herself, speaking a language he didn’t recognize. Harry just shook his head. 

“Sorry,” she went back to English. “I assumed….” 

She figured he’d been part of the current muggle conflict in the Middle East, the so-called War on Terror begun at the end of the summer, around the time he and Hermione were setting up Fenchurch. That was the most logical assumption as to where a British agent might’ve seen recent action. 

Harry squinted at her—she didn’t exactly look Middle Eastern, though she had black hair. Harry was a poor judge of these things with his glasses _on_ , let alone without. He had trouble seeing their faces in the red lights, though the cool blue tone was somewhat easier to distinguish. The woman was looking at him with something like hero-worship and pity in the same thin twist of her mouth. 

“Thank you for your service,” she said to him. It was something muggles did—thanking members of their military for going out and getting shot at so no one else had to. Harry thought it was a bit like saying grace, thanking God your food before you devoured it and then thinking you were more pious for it. 

Soldiers weren’t gods to be thanked: they were the meat, that which was ground down and consumed in the hopes of bringing about something like peace. Thanking a soldier seemed like a nice thing to do, yet it only pointed out a lack of understanding of the greater powers which drove good people to have to go to war. 

A better world wouldn’t need soldiers, and so glorifying their work only perpetuated a false perspective from which their valor was indispensable. Soldiers who’d seen shit and survived understood that their work should be mitigated, and if ever possible made obsolete, for the benefit of all. Violence ought to be diffused whenever possible, before it reached the point of an ever-escalating arms race. Because no one wanted to live in a world where the _only_ option in response to violence was more violence. Hit Wizard training was fifty percent de-escalation and preventative magic for that very reason. When the fighting stopped, change could start, and things stood a chance of getting better. 

The other constables handed back his badge, announcing, “You check out, sir. Sorry for the trouble. Pleasant evening.” 

He was a fellow officer, a member of the Security Service. Even though his neighbor reported the situation sounded like someone was actively being murdered in his house, all it took was that badge to make the authorities bugger off. They believed their own to a fault. 

Harry stood there, unable to move, as the officers in uniform turned and walked down his steps, getting back into their vehicles. It was surreal. He felt as though he were watching a film about his life rather than living it. He half expected Philippe and Laron Didier to pop out from behind a rubbish bin and blow up their cars. Because destruction and death were more real to him than peace. 

He stood stone still and watched as they drove away. Only when their tail lights disappeared into the night did Harry close and lock the front door, pressing his back against it—needing something solid. He slumped down to the floor. 

Who was he fighting now? Who was his enemy? Life had been easier when his adversary was clear: destroy Voldemort before he plunged the world into darkness. They’d stopped Tom Riddle… and yet the darkness was still around them, lingering in shadows… in their own hearts. 

Escape was a lie. Death was a lie, too. It didn’t matter that Voldemort was dead as long as his ideas lived on in the world, and there were witches and wizards out there who believed it. 

 _Focus_ , he told himself. _Find something you can do_. _Take action. Improve something._  

Draco. His husband was upstairs snoring through a broken nose. And that was something he could fix… because he’d caused it.

 

 

 


	14. Some Unholy War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry becomes a Hit Wizard: his world becomes ever-more complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** noir, mention of minor character death, grief, firearms, a Stunning Spell used on an animal (no harm done), war crimes, PTSD, ace-spectrum, discussion about being in the closet, sex talk, mild scarification fetish, mention of past rape, SSC vs RACK practice in BDSM, talk of voyeurism, jealousy, mamihlapinatapei, reclaiming of the word ‘faggot’, body dysphoria, and probably typos (my N and O keys are failing, as is my eyesight)

_If my man was fighting_

_Some unholy war_

_I would be behind him_

_Straight shook up beside him_

_With strength he didn't know_

_It's you I'm fighting for_

_He can't lose with me in tow_

_I refuse to let him go_

_At his side, and drunk on pride_

_We wait for the blow_

“[Some Unholy War](https://youtu.be/X_-2Yajyt8o)”

\- Amy Winehouse

 

 

 

“Let me see if I have this right…” 

Draco paced the living room with a Butterbeer in his hand, looking like he’d be throwing his arms about if Harry hadn’t saddled him with a drink before their conversation began. Draco glared at him, enunciating his disbelief. “Tomorrow night, muggle children are gonna come to our home. They’ll ring the bloody front door bell and insist we give them sweets.” He pointed at the large bag of individually-wrapped candy which Harry had bought on his way home from work—Draco rolling his eyes grandly, letting Harry know precisely how mad he thought this entire farce was. “And you’re suggesting we put on our wizards’ robes and _go along_ with this nonsense?!” 

Harry had to work to keep the grin off his face. Sometimes his husband’s ignorance of muggle customs was fucking adorable—his disbelief, too. Harry never got tired of explaining his culture to Draco. Every time his husband was willing to listen, to consider how the other side lived, was a tiny victory in Harry’s mind. 

“It’s called Trick-Or-Treating, dear, and it’s a muggle tradition. They do this every year on Halloween. It’s a custom practiced all over the world.” 

“If it’s muggle, then why must we wear robes?” Draco persisted, swigging at his Butterbeer triumphantly with his eyebrows up, as though he’d found a massive hole in Harry’s plot to hoodwink him. 

“Well, the kids will be wearing costumes, too—that’s part of the holiday. It’s a chance for them to dress up as something real or what they consider to be make-believe. Adults typically play along and wear costumes as well. The traditional outfits are black robes, pointed hats, and broomsticks. It’s basically the one night a year we can wear _our_ clothes in public and not stand out.” 

Draco gave him some seriously dubious side-eye. He thought Harry was fucking with him. The calculating expression highlighted the hard angle of his jaw and cheekbones. He’d always been a handsome blighter no matter what color his hair was. Today it was pastel lilac, turning his eyes a murky greenish-blue color by contrast. The softer hair color brought out the peach and pink notes in his skin, as well as making the few freckles on his face and neck stand out more clearly. There was a freckle hidden in the curve of his right eyebrow, and another on the back of his neck, only visible when he cut his hair short. Harry liked to bite that freckle—hell, he liked to bite them all. 

It was a struggle not to smile like a lunatic, because even his husband’s incredulous expression was fucking charming. Everything Draco did was passionate, full-throttle, imbued with his own mark as an artist… and that turned Harry’s crank like nothing else he’d encountered on this earth. Draco’s dramatic nature—especially when he got himself riled by the little things—was instant boner material. All Harry wanted to do, all he could think about, was smashing his mouth against Draco’s, pinning his entire bony body against the nearest available surface, and going, pressing, ripping clothes off until he heard Draco’s heartbeat in his ears as loudly as his own. 

The fact that Draco was investing himself—getting his back up over comprehending a simple holiday custom—pretty much guaranteed Harry getting a hard-on. 

Harry spread his arms as though demonstrating his innocence. Talking with his hands meant Draco was less likely to notice what was happening below his belt. 

“Ask any muggle-born. I swear, luv. I’m not trying to trick you, or make you look a fool, or anything. This is how non-magical people celebrate All Hallows Eve: they dress up like witches and wizards, and their children go door-to-door demanding sweets. That’s how it’s done in the non-magical world.” 

It wasn’t as though a muggle child could’ve jumped the gate and walked up the drive to Malfoy Manor to ring the fucking bell. Lucius Malfoy would have sooner sawed his own leg off than see a non-magical villager set foot on his property. Without someone to teach him, Draco had no way to learn any of this. The few pamphlets the Ministry put out were horribly out-dated, produced some-time in the 1930’s: most people regarded them as a joke. If Draco was going to learn muggle customs and culture, his only option was to do so through Harry… and Nebojsa, and Hermione. 

Draco was sucking on the inside of his lip. “And the pumpkin?” he questioned. Because Harry had seen them in a display at the market and lugged one home along with the candy, thinking they ought to decorate the stoop so children would come to their door. 

This time Harry couldn’t stop himself from laughing. Whatever Draco was imagining muggles did with the gourd was making his eyebrows draw fantastic shapes across his forehead. 

Harry reassured him. “We carve the pumpkin and put a candle inside, just like wizards do.” 

His husband let out an absurdly long breath—perhaps he’d been worried muggle children might toss pumpkins through their windows should they run out of chocolates. Draco was making an effort to understand and adapt… but there remained a part of him which still considered muggles to be strange, inhuman creatures to be wary of; his former enemy, an unpredictable and unruly horde in need of conquering before they turned on him. Draco was getting over that false perception one encounter at a time.

Lucky for Harry, this experience revolved around one of Draco’s greatest weaknesses—sweets. And the prospect of grown women going between bars dressed in risqué costumes didn’t hurt either. Once Harry mentioned how birds their age would be dressed, Draco became very keen on the prospect of muggle Halloween. 

Draco’s knowledge of the muggle world had improved exponentially over the summer; and still there were these blinding holes in his databanks needing to be sketched in. Draco could go to a pub, order a drink, flirt with a muggle and convince them to sleep with him—all without raising eyebrows. Then again, when you looked like Draco, getting somebody into bed with you wasn’t exactly difficult… nor was he talkative post-coital. He only developed that ability to open up after being with Harry. Before their partnership, Draco was more of a ‘bust his nut, get dressed and leave’ sort of hook-up. He never stuck around to chat—which meant he never got found out, but he also never had the chance or the inclination to immerse himself in non-magical culture for more than a few hours at a time. 

Draco put up a good front when interacting outside the magical community. When confronted with a concept or popular reference he didn’t understand, he fell back on a practiced lie, claiming he’d gone to boarding school abroad—France, Germany, Russia… he switched it up based on what he thought would be most believable. And that worked for little things, like not recognizing a song by Madonna, or being confused at a Coronation Street joke. His lie fell apart when subjected to exposure over time. A bloke who summered in Devizes _ought_ to know what the BBC was, that Elizabeth II was Queen, or have heard about the new euro currency. Draco lacked certain fundamentals—basics, essentials of modern living—which betrayed him in the end. 

If Draco ever wanted to cut out on his own in London or anywhere else in the wide non-magical world, he had to keep working to fill these gaps. It was the only way he could have real independence.     

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Draco felt marginally more confident by Halloween night when Dima and Nebojsa Apparated over. The Serbian sorcerer wore his monk robes with white Cyrillic writing along the hems, the real-life vestments being quite believable as a costume. Taking a more muggle approach, Dima had visited a sporting goods store to outfit himself with a pair of red boxing gloves, matching shorts, and a warm-up jacket—dressing as the star of his favorite movie, _Rocky_. He even darkened his hair to look the part. He certainly had the build for it, and the guts to show himself off. Harry didn’t even care when Draco whistled at him… he’d earned the appreciation. 

Harry decided against dressing as a wizard; that was his old dream, something he’d accomplished and now moved beyond. He dug through his old American work clothes, pulling out a pair of dark fatigues and his bullet-proof vest with S.W.A.T. written across the chest. The real-life military uniform was more than convincing without his Beretta, which he’d surrendered to Leon Harper over the summer and had no pressing need for a gun in the house now. Draco raised his eyebrows at Harry’s choice, perhaps wishing his husband was willing to show a bit more skin like Dima. 

Misha was with the Canons in Minsk, where they played the next morning. Dima and Sia brought an overnight bag, since they planned to Apparate to Belarus together to be there for Misha’s first game. Ron was coming too, along with Viktor and Charlie, Bill and Fleur. Even Galina and Mandy were able to wiggle their way out of work, rounding out the cheering section. Harry understood that Lina and Misha had been friends for years, predating Durmstrang, so it meant a lot to him to have his childhood friend and her girlfriend coming to cheer him on. 

The match started early, so none of them really wanted to go to the bars and get shit-faced that night. Draco opened a bottle of wine, and the guys brought snacks from a Slavic pastry shop they’d found near their flat—knowing Draco’s insatiable sweet tooth, they unboxed Polish _mazurek_ , a buttery lattice pastry with jam and powdered sugar, _orehnjaca_ , a simple nut roll from Serbia, and Hungarian _indianer_ , which were Snitch-sized cream puffs topped in chocolate, looking like the French _profiteroles_ Draco was obsessed with during their honeymoon. 

Drinking wine and eating sweets reminded Harry of those days in France. Doing it again, Draco wizards’ robes, drinking wine in their living room in the company of their friends, was that much sweeter. 

When the first trick-or-treaters showed up, Draco was rightly startled. For having called Grimmauld Place his home for a year and a half, Harry couldn’t remember if his husband had ever actually heard the door bell ring. They always seemed to skip the normal stuff and go right for the bizarre. Draco managed not to spill his wine, staunchly righting the pointed Hogwarts uniform hat on his purple head—looking like Peeves the Poltergeist had swung by and pushed it instead of his own unease upsetting his tall hat. 

Poor timing found Harry with his fingers stuck in a cream puff. He gave Sia a look over his glasses, eyebrows pulling in, askance on his face. _Would you mind?_  

The Serb flipped his hood up, transforming from his usual look to a somber monastic one—concealing the piercings in his nose and eyebrow, though the spider bite at his lip was still visible. He picked up the candy basket and stuffed his hands up opposite sleeves, giving the impression of a monk on his way to prayers as he glided to the front door. Draco pulled his wand from his sleeve and followed on Sia’s heels, wanting to observe how this process worked. Harry stuck his head out from the parlor, watching too. 

A little magic suited the occasion: Nebojsa bowed his head and the front door opened, revealing himself to the spooked children on their stoop. 

It took a moment for the kids to speak through their gasps of surprise and wonder. 

“Wicked! How’d you do that?” one demanded, peeking into their hall as though looking for a rope or pulley system to have executed that spooky trick with the door. 

“Trick or Treat!” the rest of them chimed discordantly. 

The smallest one, a boy no older than five or six, spotted Draco. The kid was dressed in a little footballer uniform. He looked past Sia to the purple-headed bloke in the pointed hat and black robe brandishing a wand like the kids might invade his house and steal his gold. Harry _may_ have forgotten to mention that the kids would stay outside.

“Are you a sorcerer?!” the little boy asked Draco in absolute awe.

Draco’s mouth canted. “Ironically—yes, I am.” He tucked his wand back up his sleeve, stepping up beside Sia to dole out sweets. Nebojsa said nothing, maintaining his spooky demeanor. He was there for moral support, in case Draco got stuck or didn’t know how to handle the exchange, ready to bail him out should he need it.

“Why’s your hair purple?” asked another trick-or-treater, an older girl. 

Draco cocked his head, dropping a cellophane-wrapped chocolate into her plastic jack-o-lantern. “If you had magic,” he posed, “wouldn’t you turn your hair whatever color you wanted?” 

“I’d turn my brother into a frog,” the girl informed him matter-of-factly. 

Harry smiled when he heard Draco’s laugh—his real laugh, high and a bit squeaky, like a squirrel’s bark. “Oh no. Not a frog,” Draco told her. “They jump. He could escape too easily. How about a tortoise? Or a slug?” 

Sia snorted under his hood. The kids giggled, suggesting other animals better-suited to captivity. 

Harry watched his husband hand out candy to muggles, making jokes, laughing as much at himself as for the kids’ eager responses. 

Draco was good with kids—he’d found that out at Hogwarts, seeing how Draco mentored little Kieran and looked out for the younger years when danger arose. Draco might not consider himself traditional fatherly material but… his instincts were there, and they were solid. He could stop himself from swearing, and didn’t let his humor go too dark or too raunchy. His conversation bordered on educational, getting kids to think critically, if deviously. Kids could tell that Draco was an adult who didn’t believe in artificial boundaries, giving them leeway to explore and figure things out for themselves. Because Draco never had that kind of freedom as a kid, he knew how important it was, how good it could feel not to have some jackass hovering over you telling you “no” at every turn. 

Harry saw how much Draco needed normal experiences like these; handing out sweets, playing video games, going to bars and shows, putting on concerts of their own. The more Draco interacted with the non-magical world, the less he had to be afraid of. And the less he felt of fear, the easier it became to believe in himself again. 

In the muggle world, Draco could start over—he could be himself, bright hair and awkward laugh and his pin-sharp sense of humor. Hogwarts had been Harry’s escape, his chance to start over. And so for Draco there was a kind of magic to the muggle world, where he’d never be judged for his family or his mistakes.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry was excited to see a firearms demonstration with Leon Harper pop up on his calendar—more-so when an email arrived a few minutes after, asking him to demo one of the three new weapons the Americans had developed for the British Ministry. 

On the day of the demonstration, some two hundred people packed themselves onto Portkeys to visit Beightler Armory, home of the Ohio State National Guard—theirs was one of the few facilities with a large-enough gun range and gallery to accommodate them, who were also willing to vacate their premises for a few hours in exchange for a generous donation. There were no muggles present on the military campus as two-thirds of the Hits of Great Britain Portkeyed into their lobby, followed by most of their administrative team and ranking officers, including the training staff and Director Robards. 

Harry waited at the range with Leon, Ivan, and Nebojsa. He’d only seen Leon in a formal Field Captain’s uniform once—at the ceremony when Harry was awarded his Order of Merlin. They wore their regalia today: Leon in green with gold epaulettes on his shoulders, white belt stretched around his middle, an Order of Merlin Third Class pinned to his chest. Harry’s own medal was heavier than he remembered, fixed to one of the straps of his navy dueling vest. 

Nash had provided Harry and Nebojsa with Hit uniforms for the occasion. Harry preferred the mid-thigh-length robe and trousers of the Americans. His navy robe had skirts like formal dress robes, the weight of which swung around his legs when he walked. As a field combatant, it was a terrible design. It seemed pointless to train Hit Witches and Wizards in hand-to-hand combat only to hamper them in a long, heavy robe. 

Nebojsa drowned in his robe when he put it on… and because they were tamper-proof, there was no way to spell it smaller. Nash ended up finding a spare witch’s uniform which fit him reasonably; it was obvious Sia was wearing a woman’s robe, since the flap over his chest buttoned up the wrong side compared to Harry’s. With his hair swept up into a knot on top of his head—practical, kept out of his face—he really could be mistaken for a young woman… a flat-chested, androgynous, pretty woman. Sia was always clean-shaven, and his Adam’s apple wasn’t prominent unless he threw his head back and laughed. Anyone in the quickly filling stands who didn’t know better would assume he was a rather tall girl standing next to Harry Potter. 

The Hits shot to their feet when a familiar bald head strode into the room. No wonder Harry and Sia had been instructed to be in uniform and wearing their medals—Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt came to see their new armaments in action. 

Director Robards gave a quick, functional speech welcoming everyone and explaining their collaboration with Captain Leonidas Harper after his significant contributions to the war effort. Robards knew to keep his comments brief, letting Leon’s work speak for itself. 

“All three of the weapons we’ve designed use a 9mm caliber ammunition,” Leon explained—it would be garbage to the purebloods, but a few muggle-borns and half-bloods like Harry understood. “It’s one of the most common ammo types, making the magazines of each gun interchangeable.” That much they would understand. Leon held up two magazines. “Here we have a standard 6-round magazine, and the largest extended mag of 33 rounds. We can also do magazines of 10, 12, 15, and 17 for all three models. 

“By using the 9mm, which is quite versatile, we can provide a variety of handguns. Modified for magic users, we have a Glock 17,” Ivan stepped forward, the black pistol on his hip. “A standard military-issue pistol the world-over, universally recognized by non-magicals. The Glock 26 sub-compact,” Nebojsa removed the gun which he’d completely concealed in the gap between his vest and robe at his lower back. The 26 wasn’t much larger than his hands, yet it could handle a magazine up to 33 rounds. “An ideal weapon for concealed-carry, or for plain-clothes assignment. 

“And the Beretta M12.” On Queue, Harry turned to show the sub-machine gun hanging by a strap at his back. When he was smaller, the shoulder-stock might’ve protruded around his frame. Now he was enough. The gun fit easily against his shoulder when in position to fire—it was built for bodies with longer arms, or over a certain height. This was the overkill gun. Very few Hits would be carrying this on the average deployment. But, as Leon said, it was better to have something serious on reserve than to be caught empty-handed when a situation requiring heavier firepower arose. 

“While what you see before you may strike you muggle in appearance, these are not standard guns. They will shoot a standard bullet; however, each gun was once wand components. Unicorn hair has worked best, though we’ve had luck with other cores. From wand components, we Transfigure a weapon and then release the Transfiguration one thread at a time, in a process which can take several hours to complete, until the function of the weapon is preserved with the properties of the magical reagent accessible. This allows the weapon to fire magic-infused projectiles, activated by the wielder’s incantation, just like a spell fired from a wand. 

“During the war we developed a number of magic-based rounds. We have silver-plated, effective against Werewolves. A cartridge loaded with a substance manufactured from Ashwinder sheddings, called Ash4, capable of stopping an Inferius.” That was big news amongst many of the older generations who’d fought Inferi in the past. “Today we’ll be demonstrating three newer developments: Magnification Rounds which amplify any spell cast, an Individually-Loaded Round type capable of carrying any spell pre-cast by any witch or wizard, and Seeker Rounds which lock to a target set by the shooter, delivering a spell and then disintegrating on impact.” These sort of rounds were designed subdue without causing bodily harm. A Stunner or Full Body Bind could be attached to the bullet, which would deliver the spell to the target and then vanish into thin air. The rounds could release a dose of water to someone who was on fire, or even deliver healing charms. 

Leon stepped back, gesturing to Ivan to continue. The black Auror uniform he wore was slimming, but Ivan was a huge guy to begin with. 

“Ivan Ješić, Law Enforcement Trainer, Firearms & Veaponry,” he introduced himself before modeling the unloaded gun in his hand. “Zhis is zhe Glock Zeventeen vith Magnification Ammo.” 

Ivan loaded his magazine, released the safety, and stepped up to the firing line. His targets were three plastic jugs of water. When he shot them, the water would spray everywhere. Ivan took three quick shots. A few of the administrators in the audience jumped—but the Hits were used to the noise, training with Ivan for several weeks in the firing range at Fenchurch, borrowing the constables’ range on off-hours. They’d been training with Glocks and a few other 9mm pistols, getting themselves accustomed to the sound of gunfire in their faces. Early on, Ivan brought Harry’s old war weapon, the Beretta 93R from Leon’s, demonstrating the devastating power of a semi-automatic weapon. 

Ivan used a simple color-changing spell. The water bursting from each jug turned neon shades of red, blue, and green on contact with his bullets, looking like a brightly colored sign outside a bar exploding into the air. The water remained brightly-colored as it splashed over the ground like a chemical spill. They’d take care of that before the muggles returned to the facility. 

“Magnification Bullets are useful for spells over large areas,” Leon explained, “including a Patronus charm to repel Dementors.” Harry found that out last winter. 

Next up was Nebojsa. More than a few people’s eyes widened, surprised when he opened his mouth and a man’s voice came out. 

“Dragan Radić, Order of Merlin First Class. Hit Vizard Class of 2001. Zhis is zhe Glock Tventy-Six. Zhese,” he held up his magazine for everyone to see, “are pre-loaded spells, cast by myzelf zhis morning.” He snapped the magazine in place, bumping it with his palm to be sure it caught, and then released the safety—his gun pointed towards the concrete now that it was loaded. 

“First, an Incarcerus Hex.” He turned, lined up his shot, and fired. His targets were human-shaped mannequins which stood on their own at the other end of the range. His bullet knocked into the first mannequin, smacking it in the chest and tipping it over before becoming a set of heavy chains which wrapped around the plastic dummy rather than penetrating it. The mannequin fell to the ground, covered in chains. A real person would be bewildered and bruised, possibly with a bit of internal bleeding from the impact, but it wouldn’t kill them as long as it was fired at the body and not their head. 

“Zecond, zhe dark fire Eptir Eldr, vhich burns any magic it comes into contact vith. Effective against Inferi, Dementors, and most ozher dark creatures including human-hybrid.” With the spell already cast, all Nebojsa had to do was point and shoot. His bullet struck the second dummy in the head and it burst into familiar blue flames where Leon had cast a basic Shielding Charm. That shocked a few people—magic capable of destroying other magic. 

It would be effective against Death Eaters using most standard types of shielding, or who had cast protective spells cast on themselves in a fight. Unfortunately it would probably kill anyone or anything it was shot at. 

As for the rounds, a person would have to manually fill and refill every cartridge individually—meaning that for someone like Ron to have a magazine of magic-burning bullets, someone like Harry or Nebojsa would need to sit in a room and cast the spell six or ten or fifteen times in a row to fill that clip. The Ministry would have a hard time finding people outside of the Hits capable of casting that type of spell reliably, making an Eptir Eldr ammo type extremely rare. At least people like Harry and Sia could produce their own, and give any spares to their teammates. They would have a new project to work on during their administrative days, traveling to the old Ministry to cast spells into bullets. 

“Third… zhe Killing Curse.” 

Leon and Nebojsa agreed not to use a live target—the dummy consumed by the infamous green spell-light would surely be enough. It was. There were gasps and some turned away from the sight. But Nebojsa, with no more effort than aiming his small pistol and pulling the trigger, was able to unleash an Unforgiveable which he’d prepared earlier that day in the comfort of Leon’s office. 

The implications were immense. A Hit Wizard, even injured or wandless, could defend himself with lethal force if needed, by casting the spell ahead of time and in a controlled environment where his spellwork was at its best. Gone were the days of forgetting incantations or muffled words producing sub-par results. Now, anyone with a magi-compatible gun truly could defend themselves against even the most skilled Death Eater attacker. 

Then it was Harry’s turn. 

He raised his voice to carry through the large, echoing room. “I suspect you already know who I am but… for the cheap seats in the back, I’m Harry Potter. Order of Merlin First Class. Hit Wizard Class of 2001. And this,” he hefted the unloaded seven pound sub-machine gun up for everyone to see, the stock tucked in the crook of his arm. “Is a magically-modified Beretta M12 which takes a 33 or 40 round mag.”

Harry couldn’t imagine casting a spell like Eptir Eldr thirty-two times to fill this beast. It would take him the better part of a week. Thankfully he was demonstrating a non-lethal round type which wasn’t nearly so exhausting to produce. 

He explained his ammunition. “I’m using our new Seeker Rounds, which are non-lethal. Like a Seeker after a Snitch, they only strike their intended target, set by the officer firing the weapon. A spell is necessary upon firing the weapon—either a Stunner, Incarcerous, Body Bind, or other immobilizing magic. To demonstrate, we’ll be using live targets. This has been tested extensively. No target will be harmed,” Harry reassured his audience before flicking his hand, lifting a cloth to reveal a cage at the other end of the range. 

Inside were a dozen yellow canaries—tiny, quick, otherwise impossible to hit accurately with a bullet from that distance. Even a sharpshooter like Leon couldn’t make that shot. But with a magically target-locked bullet, it was possible. 

Harry loaded his magazine, shouldered the M12, released the safety, and focused his vision on the cage. He nodded—signaling to Nebojsa, who opened the cage with a flip of his own fingers, setting the birds loose.

They went everywhere, streaks of yellow against the concrete. Before they could scatter too far and get beyond his line of sight, Harry put his finger on the trigger, whispering “ _Stupefy_ ” as he applied pressure. 

A hail of bullets flew from the gun, punching back into his shoulder. Anyone not accustomed to the noise covered their ears. Even Ivan and Nebojsa flinched from proximity. Harry’s lashes fluttered, his contact lenses momentarily shifting against his eyeballs from the blast of air. 

Rather than fly straight, each gold-tipped full-metal-jacket zig-zagged through the air, chasing its own particular bird through their organic, erratic path. Rather than be struck, each bird froze when it came into contact with a bullet; the projectile dissolving into thin air, and the bird falling to the ground, Stunned. Harry laid down a Cushioning Charm. Within three seconds, all twelve birds were on the ground. No stray feathers, no blood, no death-chirps. 

Harry handed his gun off to Nebojsa before Apparating to the other side of the range—behind the cage where no canaries would be. Bending, he picked one up. 

“ _Finite Incantatum_ ,” he whispered. And the bird unfroze, flying out of his hand. 

They would have shipments from Leon starting next week—ten each of the Glock 17 and 26’s, plus five M12’s, and as much ammo as they could make. Every week until all of the Hit Witches and Wizards were equipped. Then they’d move on to training any Aurors who wanted to carry. 

To the purebloods watching, it might’ve seemed normal. Of course a Stunning Spell wouldn’t hurt a bird. But to the muggle-borns and half-bloods, Harry really had performed a miracle. He’d shot a bullet at a tiny, helpless bird and managed not to hurt it. This meant they stood a chance at taking Death Eaters alive. This meant fewer Hits and Aurors would be hurt on the job, since arrests could be made more efficiently and humanely than ever before. Fewer deaths, and more people safe… because of a gun. 

It was possibly the strangest message Harry had ever delivered. But perhaps it was his best yet.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

In the middle of ten o'clock lecture, two witches stuck their heads into the recruit classroom. Harry recognized Nash's secretary, Damaris. The other woman was assistant to Freddie Hay-Boggis. 

They interrupted Field Safety Supervisor Calan MacPherson as politely as they could. "We need Ledinski, Ionescue, and Radić. Right away." 

Harry watched his friends pack up their notepads and pens. Sia had been taking notes on his laptop; he closed it, tucking it under his arm. He and Iga exchanged a bleak look before they left. They didn't return.

 

 

 

 

Harry was at Ron's desk—the pair of them trying to decide whether to wait for their friends or go get lunch on their own, or perhaps bring something back—when he spotted the three former Durmstrang students leaving Nash's office with an air that they’d rather not be noticed. 

Iga had her face in her hands, hiding, Nebojsa's long arm wrapped protectively around her shoulder. As soon as they were out from Nash's sight she buried her face in Sia’s slim chest, curling silently against him. It looked to Harry like she might be crying, or trying to be brave and keep her emotions private by experiencing them against the hard wall of Sia’s chest. Nebojsa pressed his face to the top of her head, his own equally pretty features concealed by the fall of his long hair. He seemed to whisper to her—comforting her. 

Harry couldn’t tell what was wrong, which was the most worrisome. 

Dima was at Iga's desk, rummaging through the drawers to find her purse which he intended to bring to her. Nebojsa was guiding Iga towards the elevator bays, presumably leaving for the day. They wouldn’t leave without the boss’ permission; if Nash sent them home, then it was certainly bad news. 

Dima glanced once at Harry, his eyes barely readable except for a hint of uncertainty. His expression was blank, but Harry could see something in the swirling topaz of his eyes. Dmitry looked spooked, like the centaurs when Voldemort had been running around the Forbidden Forest killing unicorns and drinking their blood. Dima was on high alert. Something had gone wrong close to him, and he worried his family could be next. He was locking everything down in preparation for the coming shitstorm. 

Harry held his golden gaze. “Fired?” he mouthed, needing to know. 

Dima gave a tiny shake of his head. No, they weren’t fired—but he wasn’t ready to communicate any more than that. He jerked his thumb back at Iga before he followed his love and their friend out of the building.

  

 

\- - -

 

 

 

Recruits were now included in the daily noon Law Enforcement briefing—where the morning and afternoon shifts met to exchange information on developments and active cases before their shift change. That was where they found out. 

A team of Polish Aurors uncovered a safe house which had been attacked and burned down by the Death Eaters, killing everyone inside. Those responsible had hidden the massacre under Concealment Charms. It happened about ten months ago, during the war; several Death Eaters involved had been captured abroad and confessed, leading Aurors to find the hidden crime scene. 

The deceased were being identified now, and one of them was Iga's sister, Mariola. 

Mads Østergaard slipped discreetly into Harry's office to fill him in. Gossip was the Norwegian’s second-greatest weakness, the first being attractive people with an interest in getting under him. Iga was both beautiful and at the center of a sad story; Mads couldn’t resist. 

He brought Harry a cup of tea from the break room. Closing the office door behind himself, he settled down in one of the two Barcelona chairs across from Harry’s desk. Harry accepted the hot tea with a nod, and waited. The plan was to let Mads talk, to get whatever he needed to off his chest. 

"Mariola Ledinski was a year behind me at school. She was… everyone’s mother. Mari stopped fights before they could start, repaired friendships, looked after you when you got your heart broken, reminded you to waterproof your boots when it was supposed to rain.” Mads looked out the window, gazing beyond Harry at the London rain sliding down modern steel-and-glass buildings. 

Inside Mads was grieving, the gossip an excuse to talk about how he felt. Harry was seeing in him the man who’d lost his father two years ago, and so many friends and lovers since. Mads might be a party-guy on the outside—and according to Draco he definitely got around—but deep down he believed in love in all its forms; in his way, Mads had loved Mari, the maternal figure of his school years, a young woman who’d looked after everyone—a beacon of kindness and unconditional affection. Mariola would have been one of the prominent figures setting the tone of student life at Durmstrang, perpetuating their culture of acceptance and solidarity even as monsters like Karkaroff and Tihomir Ionescue took over the place. Mari sounded like an easy person to love. Mads had certainly admired her. 

Mads pressed his lips. “Mari and Dmitry were… a couple, but not.” He shifted in his chair, thinking of how best to explain what he hadn’t known back at Durmstrang, but was now read-in on. “From what I understand, Mari had a _real_ boyfriend, a muggle-born who went to Koldovstoretz. Her family did not approve of mixed-blood couples, so she hid the relationship. She and Dmitry put on a kind of farce, pretending to be madly in love—so Mari could see her boyfriend in secret, and no one would suspect his highness was…” _Gay_. Mads didn’t have to say it—was hesitant to say it even in the privacy of Harry’s office. They were both well aware that Dima wasn’t out. Speaking the words seemed over-the-line; they were Dima’s truth to say in his own time. Neither of them wanted to stuff the admission into his mouth, even in private. 

Harry nodded his understanding. “They were each other’s alibi, socially and to their families.” 

It was very likely that Dima had listed Mariola Ledinski on his conflict-of-interest paperwork, saying she’d been his girlfriend before Durmstrang fell and Mari went missing—most likely went into hiding with her true boyfriend, trying to avoid the Death Eaters. That paperwork lie was why Nash knew to pull Dima out of training, to give him the news of Mari’s death along with Iga. 

Harry didn’t quite see how Nebojsa was involved, how Nash would have known to pull him in, too. 

Mads leaned back in his chair, telling Harry, “Many people assumed Nebojsa and Iga were an item as well, since the four of them always went to dances and such together.” The same way Harry and Ron had gone to The Yule Ball with the Patil sisters, Dima and Sia had disguised their own relationship, appearing to date siblings as a way to still be around each other in public without raising suspicions that they might be into each other and not the pretty Ledinski sisters. 

“I found it strange, personally.” A pensive puff of air pushed his swooping shortbread-blond hair away from his eyes. Even when he rolled his eyes exaggeratedly, purposefully making himself funny-looking, Mads was still unfairly handsome. And like the presence of Cedric Diggory or some other bloke women always fawned over, Harry couldn’t help but feel a bit like a toad or an ugly step-brother whenever Mads was around. 

The half-Veela bloke was a living embodiment of what would happen if a witch cast a spell to turn a Ken doll into a real live man. He was just… a little too _disturbingly_ perfect. Harry might’ve felt more at ease if, just once, Mads had a pimple or got food stuck between his teeth. 

“Nebojsa was a monk, ordained or not, destined for the great schema. What did he need a girlfriend for? He never seemed interested in anyone that way. When I found out about him and Dmitry, I… I couldn't believe it. Still can't, honestly. I dunno.” He shrugged his shoulders against the leather chair at his back. “I guess... I see them a certain way, in my head, after so many years. Dmitry's a social creature: Nebojsa would rather lock himself in a room and pray. Outside of school they have nothing in common. I don't get it." 

It seemed that Mads had never experienced Nebojsa's sexual side—the part of him that got blowjobs in alleys, that fucked his boyfriend like they might die tomorrow. Sia’s sexuality had always been a carefully-guarded secret, for his own protection as much as for Dima’s. If Sia was too out, too flamboyant, too gender non-conforming, too queer, then suspicion might fall on Dima by proximity. Sia wouldn’t be in any danger if people guessed he was bi. But even a single rumor of being gay would have been a death sentence for Dmitry—whose father worked at the school and was ruthlessly experienced in making his family members’ deaths look like accidents. 

Harry had known that secret side of his mates from the very start. It was how they met, a major part of why they’d connected in the first place; Harry exploring that being with Draco didn’t mean either of them had to change their identities, Dima finally able to be open about his sexuality and come out to his mates… and Sia busted out of Death Eater prison, finally free to express himself as he wanted to, eyeliner and tight trousers and all. They'd all been in the same desperate head-space that night, wanting their last moments on earth to be about love rather than violence or fear or anything else. "Love is the only thing that matters," Nebojsa had told him... right before they fell into a lip-lock. 

Like Harry at Hogwarts, Nebojsa successfully hid every scrap of his sexual self from those around him. He used his religious identity to hide, the same as Harry had lived behind the mask of The Boy Who Lived, pretending he was okay, that he was happy… that he was completely straight. For years, Nebojsa had lived that same double life: his monk side, the Slavic Saviour everyone worshiped, asking him to pray for their souls... and his true self; bisexual and fetishist, deeply deviant, powerful and occasionally violent, fighting back for what he believed in even if it got him killed. He was prayer and death metal existing in the same body, singing and screaming distorted in the same echo. Most people only saw him from a false angle, only heard the version of his song which he wanted them to know. 

Harry realized he and Draco were some of the precious few who saw the truth of who their friends really were… because they’d lived that same double-existence, they could see the reality after Dima and Sia let them in. 

Harry was due to say something. “I’m not sure other people’s relationships need to make sense to us,” he offered. “So long as they’re happy, and treat each other with respect.” That was the point he’d tried, poorly, to make to Ron and Hermione last year. His own relationship with Draco was in some ways more complex than Dima and Sia’s, that much harder for those who knew Harry and Draco to swallow. You didn’t have to share hobbies or backgrounds or have similar personalities to fall in love with someone. It was possible to love someone who hadn’t always been a good person, who was trying to correct themselves now. Nor should anyone have to justify their romantic or sexual choices to their peers. 

Mads shrugged. “I guess.” That little lift of his shoulders said everything he was thinking: _How does Dmitry get laid with_ _that_ _religious prude for a boyfriend?_

If he only knew! Appearances could be deceiving. Draco was chilly at times, like Sia, but his husband was one of the most amorous and sexually expressive people Harry had ever encountered. It was like a switch inside him flipped when they were together, and Draco’s walls melted away, leaving his heart exposed, showing the man he was on the inside. Harry would never begrudge Draco his walls; he needed them, after everything he’d been through. So long as he could Vanish them when he wanted. Draco’s creativity and artistry depended on his ability to come undone, to show his wounds, exposing them to the air so they might begin to heal. 

Mads was showing a bit of his own heart. He’d come to Harry for a reason… one which The Chosen One couldn’t quite discern. 

“I’m really sorry about Mari. Sounds like she was a wonderful witch.” It was still strange to use that word in a positive context; his muggle brain wanted to supply the negative connotations he’d grown up with, and he had to consciously shove back. Witches were _good_. The same as being gay or bi was fine, not an insult, not something hurled from someone’s mouth to hurt him. He had a number of inherited narratives to re-write. 

“She was,” Mads agreed. “We lost so many of our best….” He snapped himself back to reality, visibly righting in his seat, leaning forward. “You’ll come to the service?” he asked, assuming Harry’s answer would be yes. “It should be in a few days, once the Polish Ministry releases her remains.” 

Harry picked up his tea, porcelain warm against his palms. “Um… no. Sorry. I don’t attend ceremonies anymore—it’s nothing personal.” 

Mads’ face fell, disappointed, prompting Harry to explain himself. “Have you heard of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?” Mads nodded: he knew what it was. “Well… I have it. During the TriWizard, a bloke I looked up to was murdered right in front of me. I brought his body back by Portkey, and we landed in the middle of what was supposed to be the award ceremony.” Mads kept nodding—he’d been there, seen the whole thing from the stands. Now he understood Harry’s side of the experience. He still didn’t like talking about it. 

“Ever since… I can’t do organized crowds without…” Harry needed a breath of tea-scented steamy air. Even thinking about what had happened, considering going to yet another funeral, made his throat seize. “My heart races. I can hear it pounding in my ears over the people giving speeches. And I hear screaming. I start thinking everyone’s in danger. Ceremonies make me a nervous wreck—miserable to be around. I wouldn’t wanna be that way while everyone’s trying to remember Mari. That wouldn’t be fair.” 

“Understood.” Mads forked his fingers through his hair, his heavy breath matching Harry’s as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I can’t watch quidditch anymore, let alone play. It sounds so stupid but… the grass… and the hoops….” He’d seen his father’s body, his dad’s head on a spike on their front lawn. A quaffle was roughly the same size as a grown man’s head. Of course a goal post sticking up from a manicured quidditch pitch would give him flashbacks. 

“I get it,” Harry offered simply. 

Mads’ blue eyes flickered a moment, going down from Harry’s face to look at his wedding ring—thinking of Draco’s situation, _his_ dead father and all the horrible shit the Potters had seen in the last few years. Mads seemed to realize that Harry had probably been a basket case at his own wedding; he’d only been able to get through it because Draco was right next to him the entire time, holding his hand, saying the vows right back to him so it could be over and they could get on with the rest of their lives. 

Mads sighed. “Yeah. I guess… you really do.”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

 

 

The Potters were late. 

They were supposed to be having band practice that evening. Nebojsa had food set out—cheese, pickled vegetables, a fresh nut roll from the nearby bakery because Draco lived for sweets, along with a bottle of wine and beers in the refrigerator. 

Galina arrived early, helping herself to a bite to eat. She chatted with Dima as they waited. 

Nebojsa turned away to peek down at his watch, not wanting to blatantly call attention to Harry and Draco running half an hour behind… without any sort of notice. It was annoying. They could have called. They had mobile phones for a reason. 

His rang. 

" _Molim_." He grew up answering the telephone formally in Serbian. Some habits were hard to break, even when he knew it was an Englishman on the other end of the line. A handful of people had his phone number, and Harry was the only one who called him regularly. 

"Hey," Harry's tone was immediately apologetic. Being English, Harry spent a portion of every day apologizing for something whether it was his fault or not. "I don't think we're gonna make it tonight. I'm really sorry. _Žao mi je_ ," he repeated for the sake of sincerity. His voice got quiet and slightly muffled, as though whispering with his free hand cupped around his mouth, concealing his words from his husband's ears. "Draco's... not feeling up to it. 'S a bad night for him." 

Harry didn't have to say anything more. In his month at Hogwarts, Nebojsa got a taste of The Dragon's mood swings, binge drinking, and intense outbursts. His name was accurate, a reflection of his fiery temperament and self-insulating mentality. Like a dragon, Draco ran off to hide in his cave and sit on his hoardings when he felt insecure; there he would get steaming drunk, scream, and break things. Draco retreated to a place where no one could see him let his emotions take the wheel, his feelings controlling him. 

He'd never learned how to properly vent his significant anger. And he covered up the physical damage he wrought with magic, thinking no one would be the wiser of his tantrums. 

Draco never wanted anyone to know... because the knowledge confirmed that he in fact _had_ feelings which could easily be hurt. Which was a large part of why he was so hesitant to let anyone in. Back at Hogwarts, Nebojsa came to realize that Harry was in many ways Draco's only confidant, the only person he trusted with his true self. Anyone else... he too much feared their abandoning him, or mocking him, or reducing what was left of his authority in the wizarding world.

Life was always a scramble for power in Draco's mind. Dima had been raised much the same way, so Nebojsa understood what it meant to be the sole supporter of someone coming out of that damaging mind-set. 

Surely they were good friends, himself and Dima and the Potters. But that didn't mean Draco wanted them around when he was hurting; especially Dima's competitiveness—a natural trait for a middle child—brought Draco's rage and instability to the surface. Dima's emotional detachment and overt machismo tended to lure Draco down a similar path, squashing down his feelings, refusing to experience his emotions until he exploded in a massive and unnecessary fashion. And when Draco repressed, so too did Harry, thinking he needed to be stronger than a building for his husband to lean on. The weight of a dragon was immense, as were Draco’s burdens.

As much as the four of them genuinely liked one another, Dima's prolonged presence also brought out some of everyone's worst qualities. So it was for the best that Harry and Draco cry off tonight and stay home if the Dragon was feeling particularly fiery. As responsible handlers, they needed to separate their respective winged beasts until they were sure not to lose their tempers, doing or saying something which they'd later regret. It was often the hands holding the reigns most likely to get injured in a frey as they tried to break things up.

"I underztand," Nebojsa offered. "No hard feelings. Take care of him." 

He knew Harry would be nodding in that steady, stalwart way of his. He was perhaps too accustomed to walking into streams of fire, all too ready to conceal his emotions for the sake of survival. It took a lot for him to admit that Draco's mental health wasn't up to socializing. He trusted his friend with that very private information, speaking the truth in a whisper over the telephone line. Nebojsa felt the weight of that trust like a hot, recently-killed carcass draped over his shoulders, dripping blood down his back. He wasn't sure he deserved Harry's trust. 

"I will," Harry promised. "See you Monday?" 

"Of course. _Videmo se, brate. Aj ćao_." 

"Yeah. _Aj zdravo_." 

In wishing him health, Harry sounded exhausted. It was better that he spend a few hours with Draco and get themselves to sleep early. It was better they didn’t drink tonight—nothing but arguments came from drinking on an anxious stomach, as though the alcohol bonded to the frustration in one’s system, drawing it to the surface and magnifying it at the same time. 

Harry and Draco ought to be alone. They were married, and needed that time together. 

Nebojsa hung up, tossing the phone onto their bed behind him. The sheets and light blanket were neatly made... only because he saw to them each day with magic. Dima had never made a bed in his life. He probably didn't even know the spell. Nebojsa had to teach him how their muggle laundry machine worked—and even then, he and Misha did the washing. Dima was hopeless; he'd let the hamper overflow or the bedding get rumpled on the floor, waiting for someone else to get sick of the heap and see to it themselves. Dmitry knew that if he waited long enough, eventually someone would wait on him like the prince he was. 

And in his self-centeredness, Dima would be upset that The Dragon and The Boy Who Lived were ditching _him_. Because fuck the band—Dimka’s feelings were hurt. 

Dima saw his partner's long face from across the apartment, and he knew.

"They're not coming," Dima said loudly in Russian—so Galina would understand, too. It was a statement rather than a question, spoken flatly, without feeling. 

Dima’s classically-handsome face betrayed nothing—bearing a familiar blank expression of authority beaten into him by his father—but Nebojsa could feel his disappointment, like a man sitting alone in a restaurant at a table set for two, a heartbroken man zealously pretending nothing was wrong because he just realized he’d been stood up for a date. 

But Dima didn’t know that feeling, never learned how to handle rejection. This was all new to him. 

Dima had never actually been on a date. Ever. Dating had never appealed to him. Dima had casual hook-ups. He had occasional sex work when he craved excitement. And he had his support, his domestic comforts, with Nebojsa. He never wanted nor needed anything more. 

Dima was what muggles called gray-romantic. Nebojsa thought of his partner as "barely romantic," seeing as his only desire toward displays of affection was for platonic interaction like hugging—even when Dima possessed deep feelings, he didn't care to hold hands, give you compliments, or take you out for a fancy dinner. Dima would just... blow you, which made it very hard to distinguish between who he wanted to have sex with and who his heart cared for. 

It wasn't that he kept his desires bottled up—rather, he was content to have every relationship resemble a good sort of friendship, whether sex was had or not. Dmitry enjoyed sex greatly, and had a great amount of it. He simply did not get the "warm and fuzzy, butterflies in the stomach, I’m happy just to be near you" feeling which others experienced when developing a crush. Dima never had crushes before: there were people he wanted to suck and fuck, and people he didn’t. They were all his friends regardless. He never wanted more. 

It was exceedingly rare that Dima fell in love with anyone. And generally lacking these urges, conventional dating practices had never been a part of his sex life or friendships. Dima didn’t want to buy anyone flowers, or let his hand linger over anyone’s cheek, or randomly blurt out “I love you” when the feeling overtook him. He didn’t have those desires, that drive towards romance. He feigned these actions when he had to; pretending for the world to be straight, with Mariola or another witch on his arm at parties. That play-acting of false feelings certainly left a bad taste in his mouth when it came to public displays of affection, pretend-romantic or otherwise. Nebojsa would never ask Dmitry to do something he didn’t feel, even something small like holding hands. Dima only initiated such ovations when _he_ wanted to, because then and only then was it genuine. 

Dima didn't know much of anything about being insanely in love. Which was why it was so hard for him to be jilted by the Potters—aside from Nebojsa, those two were the only men Dima had ever felt deeply for… fallen for. In some ways, he probably felt more butterflies for the Potters than for his partner of five years; and that was natural, normal, after a long time together. Their affection had settled, becoming comfortable, lived-in like an old sweater. Dima’s feelings for the Potters were new and fresh, forged in the fires of war and still burning hot, spitting embers every-which-way. They were exciting, and he wanted—craved—more of them. 

Dima had no experience holding himself back when his heart took over. He didn’t just want to sleep with the Potters... he was infatuated, besotted, obsessed. He wanted them to love him back. And that wasn't going to happen. 

"They're not coming," Nebojsa confirmed. He looked to Galina. "Shall we practice without them?" 

Dima bristled. Half his motivation for starting this band was as an excuse to be around the Potters that much more often. It gave Dima something like those warm fuzzies he never knew, to see Draco and his lover play together. Draco's voice gave them all chills whether they were in love with the guy or not. 

Dima didn't want to play if he couldn't have the secret pleasure of watching Draco the whole time… or watching Harry look at Draco as though he were made of fairy dust and miracles. 

"Draco had better practice," Galina whined, brandishing a slice of _orehnjaca_ at him. "If we get another gig, I don't want to spend hours getting his lazy ass up to speed." 

Nebojsa wanted to say something—that having emotionally-devastating depression on top of grieving the loss of your father didn't make you lazy... just human. But it wasn't his place to announce Draco's private struggle. So instead, he answered, "If the dragon needs catching up, I'll handle it. Fair?" 

Galina shrugged. "Fine." 

"Or I can help him," Dima piped up. He was still looking for ways to slip the leash and get time alone with Draco. It was a terrible idea. They'd moved out for a reason. The two of them needed supervision for damn good reasons.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

With his demanding schedule at the office, on top of spending his evenings and weekends with Draco and making space to hang out with his friends, Harry had cut his sessions with Akilah down to every-other week. He figured they’d covered the main subjects and could drop things down to a maintenance level. 

Dr. Beasley surprised him one Saturday afternoon session, asking, "Are you aroused by pain?" 

He'd expected that question for a while. It was in a lot of the literature he read about PTSD; that some people who suffered physical trauma became aroused by recreations of it, or by pain in general. He didn't think his sexual preferences had anything to do with the horrible events in his past. He liked what he liked because... of how it felt, physically, and how it made him feel, emotionally. Pain at Draco’s hands pushed a button in his reptilian brain labeled ‘sex.’ Soft touches, slow kisses and holding hands were important and had their place; he still liked those things from his heart. But nothing got his dick hard quite like biting down on Draco's skin until he squirmed, leaving bruises, or Draco's fingers yanking so hard on his hair he inevitably pulled some out in his urgency. Or the rending of his world when Draco shoved that huge cock up his arse; one of the more uncomfortable experiences of his life, pretty damn painful, and also incredibly arousing at the same time.

It wasn't conscious. He didn't _choose_ to combine pain and sex. The two were just connected, with a direct line to his bollocks. That was how he was built. He’d lived with his desires long enough to get comfortable with them—and he wouldn’t let anybody, even his own therapist, make him feel ashamed for what he fancied in bed. 

Harry shrugged, affecting some casual bravado. "Sometimes. I mean, I don't get hard if I break my arm. Pain by itself isn’t sexual to me. But if Draco pulls my hair or bites me during sex, yeah, that does it for me."

So said the scar on his shoulder, an imprint of Draco’s four front-most teeth which he’d talked his husband out of healing around this time last year. Of all Harry’s scars, it was the only one he actually liked. Because he chose it, and because Draco gave it to him in a moment of unrestrained passion: blowing his load in Harry’s ass, coming prematurely—and mad about that—so he bit Harry in a fit of simultaneous disgruntlement and grudging respect. That scar was everything he loved about his husband. Every time he saw it, it made him smile. 

Sex with Draco had always been on edge—a battle of wills. He knew most other couples didn't hit each other in bed. And he didn't care. He loved every second with Draco. And his intensity was a part of him… a part of them both. Rough sex felt right to Harry from the very beginning. It never bothered him that he and Draco were violent with each other. Their actions were a reflection of their feelings... passion, fervency, expressed in a physical way. It was honest, a manifestation of the desperation in their hearts, clawing their way to be with each other. 

He thought back to his very first sexual experience, with Heather. He'd been drunk at first, and horny, lonely and nervous. She'd done the work to get his clothes off. But when the moment arrived... he wasn't able to come. Not until he heard Draco being violent in the next room. Something about Harry's own preferences _needed_ that level of intensity, of impact, that emotional and psychological high. It spoke to a demon in his chest which he had to keep caged the rest of the time. It wasn’t anything like the times he’d fought for his life, or put himself on the front line to protect others. The violence he experienced with Draco transcended physical danger. It was a kind of religion they practiced together—like priests flagellating themselves because it made them feel closer to the suffering of their God. 

Pain was something they gave each other in celebration of their power, their ability to endure anything life threw their way. It was the only expression which spoke to them. 

When he was silent, not offering more, Akilah asked, "Do you negotiate what your limits are in advance?" 

"Not really.” He watched Akilah flinch, speaking before she could object. “I know that sounds bad, but... we used a ton of Legilimency early in our relationship. I've pretty much seen Draco's entire sexual history, plus every fantasy he's ever had, and he's seen all of mine. We know what we like; we’ve seen it, walked through it in each other’s heads a hundred times. If there's something one of us wants to try that day, or we’d rather hold off on something we normally do, then one of us will mention that in the process of getting each other’s clothes off. Otherwise it's kinda by feel. He knows he can say no. I've occasionally said no. And I do like it when he tells me yes, so he's started doing that for me once I explained why I wanted to hear it. Draco's not always verbal during sex..." Harry admitted. "Especially when he's catching. He drifts off into his own world once I get going." 

Akilah shifted in her seat. He'd surprised her. Did she think it was only Draco hurting him? 

"If he's in his own world," Akilah questioned, leaning forward. "How can he give consent?" 

"Prior authorization." Harry snorted at the technical flavor of the term which sprang to his mind, sounding more like work than his home-life. He softened his language. "Trust. Legilimency. A few medical monitoring spells to be sure I'm not doing any lasting damage."

Akilah actually looked worried. He'd told her a lot of dark shit, and this was what made her worry? Every married couple experimented. That was normal. And they’d developed a system which worked pretty well, making sure they both got their needs met. It wasn’t always perfect but… Harry didn’t see anything in their sex life to cause concern. 

"Draco enjoys being hurt?" A line darted across her brow which he'd never seen. She was practically on the edge of her chair. Maybe she didn't have many patients with good, interesting sex lives? Harry didn't think pain in the bedroom would be that much of a foreign concept. Maybe no one else was willing or ready to talk about it. Maybe Akilah didn’t have any other sexually-active gay patients. 

"Not all the time." His tongue slipped out, his lips suddenly dry. He licked, then pressed, considering how he might get his point across. "I mean... he likes rough sex in general. Getting pushed up against a wall. Or held down. Getting bit. Sometimes that's enough. He'll ask for more if that's what he needs." 

His therapist visibly swallowed. "More...?" She raised her eyebrows, wanting him to explain exactly what that entailed.  

"Context," Harry came at the question from a theoretical angle rather than answer literally. Any further details of Draco’s preferences were off-limits, not something he could ever share without his husband’s permission. So he found the words to speak in general terms. "Intent is critical. If I'm sparing with someone and we punch each other, that's fine. Because we've agreed to spar. Punching is expected. Punching random people on the street is bad, obviously; sparring resembles a fight, but it’s the intent and context which make one a crime and the other a sport, an exercise. It's the same with Draco and me. I'm not getting up after dinner and knocking him in the face because the food wasn't cooked to my tastes. That would be insane."

"That would be abuse," she clarified. 

"Exactly," agreed Harry. "That's not what happens. Between the war and being a Hit Wizard, I know my own strength. I don't treat Draco like an enemy combatant. I'm not punishing him either. We’re never mad at each other when we do it. Yes it hurts, but it also feels good. So when he wants it... yes, I hit him, or other things he fancies. To get him off. Because I love him, and he’s asked me to… and it’s something we both get pleasure and release from. 

"I also take care of him after,” he felt compelled to add. “I make sure he gets healed up right away. I get him something to eat, or a cigarette, or a shower. Whatever he needs. I don't leave him broken—physically or mentally. Or... emotionally, either. The point is for him to feel good; during, and after. If we weren’t both enjoying it, we’d stop—or change it up until we found a better balance. It's been a learning curve but I've gotten pretty good at it. You know, when he's willing to let me in. I don't force him. 

“In the time we’ve been together, I have never struck him against his will, and I’ve never struck him in anger. He did hit me a couple times when he was angry and lashing out, early in our relationship," he was thinking of their fight when Draco learned he’d be going to Hogwarts alone. “But as we figured out how to get our needs met sexually, and how to talk to each other about those sorts of boundaries, he completely stopped hitting me outside of a consensual sexual context. The last time he slapped me because he was angry was nearly a year ago, and I deserved it—I lied to him. 

“He knows, now, that I prefer to reserve impact as a strictly sexual thing. I still want him to call me out when he doesn’t agree with something I’m doing. That’s been a foundation between us since before we started seeing each other. But because hitting is so often sexual to us, we have to treat it differently, and be sure not to get our wires crossed—especially when we lose our tempers.” 

Akilah asked, "Is sex always violent? Or involving some form of sadism?"

Harry thought about it. He couldn't recall a single time he and Draco had been together where there wasn't some small element of discomfort, tension, or deprivation. Someone was always tied up, being bitten or hit, or denied what they wanted. It wasn't always hitting. Sometimes it was fingernails, rope, blindfolds or hair-pulling. Sometimes it was insults which cut deep—or compliments, which often made Harry more vulnerable than anything mean which Draco could dream up. 

Harry just shrugged. "To some degree. It gets us both off. I know he likes it; he knows I like it. Why wouldn’t we?" 

Akilah needed a moment before she could ask her follow-up question. "Giving Draco pain is erotic? It arouses you?" 

Harry regarded her over the upper rim of his glasses. "Anal sex, doc. It's _gonna hurt_ , no way around that. You learn to find... personal power... in pain... in endurance... you find yourself. You learn a lot about who you are.” It was that way for him, and he knew from jaunts through Draco’s open mind when they fucked that he felt the same way. The presence of pain gave them something to transcend. “I know we shouldn't be defining ourselves by our ability to suffer, but this is different. It's a ritual that we go through—like muggle religion tells people to say some prayer a hundred times, or chant, or meditate, and it’s supposed to help them feel better. This is us repeating something until it sinks in, giving it our own meaning. No one has to like it except us." 

"Does it bother you that sex with your husband is painful?" 

Harry raised his eyebrows at her. "Pain is inevitable. Especially when a bloke's built like Draco." 

"Draco is much smaller than you..." she said, assuming he meant that his prick was painful to Draco. Which it absolutely was, considering how rarely Draco bottomed, and what he preferred when in that vulnerable position. Harry was well aware. 

But there was a second meaning to his turn of phrase. She’d missed his sly innuendo; his hint that Draco's cock was bigger than his own; his subtle implication that Draco was the top, that more often than not it was Draco hurting _him_ with the monster he kept hidden in his pants. 

For the first time in his life, Harry made a sexual reference that went over another adult's head. He felt like he'd earned some type of asexual's medal of honor. 

"He's five-foot-four and…" Harry had to think, not being so good with metric to US standard conversion in his head. "A hundred and twenty-ish pounds? Small bloke, yeah. But his cock's a bloody monster. Twenty-three, twenty-four centimeters? Maybe twenty-five." Harry held up a fist, flexing his forearm. "It's as big as… it’s like a third fucking arm. Near ten inches. I’m honestly surprised he’s never fainted from having an erection. It’s insane." 

Akilah's mouth hung open. 

Harry lifted a shoulder. "That much got easier, now I'm taller. He used to rip me apart with that thing. When we first started dating, I bled out my arse so much I developed a sympathy for women and their periods. And we both got really good at removing blood stains." 

Akilah was staring. She hadn't said anything in a while. Her face was far from serene. She was blinking rapidly. He could see a tiny gap between her two front teeth usually only visible when she smiled. 

"Wha'?" he asked, a bit teasingly, going brash. "Too much? Do I need to find a new shrink?" 

That made her chuckle, her voice warm. "No, Harry. I just... I forget sometimes, that you have this side to you." 

"You forget that I'm a pervert," he translated her true meaning. He didn't blush or feel awkward about it anymore. He loved the way he and Draco fucked. Anyone who didn't approve of their sex life could sod off. They weren't doing any harm, and it made them happy. He soundly rejected any argument that the way they chose to fuck was bad or wrong; it was right for them, and no one else’s business. 

Akilah’s head tilted, as though she wasn’t implying he or his preferences were perverted. But she sort of was, only she had a more polite and clinically-correct way of saying it.  

"With your gray-asexuality," she explained, carefully neutral… although her lips were turning up, "your arousal and sexual activities are obviously quite private experiences for you, Harry. We talk about your marriage in our sessions, and your sexuality, but I believe this is the most we've discussed actual details of your sex life. I had no idea that you and Draco practiced BDSM. And I had no indication of your… receiving preference." 

Harry gestured inexactly. “I bottom. What about it?”

She was surprised that Draco was the top in their bedroom? That was probably the number one misconception people made about them, honestly. Akilah had never known him when he and Draco were the same height. He guessed anyone might make that mistake, looking strictly at their bodies now. It wasn't right to assume that the taller or larger bloke might be the top, but people thought it anyway because that was how straight couples typically looked—the "man" was larger than the "woman," the smaller body, the receiver. People readily made these very personal assumptions about their sex life, subjecting their 100% male marriage to straight stereotypes. 

Harry's overall appearance of straight-ness—his reserved social demeanor, plain fashion sense, and being in the military—probably contributed to people’s false assumptions. They were trying to fit a square peg into a round hole: a marriage between two blokes could never be the same as a heterosexual marriage, nor should they try to be. It was like trying to bake a cake using a recipe for an omelette; both contained eggs and perhaps salt, but they were fundamentally different. 

Straight relationship rules didn’t apply to them. With two blokes, it really could go any which way. With blokes, topping and bottoming came down to personal preference, and had nothing to do with physical appearance or even personality. Straight people didn't have that choice: it never occurred to them to consider that gay couples didn’t operate under gendered restraints when it came to sex.

For a while, Harry hadn’t understood that; beating himself up in the early part of their relationship, confused as all hell when he enjoyed a finger or Draco’s tongue up his arse. His enjoyment of bottoming left him feeling confused. Not confused enough to stop: sex with Draco felt too amazing. He struggled in silence, mentally, not knowing how to talk about it. He had to develop the language before he could tackle all of the internalized homophobia surrounding the subject of his liking Draco’s prick up his bum.

It took him some time to look around and realize that even the most manly, badass, hair-on-their-chests blokes he knew—Charlie, Viktor, Sirius, Dima, Chereshko—all of them had sucked at least one dick in their lives. Even Dumbledore. Even Snape. Even Remus. If it weren’t for the presence of these powerful examples of highly masculine gay and bi men in his life, Harry might not have stopped beating himself up, questioning his role in the bedroom simply because straight people didn’t understand it. It was straight people who stigmatized gay and bi men who bottomed, trying to convince the world that they were less-than-men. 

It took seeing a couple like Dima and Sia for Harry to accept that looks and personality really weren’t fair indicators of preference. Dima was hulking, macho powerlifter who regularly went down and got fucked. And Nebojsa, a top, wore makeup, floral patterns and occasionally put on women’s clothing, was in-touch with his feminine side, and talked so much about peace and love that sometimes Harry wondered whether he’d fallen out of a time-tunnel from Woodstock. His friends were prime examples that any bloke could be a top, or bottom, or versatile. It was a preference just like any other, not a reflection of masculinity or of the bloke’s role in the relationship. 

Harry often worried his more overt traditional-straight-male qualities might be damaging to Draco's confidence—putting them in competition with one another when they ought to be perceived as a unit, a unified team. Especially since Harry was taller, more athletic and muscular, his voice deeper, people saw him as more masculine than Draco. Now that Harry looked older, it was that much harder for strangers to view them as equals. Everyone could see Draco’s physically smaller body and automatically make their own hetero-reflective assumptions. 

Perhaps if Harry were more effeminate with his manners, if he adjusted the way he spoke or dressed, people might interpret him as a bottom; but that wasn't who he was. Like his friend Dmitry, Harry didn't have it in him to put on a false, more "gay-seeming" affectation. Because Harry naturally came off as straight and butch, people perceived Draco as the receiving partner, the feminine role, for no other reason than his being less physically developed than his partner. For Draco, that false label was a slap in the face; it made him want to run out and duel anyone who questioned his preferences because of something so petty as his body-type, the way he looked, or his posh continental taste in fashion. 

Draco still considered himself to be a top, because Harry was the only guy he’d ever bottomed for and enjoyed the experience; just as Draco was the only bloke Harry had ever had sex with, so he continued to think of himself as more-or-less straight. They were each other’s exception; because they loved each other, they found a way to keep their identities and make it work. 

Draco didn’t care for strangers automatically assigning him to any socially-subservient role. He could call himself a faggot in jest, or label himself ‘the hand’ when they said their vows—but other people had better not call him that. He didn’t want other people’s opinions to define who he was, because he’d given that power to other people for years and it royally fucked up his life. Draco needed to retain control of how people viewed and labeled him… so he dyed his hair wild colors, listened to metal, and had Dima draw frightening tattoos all over his body. Draco was aggressively defining himself, pre-empting other people’s judgments with his own louder expression, drowning out their noise with a roar of his own. 

It was upsetting to Draco that others perceived him as less of a man because he wasn't as tall or as jacked as the other blokes around him. Harry had felt the same constant-but-silent pressure when he was smaller. It took a war and nearly dying for Harry to learn that those physical qualities weren’t what made someone a man. It wasn't fair. Draco had just as much strength and grit and heart as Harry did... perhaps more. Worst of all, it was the qualities Harry loved most about his husband—Draco’s creativity, his startling vulnerability, his ability to transmute his emotions and express them through mediums like design, fashion, music, eloquence—which were turned against him, used to label him as a faggot, or Harry Potter’s bitch. 

Other people forcing their prejudiced, narrow-minded world-view onto Draco made Harry see red. 

“I didn’t know that before today,” Akilah said mildly. While Harry got lost in his head, Akilah had been processing all the new information he’d provided. It probably wasn’t every day that a patient unflinchingly announced he took a ten inch dick… and fancied it so much he married the giant prick attached to the giant prick. She accepted his declaration with as little visible reaction as any professional therapist could muster given the risqué details. 

Still in his head a bit, Harry let himself go off. "Right? Because I come off as unassailably straight, I guess. Everyone makes that fuckin’ assumption about our sex life. I hear it a lot when people find out I'm married to a bloke." He pitched his voice a bit higher, mimicking a woman talking to him. " _You're such a nice man Harry_. You know, _nice_ except for all the dick in my mouth of which they don’t approve. Everyone assumes for their own reasons that I top and Draco catches. Maybe because that's how they'd prefer to view our relationship,” he realized as he spoke. “People automatically put Draco in a more feminine or subservient position because they want me to be their all-powerful Saviour even in my own bedroom.” He growled. “God forbid _I_ need to feel taken care of. God fucking forbid I want my husband to feel like he’s got some agency, that he can claim me as his. It's our private life; doesn't mean it's not a huge part of who I am. I don't broadcast what I like in bed because it's no one's business but ours. But it bothers the hell out of me when people assume I top and Draco bottoms. It shows a lot of ugliness and lack of understanding on their part." 

"You enjoy bottoming?"

His nod was solid; like he was at a concert, banging along to a guitar solo. "Fuck yeah." 

"And you're... aggressive about it?" 

"Yup."

“Then you’re a power-bottom?” 

Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “That’s a phrase people use. I don’t. Its got nothing to do with me.”

"Have you always caught?"

It was Harry’s turn to shift in his seat—more residual agitation than discomfort. "It wasn't my preference starting out. Being straight, I'd never imagined myself doing anything besides being a top. I started bottoming for convenience. Draco hadn't enjoyed catching before me—mostly because he wasn't given a choice about it.” 

Draco referred to the at-large Death Eater who’d taken his virginity simply as his ex, but Harry refused. ‘Ex-boyfriend’ implied that their relationship had been in any way informed or consensual. Philippe Didier was a rapist. A part of Harry wondered if the bastard had bullied younger Draco into bottoming simply because he wasn’t willing to try and accommodate Draco, to accept him unconditionally like Harry had… no matter that the fit had seemed insurmountable at first. Philippe had never been interested in Draco’s pleasure. 

“Because of his not liking it, we agreed right away that I'd bottom for his sake.” More like Draco spent the better part of a month posturing and aggrandizing before he would admit why he didn’t want to bottom, and only after Harry wormed it out of him over a bottle of ridiculously expensive champagne and a five course French dinner. Harry hadn’t wanted to bottom until he learned why Draco had an aversion to it; once he knew, he was willing to make that compromise for Draco’s comfort and pleasure. 

That was simply what you did when you cared about your partner—you found a way to make it work… even when their prick was like taking an entire arm.

“Lucky for me, it turned out I genuinely liked being on the receiving side. I topped later—after we got married—and that was great. Draco catches for me sometimes. But it's still pretty… emotional for him? It's a big deal. I respect that. So it's more on special occasions, or maybe if he really needs to just..." Harry held his hands in front of himself, inexactly, mimicking something falling, "...be a mess, fall apart, cry, be held. When he asks for my cock, that's what he wants. It's too much of an emotional rollercoaster for every day." 

He'd never seen Akilah blush that badly before. Her whole face was flushed—ever since he mentioned how bloody huge Draco’s prick was. When he talked about Draco asking for his cock, Dr. Beasley got a splash of maroon across her cheeks. 

She recovered, asking a logical turn-around. "Draco falls apart when he catches. But you don't?" 

His mouth canted to the side. "I have my moments. Seeing Draco come undone like that does get to me," he tapped his chest. "In a good way. He trusts me to go to that dark place with him, to be there, and to drag him out when he's had enough. I can't help but feel that experience with him." Like when they'd first practiced the Imperius Curse on each other, and Harry had to fish Draco out of his memories. That was what sex felt like sometimes. Like pulling Draco back to the real world, pulling him up before he drowned. "But... I guess I don't enjoy being hurt the way he does, to the point of breaking down. That's Draco's thing. I'm the purveyor. I provide the experience, whether it's painful or not. And I reserve the right to say when he's had enough." 

Akilah supplied the technical term for what he was describing. "You’re dominant." 

"Yeah. Dom." He found it ironic that the nickname for a dominant man in English sounded exactly like the Romanian word for ‘sir,’ which most dominant blokes preferred to be called. 

They’d always used ‘sir’ for professors at school, so for men like him and Draco there was a certain connotation of respect and authority to the word. He’d rather be called ‘sir’ than _dominant_. 

Heather Lightley was the first to name his preferences to his face—long before he’d really learned what he was into or how to do it right. And he'd heard the appellation, that title of ‘dominant’ in Draco's head, his fantasies, plenty of times… though Draco never used the word in conversation. It stayed in his head. Sometimes Draco thought of himself that way, other times it was how he described Harry. But Harry had never thought of that word as a part of himself the way Draco did. 

Dominance didn't mean much to Harry… mostly because he was trying to get beyond the mindset where he needed control over his husband. He wanted Draco to be free, to be himself, to ask for what he wanted and get every need met. A dominant sounded too much like a jailor or a keeper, and that wasn’t a dynamic either of them wanted. Harry wanted to find a way to be in charge, to embody the leadership role in their relationship, without stepping on Draco’s toes. He wanted Draco to have space, freedom to be himself. And a deep, significant part of Draco sexually identified as dominant more than Harry ever did, so Draco could have that word for himself. Harry didn’t need it. 

"And Draco is your submissive? He submits to you?" 

Harry disliked that word ‘submissive’ even more than his disinterest in dominance. Submission had nothing to do with Draco. The word implied a passivity which didn’t exist anywhere in Draco’s gorgeous, scar-covered body. He was too much a fighter, too competitive, too eager to rise up and strike back. The first time they’d fucked he tied Harry to the damn headboard! To call Draco submissive was to deny his very real aggression, in the bedroom and in their relationship. 

Harry would never call what Draco gave him 'submission.' It was a kind of trust he couldn't have fathomed before being allowed into Draco's soul. It was every part of him on a platter. It was violent, confused, screaming, needing him. Draco broke himself open, trusting Harry to love and accept everything he saw. 

All Harry could say was, deeply, heavy, "He's mine." 

"Is Draco your property?" 

Harry flinched. "No. He's his own man." 

"Then your ownership of him is strictly sexual?" 

Akilah wasn’t really getting it: perhaps he was doing a shit job at explaining himself. Harry let his head roll back against the sofa, speaking to the ceiling. "I own his heart, because he gave it to me. Romantically, spiritually, yes, he's mine. And I'm his. It goes both ways. Its… in our souls. We belong to each other as equal forces; sometimes it looks from the outside like we’re in opposition but even then we’re working together, working to better each other. It’s not about ownership. Draco is my family; he’s the partner I’ve chosen for myself, and he feels the same about me." 

The corners of Akilah’s eyes crinkled, attempting to wrap her head around the concepts he was conveying. More than anything, she seemed to want to understand his experience. “You’re dominant—the leader in your marriage, and you have final say in your sex lives. But Draco’s role is active rather than passive, and he self-identifies as a dominant top, so you’re not comfortable having him labeled as submissive, though he does occasionally bottom for you.” 

Harry nodded. “That’s more accurate.” 

“And the two of you are sexually exclusive?” 

At last, a question with a simple answer. Harry almost laughed. “Yeah, we’re monogamous.” 

“Since…?” 

“We were together less than a week when I set that expectation.” Harry thought back, admitting, “Early in our relationship, I was wildly possessive. That came from fear on my part, and a need to control him. I’d never felt about anyone the way I felt for Draco. I was terrified of losing him, terrified he might not feel as strongly for me as I did about him. The idea of another person lusting after him made me crazy—because I was afraid he’d bolt, afraid he’d dump me at the first sign of somebody better. _I_ was insecure. I didn’t believe I was someone he could be into as more than a fling. I was desperate to keep him, desperate for him to stick around. I wanted him to love me the way I loved him. 

“Knowing that he had more of a sexual history made my jealousy worse, I think, because as a virgin with no experience I was constantly comparing myself to his past partners, wondering how I measured up. I even asked him once, how I compared. Dumb move, I know,” Harry pushed his hair out of his eyes, embarrassed at his past self, attempting to laugh it off. “Draco was awesome about it—he said I was the best he ever had… and he meant it; because I treated him well, I gave him my respect above everything else, and he’d never known that before. 

“He understood from the start, and I made it clear that I was with him because I wanted to be. I chose him. And because he was flat broke for the first time in his life, and technically homeless, I think he saw that I was into _him_ , that I only wanted to be with him, and make memories with him, make his life better, to take care of him because I love him. 

“He helped me get myself out of that uncertain phase. We both got to reinvent ourselves. Living together really helped solidify things. By the time we got married, my self-doubt really started to clear up. In my head, I’d chosen him, and in taking my last name he very publically chose me back. 

“Insisting on monogamy was a way for me to cut down on Draco’s exposure to other potential partners,” Harry confessed. “It was a way to control him early on, to make sure he stayed with me. Policing his sexuality made me feel better about my own lack of sex appeal… which I see was very fucked up. My reasoning for asking Draco to be monogamous was that, if he was unfaithful, I would at least have proof he wasn’t serious about me. If he stayed true… well, then he really loved me. That was my thinking at the time. 

“Draco has expressed an interest in being less than strictly monogamous,” Harry added in the interest of full disclosure. “It’s a fantasy for him. He’s… got a thing for three-ways and orgies.” Draco’s mental wank material still made Harry blush, but only because Draco’s imagination got dirtier with time. He thought about implements and multiple bodies in contorted positions, letting his mind wander freely—knowing Harry could see what was in his head, and knowing his husband would never judge him for it no matter how filthy. Together, they’d already brought a few of Draco’s early fantasies to life—shagging in multiple quidditch locker rooms, and on furniture, and even whilst riding a broomstick. 

The more challenging or absurd the fantasy, the more Harry’s stubbornness and extreme goal-orientation drove him to make it happen. Anything good which happened in Harry’s life occurred because of his refusal to accept ‘no’ for an answer, so he would never say ‘no’ to Draco’s kinky dreams if he could help it. Adventures happened when he agreed. He loved seeing Draco’s face light up when his imagination came to life through Harry’s hands. Making Draco happy made Harry feel like he really could do anything. 

“Draco loves sex; he’s good at it, too.” Harry smirked, landing on a story he knew would be okay for him to tell. “When Draco was younger he had this rage-fantasy that, if his father ever disowned him, he’d become a wizard-porn star to spite his dad… but also because he might enjoy that sort of work. He fancies being watched. It turns him on. He likes it when people look at us, even if we’re just holding hands in public. 

“All of his past relationships have been non-exclusive, mostly because they were so short and emotionally shallow. Those relationships were all about being noticed and looked at, which fed his ego. I think… being with me raises his confidence and self-worth rather than his ego, which is much healthier. 

“He’s been perfectly monogamous for my sake. It was a way for him to prove his trustworthiness to me. And he’s proven himself, over and over again. He understood how important it was to me, what it meant for me to have him all to myself. It’s a promise we made to each other but… I think we should get to define our marriage, and what we’re comfortable with, and… being practical about the next—my God, eighty-plus years of our lives,” Harry rolled his eyes, a true laugh escaping his throat at the thought of being a hundred years old with Draco… his husband still having wank fantasies about random hot girls or cute guys. “Our needs and desires are probably gonna change over that much time together. I’m not gonna hold Draco-at-fifty-years-old to things he said at age seventeen. That’s not fair.”

Curious, Akilah’s head tipped. “You no longer need the reassurance you get from monogamy?” 

Harry blinked, gathering his thoughts. “I… I know Draco loves me. I don’t worry about him taking off with the next set of big tits he sees.” That made Akilah laugh, which eased Harry’s own voice. “We have a pretty great marriage. The sex is incredible. I’m not afraid of him getting bored with me. I think… right now, I could be alright with him kissing somebody else—providing we’re on the same page about it, and whoever he’s snogging knows it’s not going any further than that.” 

He was thinking of his own strange kiss with Sia a year ago. Draco had said he thought it was fun—“starting an orgy” with Dima and Sia, to quote the ponce directly—and they ought to do it again sometime. Group sex _was_ one of Draco’s biggest turn-ons, and he’d had a lot of it. But they’d never discussed it again after that night. Possibly because Draco could sense how much monogamy gave Harry a sense of control within their relationship as the war went off like a bomb around them. Possibly because Harry hadn’t learned the necessary words to bring it up again; he refused to master the huge, unruly emotions which Draco had brought out in him. Now, things were more calm. They could start to have these conversations. 

“It’s more that… as he’s expressing himself more through his music, I can see other people wanting to get close to him, because he’s truly beautiful, you know?” Harry’s mind drifted to the Lolita girl who’d hit on him at the club the night of Draco’s performance. Draco might take a beautiful woman like her for a snog in the alley and it wouldn’t mean anything to him. Draco could put his mouth on someone and not have the action touch his heart. Harry never had that kind of filter. Once Harry trusted someone well enough to have them be that physically close, he already cared about them. Draco was the opposite; he’d let anybody slob on his prick because he had no intimacy or personal investment at all. It was just sex, physical pleasure. Draco might not even remember their name. 

What worried Harry was Draco getting into a meaningful relationship only to have the rug pulled out from under him; and that wasn’t going to happen with a muggle because of Draco’s strong opinions on the futility of magi-muggle romantic relations. 

It was the shadowy concept of an alluring witch or wizard whom Harry fretted about these days—a powerful person swooping in on a broomstick to sweep Draco off his feet only to shatter his heart. 

Aloud, Harry said, “I don’t want him to get burned just as he’s starting to open himself again. Getting hurt would make him close up tighter than ever—and that’s the last thing I want, to see my husband get let down or be treated badly. So I’m still quite protective; but not because I need to control his body or monitor his behavior. I trust him completely. He’s making so much progress with his music that… I don’t wanna risk his heart getting smashed to bits so soon after losing his father, his mum not knowing who he is anymore, and generally having his life turned upside-down. He’s still figuring out who Draco Potter is. So I think the timing is less than ideal to start snogging other people.” 

Licking her lips, Akilah proposed, “It sounds like you might consider at least temporarily opening your relationship at some point in the future. To give Draco his fantasy.”

Harry conjured a glass, thought _Aguamenti_ until it filled with water, and then downed it. He talked more in an hour with Akilah than he did all day at work. But it felt good to have somebody to bounce these ideas off of, to check his thinking and arrange his feelings before he brought them to Draco in a more neat, coherent package. 

“I dunno. Maybe. Right now I’m learning to share him through his music. It’s emotional, but I think it’s ultimately good for both of us. Draco is figuring out how to open himself up in front of an audience—and I’m learning to tolerate random strangers openly lusting after my husband. That much I’m okay with; its controlled, there are boundaries, we get to plan ahead and have the same expectations about how the gig will go. No one’s gonna jump on stage at a show and start sucking him off. I know Draco can kiss or have sex without it being emotionally invested but… I don’t think _I’m_ capable of that. I don’t have much of a barrier between my body and my heart right now, because my whole sexual existence has been with _him_ and only him. I’m not ready to be sexual with anyone but my husband right now. And I don’t know how I’d feel about Draco having sex with anyone but me.” 

“Because he’s yours?” 

Harry’s lip curled. “I trust Draco. So… it’s other people I don’t have much faith in,” Harry realized with a jolt. “Other people are terrible—I learned that much in the war. I need guarantees that Draco would be treated with all the respect and patience and love that he deserves. And with the social climate after the war… I don’t think there are very many people in the world I would trust to be good to Draco—good enough to meet my standards, anyway.” 

“You’ve put a good deal of thought into this,” she observed for the second time. 

Harry refilled his water. “Well, yeah. It’s Draco’s fantasy. And like we talk about, sharing fantasies and having that fulfillment is integral to a healthy marriage. I wanted to get creative and find a way to maybe make this happen someday… for him.” 

Akilah regarded him carefully. “Did you find a way?” 

He wanted to fold his arms across his chest—to close himself off. Instead he drank his water, Vanished the glass when he was done, and folded his hands in his lap instead. He spoke to his hands. 

“I… I made a joke to Ron once—he was asking me how I’d react if Draco had a crush on someone else. I told Ron we’d get some Polyjuice Potion and I’d drink it, so Draco could have the fantasy of sleeping with whomever he fancied but it would be me underneath, so it wouldn’t be cheating. That’s… a possibility. But I worry about the person whose body we’d be borrowing. I would wanna have their full knowledge and permission before I had sex in their likeness.” 

He knew shit had gone down between Dima and Nebojsa at Hogwarts. They were two teenage guys who’d come within inches of dying, whose futures were uncertain, who were persecuted and hunted because of who they were and how they loved each other. Living as Harry and Hermione for almost a month must’ve been a dream come true for them. 

At the time, Harry and Draco discussed that whomever was disguised as Hermione would have access to all the girls’ dormitories and showers and loos in the castle; and for that reason they’d chosen Dima, not just because of his being strictly gay, but also universally sexually repulsed by women. It made sense at the time. Dmitry was the safest possible choice. 

What they hadn’t considered was what Dima and Sia might feel for each other when given the opportunity to be heterosexual—the one thing they couldn’t help which could have prevented so many of their problems. It must have been like The Mirror of Erised come to life, a dream you could kiss and hold and fuck ‘til you cried. 

Harry was happy he’d been able to give his mates that respite. And it didn’t bother him that maybe they’d snogged or screwed using his body. He’d known what he was signing up for—showers and loo visits and the occasional morning boner requiring a quick, mechanical toss. Not a big deal… to _him_. Hermione hadn’t completely understood what she was committing to; while she trusted Harry implicitly, she was perhaps a bit naive about teenage sexuality, and she hadn’t known going into it that the person in her body would be a gay bloke with his boyfriend nearby. 

Harry ought to have mentioned that. He ought to have taken his bollocks out of their hiding place and had an honest conversation with his mates explaining Hermione’s conservative views on premarital sex. He ought to have asked Dima and Nebojsa to abstain out of respect for Hermione’s beliefs. They would have, had Harry asked. He didn’t ask; he failed to have that conversation, to provide adequate information and set those necessary boundaries, and that failure was on him. _He_ was the one who felt compelled to keep information to himself, to keep the people he loved in the dark. He learned that habit from Dumbledore, of course, and it was a guaranteed way to get people to hate you when they learned the truth. Dumbledore regularly put people in positions where a single cock-up could be their downfall; and Harry repeated that type of engineering behavior, enacting it on his friends. 

Nebojsa and Dima may have gotten their dicks stuck in a trap, but Harry was the one who laid and baited said trap in the first place. A bit of guidance on his part could have saved the whole situation from getting out of hand; instead he followed the Dumbledore model, providing the people he loved with incomplete information and expecting them to muddle through on their own with no further help or clarification from him… because that way he didn’t feel culpable if they made mistakes following his plan. 

Harry merely followed the flawed model of leadership he’d been given. The results of his choices were a disaster he had no idea how to start cleaning up.

“That’s a clever solution, Harry.” He’d explained to Akilah what Polyjuice Potion was, since most people didn’t know about it unless they were the devious, rule-breaking sort, or they’d been involved in Law Enforcement during the first war with Voldemort.

He lifted a shoulder. He didn’t feel clever at all. “Maybe. Polyjuice has its own set of complications. We’d still be involving a third party no matter what. The Polyjuice idea is something I need to kick around some more and decide how I feel before I bring it to Draco.” 

Harry knew Akilah’s expression—she was about to play devil’s advocate with him. “Have you considered a third party? Or arranging for the two of you to have sex in front of someone else discreetly? You mentioned Draco’s interest in exhibitionism. You might invite someone you trust to join you as a voyeur.”

His mouth moved, but nothing came out. In Harry’s opinion, _v_ _oyeur_ was a very classy way to say “have somebody watch you fuck—just watch—and be into it.” He’d have to remember that word when he eventually breached the subject with his husband.

“I dunno about having someone join us… or watch, even. Maybe that’s me being shy,” he forced himself to swallow, spitting out the truth. “I don’t find myself attractive _at all_ , so it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to watch me get humped. Draco—sure, I’d watch him for hours. I would be far too self-conscious. I think sex with us, or just the way we have sex, would freak most people out, anyway. Between the… I dunno, our penchant for violence—sadism, or whatever you wanna call it—the wandless magic, and our talking in Parseltongue…” he shrugged. “I don’t think it would be fair, to expect anybody to just jump into that. Even most witches or wizards would feel left out… or disturbed.” 

"You speak Parseltongue in the bedroom?" Akilah asked, taking the tangent because she saw some value in it. "Why do you think that is?" 

He considered. "Simple answer would be that I spent most of my sexual life wanking, and a prick kinda looks like a snake." He blew out a choppy breath which wasn't quite a chuckle at his own joke. 

Akilah waited for a real answer, not a joke or him brushing off the subject. 

Harry had to stop making jokes to distract from how he really felt—it was one of Draco’s bad habits which was slowly rubbing off on him, preventing him from speaking honestly and openly about his feelings. He’d always been funny in a dry sort of way… he didn’t want his natural humor to become a wall, closing him off to more meaningful interactions. 

"I think it’s complicated. Maybe it has something to do with Draco, the snake on his tattoo reminding me of sex because he's the first person I was with on an emotional level. Maybe I associate sex with darker instincts I'd rather shut out, something to be ashamed of, something people don't like about me, something I shouldn't be doing according to other people. Being a Parselmouth is as much a part of me as my sexual desires; they're both things I couldn't change even if I tried. Things which people judge me for without understanding.”

“I’ve never heard Parseltongue before. It’s quite a rare ability, and there are no recordings.” 

“Actually, I don’t think Parseltongue _can_ be recorded,” offered Harry. “Nebojsa and I tried to speak it over the phone once and it didn’t work. I suspect it’s one of those older magics that are flat-out incompatible with muggle voice technology.” If his hunch was correct, then a Parselmouth could never be caught on video speaking the language, making it safe from being exposed. Muggles nearby would be confused, of course, but there would never be evidence. 

“The only known living speakers are yourself,” she tested her knowledge, “Draco, and your friend Nebojsa, correct?” 

“Yeah. Dima can understand when he hears it, like Draco when we started dating, but he can’t talk back—which is probably a blessing for Sia, because Dima would never shut up talking dirty to him if nobody but us could understand.” 

Akilah chuckled a bit, appreciating his humor. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to realize you could speak another language—especially one you’d never known about, in your case, Harry.”

“Yeah, it was a shock,” he admitted. “I thought I’d lost my mind. I wasn’t quite ten the first time it happened. I was having flares of endopathotic magic at the same time. It all blurred together to make me a complete outcast. Kinda like coming out, I guess—something inside me, something I didn’t know about until it popped up and scared me half to death and made everyone treat me differently. Maybe that’s why Parseltongue and sexuality are linked in my head. ‘Suppose I’ve gotten used to my own magic and body surprising me.” 

He used a finger against the bottom rim of his glasses to push them back up his nose where they belonged. “Would you like to hear Parseltongue?” Most people wanted to, once they got over their surprise. It _was_ a rare ability. Most people went their entire lives without meeting a single Parselmouth. With Voldemort dead, there were just three of them left. 

Akilah’s eyes lit up. At her core, she was a compassionate scientist who studied humans for a living. A rare ability like his naturally fascinated her. “Please! If you wouldn’t mind.”

He thought about the dead basilisk rotting away in the Chamber of Secrets after he fatally wounded it with Gryffindor’s sword which he’d pulled from the Sorting Hat. And the time Nagini took a bite out of his leg before he could stab her with Nebojsa’s cross pulled from his own neck, destroying the horcrux hidden beneath her scales, in her blood. From a rear perspective, it seemed Harry Potter could pull violence from the very air around him, leaving nothing but death and destruction in his wake. Parseltongue reminded him of all he’d destroyed. 

He hissed out a few words of the magical language he’d inherited from Tom Riddle… and Voldemort from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. 

“Amazing…” his therapist whispered. “What did you say?” 

“Uh, ‘This is what all the fuss is about.’” 

“Really? It seemed much shorter than that. Fewer syllables, I mean.” 

Harry had come to a deeper understanding of the language the more he spoke it. He’d gotten plenty of practice, between hissing at snakes and at people—Voldemort, then Draco and Nebojsa. Sia grew up in the city; he hadn’t discovered his ability until he was a teenager. And Draco only got it last spring. Harry was probably the most proficient snake-speaker alive, and thereby the most qualified to start making pronouncements about a language which was in many ways his. 

“Parseltongue is a weird language. It doesn’t translate directly. It comes from inside you—so it’s really hard to lie in Parseltongue. The language… it defaults to the truest word for how you think or feel, as though it can read your heart. A few weeks ago,” he offered in example, “I was talking to Nebojsa in Parseltongue; in English I would’ve said ‘mate,’ but it came out as ‘brother.’ Because he’s like family to me—that’s how I feel, so that’s what he hears when I talk to him. I used to compliment Draco in Parseltongue and tell him that I loved him—before I knew he could understand me. When I said it in snake tongue he couldn’t talk back to me or try to negate what I was saying. At first I was just talking for myself, as a release. It was the only way he’d take a compliment back then. Maybe I got used to speaking the language in bed because it was how I finally got through to Draco. 

“Speaking Parseltongue is a way to show I’m being brutally honest, holding nothing back. And honesty is really important to Draco… especially when we fuck." 

Akilah glanced at the clock—it was a couple minutes past their time, Harry could see from the corner of his glasses looking down at his watch. He’d started wearing one for convenience, moving around the muggle world. One of his Law Enforcement instructors taught them a spell so that their timepieces would always show the right time no matter what time-zone they traveled to. It only worked on mechanical watches, not digital, which meant Harry got very good at converting between civilian and military time in his head. 

“Unfortunately I have another appointment coming,” his therapist said by way of apology, cutting their conversation short. “This was a good session. I think we made a lot of progress. We should come back to this, especially once you’ve brought your ideas to Draco.” 

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, false-bright. He wanted to take their sex life to the next level, to keep things exciting for Draco; which meant they needed to have these types of conversations, to be on the same page, before they climbed into someone else’s skin or brought another person into their bedroom to perv on them with their permission.

But before he could have these perverted conversations, he wanted to tell Draco how he’d arrived at them. Which meant explaining to Draco what psychotherapy was, how it worked, why he went— _that_ he was going—and how it was helping.

Any day now. He just had to work up his nerve… and find the right time.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

The Hit Wizard recruits gathered in their usual classroom first thing on Monday morning. Usually they had mugs of tea or coffee with them, plus their parchments or notebooks and preferred writing instruments. Today was different. They’d finished their testing the end of last week, and today they would find out who had made it, who would officially become a Hit Witch or Wizard. 

Harry’s instinct was to try and cut the tense atmosphere with a joke, but nothing came to mind; especially when he glanced around, looking over familiar faces to find one missing. 

“Oh no,” he groaned out loud, genuinely upset and unable to keep it in. “Cardoso’s gone.” 

Nebojsa looked sad—he and Harry learned a lot from the sly Brazilian wizard, and were gonna miss him. 

Karine de la Salle shrugged; she wasn’t unfeeling, but she hadn’t been close with Jai. “Yoo know what zat means?” she raised her eyebrows.

Iga murmured, “ _We_ made it.” She looked pleased, almost happy. After the news about her sister, Iga needed this win more than anyone else in the room. 

Harry counted heads. They were an uneven number, meaning someone among them might be hired probationally, or perhaps there was a more experienced officer retiring or transferring, leaving their partner in need.

They didn’t have long to wonder. Head Trainer Luca Bisset strode into the classroom, Director Robards and Head Hit Wizard Nash on his heels. The recruits stood: the muggle in Harry always felt there ought to be some type of salute or gesture to make in the presence of a military superior, while his wizard side reminded him that anything which took your hand away from your wand would never catch on as a practice. Everything they did was about safety, efficiency, and respect for the public. Standing up when an officer who outranked you entered the room was the most they did, aside from calling everyone Sir or Ma’am. Compared to muggle military manners, they were quite informal. 

Being the most senior officer, Robards addressed them. 

“Congratulations,” he smiled at them. “The seven of you have passed your testing to join the department. After conferring with Mr. Nash and Mr. Bisset, we’ve assigned your teams which will be effective starting today.” He stepped back, giving Nash the floor. 

Thinking Robards’ preamble sufficient, Seathan Nash recited their new assignments.

"Potter and Weasley."

Harry and Ron locked eyes, fighting to hold back their little-boy grins. That was pretty fucking awesome. 

"Ledinski and Østergaard." That made sense to Harry, putting two strong duelists together. It helped that Iga was completely immune to Mads’ good looks. They were friendly, but nothing more than that. Harry got the impression that Mads wasn’t Iga’s type and he knew it; of all the girls in the office he flashed smiles at, he never tried with Iga.

"De la Salle, you're with Jorgensen, since O’Farrell's leaving us to play for Puddlemere." Dana Jorgensen had played Chaser for the Kites in Norway up until two years ago—becoming a Hit Wizard after Durmstrang fell and his little sister was killed there. He would be a good match for Beauxbatons-educated Karine, who was quite athletic herself, and lost her whole family to the Death Eaters, too. Karine was nearly as tall as Harry: Dana would still dwarf her, since he was six and a half feet tall, but Karine could easily use him for cover in a firefight. With a five or six year age gap combined with having gone to different schools, Karine and Dana likely had no conflicting relationships to muck up a partnership or prevent them from deploying together. 

Which left…. "Ionescue and Radić." 

Dima and Sia looked at each other, but not in a good way. The color drained from Dima's cheeks, and Sia winced. Harry could read their expressions. _We have to_ _tell_.

They got paired together because they weren't out. 

It was against the rules for couples to be Hit teams; the same as it was against the rules for siblings to be paired together for combat, or parents and children. You had to be able to keep your cool if your partner was taking fire. And you couldn't guarantee you'd be able to think clearly if your partner was also the person you loved. If Dima and Nebojsa became law enforcement partners and decided to come out later, they'd both be fired for failure to disclose. 

Dima and Sia both knew what had to be done, but it was the Serbian who spoke. He sounded almost sad, but determined. "Sir. Ve have a conflict."

Nash looked more confused than angry. "Fine," he shrugged, a little wavering hand gesture letting Robards and Bisset know he would handle it and they could go back to their work. Emotionless, Nash gruffed at Dmitry and Nebojsa: "My office." 

Everyone else was dismissed. Harry caught Nebojsa's eyes, raising his own eyebrows—silently asking if they wanted him to go with. It was easier coming out with Harry Potter at your side. No one could back-talk or give you grief in front of The Boy Who Lived To Suck Death Eater Dick, And Also Saved Everyone's Lives In The Process. Even the people who weren’t too morally keen on the cock-sucking had to tolerate it—and him—because of the world-saving bit. 

Sia and Dima held a wordless discussion of only expressions: widening and sharpening eyes, shifting of brows, and at one point they both bit their lips. In the end, both nodded to him. Harry scooped his fingers at Ron to come along. They might need to switch.

Harry was bummed at the prospect of not working with Ron after having been placed together. He'd been genuinely excited to team up with Ron again; their supervisors thought they would do well together, that their skills were balanced, which would be a huge boost to Ron’s confidence.

Unfortunately, the issue at hand was bigger. Dima and Sia were doing the right thing. They'd have been kicked out for not following the rules by not disclosing their relationship. Harry was proud of them for making the right choice on their own, even though it meant outing themselves to the boss. For their own private reasons, they didn't want their relationship public. Harry respected that without having to know the details.

If there was one thing he'd learned from nearly losing Ron and Hermione, it was the importance of respecting your friends' choices even if you didn't understand or agree. A friend’s role was to be supportive and loving, not to make someone else’s choices for them, or decide how your mates would live their lives. Kinda like being married. Harry hoped he was getting better at both.

 

 

 

 

The four of them stepped into Nash’s office. Harry was the last one through the door, closing it behind him.

There weren't enough chairs, so while Nash sat behind his desk the recruits remained standing; Dima and Sia in the middle, facing the boss squarely, with Ron and Harry leaning against opposite walls, isolating themselves from the conversation until they were needed. Ron folded his arms over his chest—thinking this might not go very well and physically bracing himself if he was about to see his peers get yelled at. Ron usually leaned against a wall with his hands in his pockets when his mum yelled, too. Harry knew Ron’s body language, shielding himself against a dressing-down which could turn his way if he called too much attention to himself.

Harry mirrored his pose, though he didn’t feel the same. He was so used to getting in trouble it didn’t even get his heart pounding anymore. He could handle it if Nash lost his temper or raised his voice. Harry was there for Dima and Sia, in case things got ugly for them or they needed him to take over and be the calm one. Dima or Sia could potentially lose their cool if they felt threatened; Dmitry wasn’t keen on coming out before he was ready, and Nebojsa didn’t like anyone pushing Dima around—especially when it came to emotional shit like this. 

"Well?" the boss barked. "Wot's the conflict?" He nearly followed that with, _I haven't got all day_. The impatience was in his tone, more clipped than usual.

 _Not exactly the best way to induce a very private couple to come out to you_ , Harry thought. A bit of compassion wouldn't hurt. Conflicts were often deeply personal. 

Dima flared. Harry could actually see his muscles rolling, stiffening under the cotton robe he wore. His hands flexed at his sides in an effort not to make fists. He wanted to keep his cool, but his words came out hot. "Ve are engaged." 

Sia's pale eyes flashed as his head whipped, glaring at Dima. He snapped in Romanian—which, thank God, Nash didn’t speak. "I don't see a ring on my finger, asshole!" 

Oh fuck. Harry knew that tenor from a year with Draco. Dima was fucking dead meat when they got home.

But Nebojsa reigned himself in, setting aside his anger with Dima and turning back to the boss to explain in English. "It iz illegal to be gay in Romania. If our relationship vere known, ve risk going to prison. Dmitry and hiz brozher could lose zhe home vhich haz been in zheir family over two hundred years." For the sake of simplicity, he chose not to debate Dima’s claim that they planned to get married. As far as Harry knew, such intentions might exist on one side or the other, but nobody had been asked, and nobody’d said yes. 

It was more than a leap—Dima had outright lied. Harry couldn’t tell whether Dmitry overstepped out of bluster, or some instinct to pay respect to Nebojsa’s religious preferences, or perhaps as a way to legitimize their relationship by claiming they’d reached that level of commitment. Maybe Dima didn’t think Nash would take them seriously if they only said they were dating. 

Nebojsa seemed upset that Dima was marking his territory like a dog whilst lying at the same time. 

"Ve are vaitlisted for British citizenship," added Dima. "Until ve have official papers to protect us from deportation, no one can know." 

It was almost, _almost_ an apology for not reporting their conflict on their intake paperwork. But, had they reported, there was a chance the information could leak from their files, causing them to be arrested the next time they went back to Romania. Or Sia could be arrested and extradited if he ever went back to Serbia. 

Harry wouldn't have risked it, either. Nash's face said much the same. As their boss, he didn’t appreciate that they’d withheld information. Personally, Nash might’ve done exactly the same in their shoes. He understood their backs were against a wall, that coming out was more risk than they could tolerate. Being a Hit Wizard was all about assessing risk—knowing what you were willing to take on as well as accepting your limits and leaning on your team. 

"Potter, Weasley. I assume yer here because ya knew ‘bout this, and yer willin’ to switch." 

Ron gave Harry a helpless look from across the room—not unlike the grave determination on his face when he'd sacrificed himself in a chess match first year. Again, Ron stepped up, taking one for Harry. 

"Yeah," he said, unfolding his long arms, standing up straight.   

The boss picked up his papers, ready to make the changes. "Tell me who goes with who, then. Plead yer case." 

Harry wasn't ready for that. It was a bad habit of his, assuming other more powerful people would always tell him what to do. It had been drilled into him by Uncle Vernon and... and... Dumbledore. Harry always deferred to Dumbledore, waiting for instructions or his next move. Even fucking Dumbledore, his mentor, the person who was supposed to be looking out for him, had been training him to be a passive victim most of his life. That made him see red. He had to take a deep breath and focus on what he wanted, here and now. 

He wasn't quite sure. 

He was used to working with Sia. They'd already fought so many battles together. But... they were so similar. Would they compliment each other going forward? Were they actually that good of a team?

Dima was the first to speak. "I vant Veasley."

Ron started. "Me?" his voice had a waver, almost a crack. He couldn’t fathom what Dima might see in him—what would make Dima prefer him as a partner over Harry. "Why?" 

Harry barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. Ron didn't see his own strengths most of the time—after a lifetime of comparing himself to his brothers, then comparing himself to Harry Potter, Ron didn’t always have an accurate view of his own abilities.

Dima listed on his heavy-looking fingers. "Ve are both brawlers. Both use Batushanski vands of unicorn hair," which was a solid point in their favor. If either of them were disarmed in battle, they could probably use each other's wands. "My friend Chereshko left yoo his knives, and I'd like to zee you use zhem." He tilted his head to indicate Nebojsa… and Harry, too. "And yoo do not have hiz temper, or sharp tongue. I vould razher vork vith someone who vill not criticize my every decizion." 

Dima saw the little brother in Ron, as a middle child himself. He wanted to draw Ron out, to help him tap into the boldness and bravado which dripped off the Romanian prince like sunshine off his perpetual tan. Dima was exactly the sort of bloke Ron looked up to… and it would be a big deal to the other Weasley boys, that Ron’s teammate and work partner was known amongst the family to be gay. That would mean the world to Charlie, in addition to being a big step forward for Ron. 

Nebojsa licked his lips but didn't say anything. His criticizing tongue wiggled the piercing in his bottom lip, letting Dima do the talking. That much was like the night they’d met. Harry understood: dominance wasn’t about controlling the conversation, but rather about leading it. Leadership meant giving everyone the opportunity to be heard and to participate in decision-making. Sometimes the most dominant thing you could do was to shut the fuck up and listen. 

Nash was engaged in good leadership presently. Harry and Nebojsa listened, too, letting Dima and Ron speak first. 

"Yeah, okay," Ron agreed. "Stick the two sneaky Parselmouths together. Makes sense. They already worked together all of last year, anyway." 

Nash looked between Harry and Sia. "Tha’ true?"

Harry shrugged. Nebojsa tipped his chin up, acknowledging it was correct, though by no means complete.

"You work well together?" the boss pressed—a subtle inquiry, seeking to be sure they’d sorted out the quirks with their sorcery and could manage to do magic adjacently without accidently shoving one another off their respective mortal coils. 

Neither Harry nor Sia wanted to brag. They both ended up making the exact same gesture at the same time—a single-shoulder shrug, and one corner of each of their mouths turning up.

Dima spoke for them. "Zhey infiltrated your Ministry vhile it vos held by Death Eaters and stole an artifact from zhe Dark Lord himzelf. After being tortured for nearly three days." 

Sia actually rolled his eyes, his face saying unmistakably, _Oh stop_ _!_ It was actually more like two days, but under Bellatrix’s wand it had felt like an eternity. 

Technically speaking, that was exactly what they'd done. Or rather, they'd killed Nagini and barely escaped with their lives, but... more or less, yeah. 

The boss looked duly impressed. 

"Gentlemen? Does this arrangement work fer you?" 

Dima stepped behind Sia, going to stand next to Ron. The two of them presented a wall of muscle which no one in their right mind would wanna fuck with; they made a good team, both broadly built, both aggressive physical fighters, both middle children possessing a balance of loyalty and the need to prove themselves by standing out. Having the good opinion of a well-known wealthy wizard prince definitely helped Ron feel singled out in a positive way. He stood a little straighter, his chin rising, with Dima at his side. 

That left Sia to take a few steps towards Harry. His long legs covered the distance, not stopping until he was surprisingly close—his hair lifting in some invisible breeze that made him look like a skinny black-haired version of a Veela when he walked, his dark grey robe fanning out behind him, shiny black strands feathering around his feminine face.

 _Shit. Fucking shit._ Harry had to stop himself from thinking about Sia like that. Especially if they were going to be working together... indefinitely. 

It was rather a good thing he’d adopted a casual stance, his shoulder propped against the wall, mirroring Ron’s arm-folding over his own chest. Having the wall helped get his legs under him, locking his knees, propping himself up to his full height, chest-to-chest with Sia. Harry was still at least two inches shorter, putting his lightning bolt scar level with the Serbian sorcerer’s eyes. 

When Sia looked down at him, it was as though Harry could read his inner-most feelings. Nothing about his face changed. Not even the blue-white smoke within his eyes shifted, seemingly frozen. He could’ve been a statue. 

 _This is a horrible idea_ _, brother_.

 _Why, tho?_ Harry argued in his own head out of conciliatory instinct. Why were they so terrible? So long as Harry kept his Blood Sorcery power to himself, he couldn’t foresee any other issue. 

Nebojsa raised his eyebrows. He was so close Harry could feel the disturbance of air caused by his long black eyelashes when he blinked—those eyelashes were so thick and pretty that Harry had done double-takes on more than one occasion, trying to figure out whether or not Nebojsa wore mascara on a daily basis. His beautiful lashes were one hundred percent natural. 

Without his glasses to serve as a barrier, Harry felt Nebojsa’s exhale over his upper cheeks like a warm wind, rustling his hair. The sorcerer’s breath smelled of black tea and the cherries he sweetened it with.

“Vell?”

Dima and Ron had made the arguments which Harry and Sia were too forcibly humble to bring up. It came down to Harry—he had to agree to swap partners.

"Uh... sure," Harry blinked. He looked at the man standing in front of him, his friend… some might argue his best friend these days, the only other person in the world with an active Blood Sorcery power—more than active, Nebojsa’s power was deadly. "Why not, right?"

The boss nodded, scratching on his parchments, changing their assignments. Nash looked up, his narrowed eyes drifting between Dima and Sia on opposite sides of the room. 

By his expression, Nash was trying to piece together their relationship in his head when they acted nothing like a couple—their cold and disinterested body language, standing with their work partners rather than comforting each other after coming out to their boss… Dima and Sia weren’t a normal couple, and Nash seemed to accept that. Dima would rather be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ron, and Nebojsa… he and Harry had bled on each other for God’s sake! They were a kind of family Harry still didn’t have words for. And since Harry was more physically free in public, not worried about being outed or arrested, he and Sia could actually hug and such. Of course Sia would rather be near Harry than Dima right now; because Dima wouldn’t do anything to console him, anyway. For that, Harry reached up, rubbing his palm against Nebojsa’s elbow—letting him know everything would be okay.

His friends were so accustomed to hiding their relationship that it was second nature by now. With the exception of Nebojsa snapping at Dima for falsely claiming they were engaged, they’d done nothing to indicate they were together, that they loved each other. Every couple had their own way of showing affection. For Dima and Sia, the act of expressing their feelings for each other was so private, so sacred, that they would never expose it while at work. In fact, Harry could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Dima and Sia do anything affectionate in public. He’d seen them openly hold hands a grand total of _once_ , and kiss twice where other people could see them. That was what being in the closet looked like… and Dima was in deep, more attached to the false presentation of straightness than Harry had ever been to his own cupboard.   

Perceptive, Nash gathered he’d been let in on a very well-kept secret—that few others outside this room would ever know about Nebojsa and Dima’s true relationship. It was need-to-know information which they weren’t about to let slip by accidentally doing something couple-y at work. There was no chance of their secret getting out before they were ready… because they trusted every wizard in this room not to tell. 

Nash smirked. "I expect an invite to the wedding, lads." That was encouraging, along with the slight twinkle in his eyes—as a father, Nash liked seeing young people in happy relationships, whatever shape those partnerships took. "Now get outta my office."

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Since so much was changing in the department—new laws, new mixed magical-and-muggle weapon technology, and the ways in which they enforced the law—it was deemed time that the department’s uniforms were modified to reflect and assist their changing roles. They hadn't had a change in uniforms in something like three hundred years. 

Old Harry might've said that a robe was a robe. Hogwarts uniforms hadn't been updated in close to eighty years and no one much cared. But wearing a robe designed for law enforcement in the 1700's was very different indeed than what they needed now. Harry appreciated the opportunity for re-design, to focus on functionality as much as the form might not obviously change. They'd probably still be in robes when all was said and done. 

The firm hired to do the designs were out of Argentina. It took Harry a minute or two to get used to their accents. Once his ears adjusted, he agreed with everything they said.

The designers observed Aurors and Hit Wizards in their office environment for nearly a week, and interviewed a few officers during their non-active administrative days to get an idea of what would aid them on missions and other deployments. After observation they disappeared for two weeks before returning with enchanted sketches for approval to be made into prototypes.

Heads of each office and their deputies got to be in the meetings to give feedback and make adjustments before prototypes were made and presented to each division of Law Enforcement.

The colors weren't changing. Hit Wizards remained outfitted in dark blue, inspiring a unique addition. Under their robe would be a protective clothing layer made from true indigo—a muggle fabric with natural antibacterial properties. It had been used as far back as ancient samurai in Japan as a battlefield protection against infection. The indigo fabric protected flesh wounds, and if the fabric got into the wound it was not damaging but rather beneficial, keeping out bacteria and other undesirable microbes. The indigo would further be enchanted with state-of-the-art Healing Charms to limit the depth of penetrative wounds and provide some temporary pain abatement for the Hit Witch or Wizard until they were able to get to safety or heal themselves. 

Marks of rank were moving from on top of the shoulders to the front and back of the torso, making them easier to see during a firefight and distinguish who was who. The visibility was a trade-off, making them more readily identifiable to Death Eaters, but less likely to experience the devastating event of friendly fire.

Rather than have one uniform that didn't compliment or assist everyone, the team devised multiple related designs. The old robes were invented for the people who wore them—wizards aged twenty to fifty. There were witches in the department now, and different body types with their own optimal design. 

The new robes weren't divided by gender, which Harry thought was rather bright. Instead they were categorized by body type and function. Each version of a robe came in a Broad or Slim type—most women would wear the Slim version, but some of the blokes might, too, like Nebojsa, or other more narrow lads. Broad gear was for bigger shoulders like Ron and Dmitry, but there were a few fit witches who might prefer having the extra body armor. Harry thought Tonks might favor a Broad set when she returned to the field from maternity leave. 

The team introduced a universal design addition: pockets. A cheer went up that was heard on other floors. In three hundred years, their robes never had fucking pockets. 

There were three robe types. The first was a more traditional design aesthetic, for office types and administrators. It was also the most forgiving for someone who was pregnant, as the designers knew there would be a lot of pregnancies over the next twenty years, trying to shore up their numbers after the devastation of the war. This robe took away much of the folds of fabric which could slow down your movement—when you spun to face a threat behind you, there was a second where the old garments swished around your legs, catching up, sometimes dragging against the floor if your knees were bent, or billowing out around you. The weight of the robe was something you had to compensate for. By removing the extra fabric, the result was more streamlined but also made it easier to move around. They further spelled the garment to weigh 50% less—making Aurors and Hits faster as they were less encumbered. 

This would be what most of them elected to wear in the office or for non-violent assignments like escorting a convicted person to trial or testifying in court themselves. 

The Slim version had a shoulder harness for the magi-muggle guns Hits were required to carry, and a place for a spare wand. 

The Broad version had a light leather dueling vest which included the emblem of rank on the chest and the Aurors’ surname printed in silver lettering on front and back.

Unlike Aurors, Hits never wore badges with their names. If your situation necessitated a Hit Wizard's involvement, it was past the point where names were beneficial. When you saw that uniform, it was either because you'd done something highly illegal and you were well aware, or there was about to be some very dangerous activity nearby and you needed to do whatever the people in the dark blue uniforms told you to. Either way, names were irrelevant. The uniform did the talking, because there were often mere seconds to react between seeing a Hit Wizard and the situation going nuclear. 

The design was light and comfortable. You could work out in it, or run several miles before it might get uncomfortable—more from sweat weighing down the cotton fabric than anything else. It reminded Harry of how ancient Olympic athletes competed in the nude, so there could be no interference from clothing... but also so people could admire the athlete's form. And these robes left less to the imagination than the old uniforms, especially the other two versions. 

One was a skirt—or properly, a kind of flat-fronted kilt with pleats at the side which would open when the wearer ran or lunged. Harry immediately knew this would be Dima's choice. He liked the freedom of having his legs out. Scotsmen like Nash and MacPherson would also opt for this form specifically for its close resemblance to a proper kilt. It came with boots and a dueling vest, with indigo underthings and the traditional dark blue sleeves over it as a kind of jumper-and undershirt-style. Even the reinforced dragon hide vest was dyed navy, as well as the quidditch-like bracers worn over the forearms. These bracers concealed a thin stiletto blade which could be deployed two ways—by flicking the wrist and saying a spell, stabbing an assailant when you struck them with the heel of your hand, or via the elbow, a similar spell shooting the blade out when you elbowed your opponent, useful if you were grabbed or being attacked from behind or about to be flanked. 

Harry had seen Dima and Sia both fight with knives during the war and knew they'd gravitate towards this kind of weaponized armor; they were far better knife fighters than Harry, who would describe his skill as adept but underused in favor of his more natural talent of sniping from a distance before jumping into a hand-to-hand frey. He'd stayed back because his small stature made him a target. Now that he was as tall as many of the foreign-born wizards, Harry was finding himself more willing to use his new considerable size and strength to his advantage. 

This kilted uniform was a reimagining of the garb of ancient Roman soldiers, the Celts, and the Viking raiders who dominated England's early war history. Harry saw the influence, the modernization of old-world designs because they still had an effective place in warfare and combat.

The last design was going to be Harry's. It was a flat robe without pleats or additional fabric, fitted throughout the upper body, split skirt, with armored shoulders and a short collar-like guard for the back of the neck now that the rank indicators had been relocated.

Beneath the navy robe was what Harry recognized as a gi, the standard uniform of a martial artist—loose trousers and a top which wrapped around at the front, secured by a belt. The gi was made of indigo, a protective layer for the wearer. The martial artist's belt had been re-imagined as a protector against injury. Rather than a single strip of cloth tied at the waist it was a long strip, wrapped from under the armpits on men or around the breasts for women, and down to just below the navel. When the banding was locked with a spell, it was impervious, preventing damage to the wearer's inner organs by penetration or blunt force.

Some of the older witches referred to it as a girdle—which wasn't far off, visually-speaking, though both the designers and the model wearing it insisted it wasn't at all restrictive to wear. The cloth binding wasn't tight, and the indigo was as light as linen so it wouldn't slow you down or limit breathing or movement in any way. 

Harry liked the idea of never being at risk of being stabbed in any of his vital organs. It could be worn with the weaponized bracers, and because of the lack of a protective vest, the belt or shoulder straps had more space for additional weapons or supplies like potions or Peruvian Darkness Powder. This would be his favorite of the uniforms.

He exchanged a look with Nebojsa. They were both leaning towards this option. Sia would take the Slim version, with light leather over the shoulders, a back plate, and straps securing it around the ribs. Harry might try the more heavily armored Broad version and see if it worked for him. 

Harry spent a minute thinking about how others might've looked in these uniforms—Mad Eye Moody in an indigo kilt, Hit Wizard Williamson geared up in dragon hide body armor, or Margie Gweir using those concealed blades to fight her way out of confinement. These were great designs, informed by how wearers would use them and constructed with the combat-fighter uniquely in mind.

Those who worked exclusively in the office raised their eyes a bit. But the administrators had never found themselves in a seven-to-one firefight with Death Eaters in a muggle street like Mad Eye Moody had in London a year ago. With outfittings like this, maybe he'd have survived, maybe not, but they'd have helped him fight. These changes were necessary and needed—to preserve their bodies and in some cases their lives—so they could keep doing their jobs with fewer injuries or casualties. Those who'd worked in the field understood the need, and appreciated the many considerations which had gone into the design of their new gear.

 

 

 

 

 _The Prophet_ made a splash about the new law enforcement uniforms, as did _Witch Weekly_.

They couldn't get a shot of famous Hit Wizard Harry Potter in his new gear for several days after the uniforms rolled out and seemed to take that as an especially irksome personal failure. Photographers camped out at Diagon Alley and other magical towns hoping to spot him on-duty and snag a photo. It reminded him of how Rita Skeeter’s photographer and so many others had hunted him around Hogwarts castle during the TriWizard. 

Harry was tempted to anonymously send false tips—if only to get these reporters to hang out at The Leaky or Fortescue's or The Three Broomsticks for a few wasted hours, spending a few sickles on lunch or a pint, stimulating the economy while they waited for Harry Potter to no-show. 

Harry couldn't do it, of course... but there was nothing stopping, say, Hermione Granger, or those still at Hogwarts like Ginny Weasley and Dennis Creevey from sending the occasional false tip by hired owl, giving the press the run-around and giving Harry a great deal of satisfaction. 

Eventually they got him. A picture surfaced of Harry, Ron and Dima standing in conversation around Ron's desk. Ron wore the office robes with a light dragon hide vest, and Dima still sported the kilt version on his administrative days, his boots polished to a mirror shine. Harry was on active, in full combat gear should he be called out; his indigo gi, lightweight navy robe, heavy shoulder armor with a magic-compatible Glock 17 at either hip, holsters for extra magazines against the smalls of his back, and his wand tucked safe beneath the straps on his ribs should he need it. 

Harry was able to deduce when the photo had been taken due to the presence of pieces of cake on Ron's desk—it was Nash's fiftieth birthday party. It could have only been taken by someone let into Fenchurch related to delivering food or cleaning up. 

The printed picture was muggle-style, still-frame without movement. Probably because photo-Harry would run out of view, or photo Ron and Dima might've been making rude hand gestures, their little picture selves knowing they'd been photographed in a secure area without their permission and not happy about it. Developing the film the muggle way was the only hope of keeping them still and getting the photo printed. The photographer would've had to use two separate cameras with two rolls of film and developed them separately. 

A professional, then. Someone infiltrated Fenchurch to get a photo of Harry Potter on the job. Hermione's office would be having a ton of fun with the subsequent investigation of how that shit happened. 

The Ministry publically reprimanded any publication running the picture, saying the photo was of a confidential area of Magical Law Enforcement and could have jeopardized security had any sensitive documents or information been visible. 

Thankfully their cake plates and beverages had been on top of Ron's paperwork, effectively concealing the details. National security saved by frosting and Butterbeer.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry crawled into bed late—well after midnight—grabbing onto Draco and pulling close. It was already mid-November and overdue to snow. 

He touched his toes to Draco's heat… knowing he was a little chilly and hoping his husband wouldn't mind warming him up. 

"Troll fucker!" Draco shouted, startled awake and instinctively slithering away like Harry was a glacier instead of a wizard. "Get those icy blocks of death away from me!" 

Harry chuckled. "Come on, luv. My feet aren't that cold." 

"Yer fuckin' freezin'!" the pureblood insisted from the other side of the bed, refusing to lie near him. Draco got two hands full of the blanket and yanked it up to his chin as a kind of protection. "Like a damn Inferi in bed with me!" 

Harry stopped to think about that a second too long. 

He'd been cold far more easily since he came back from the dead. At first it was spring, then summer, and his difficulties keeping warm faded from his notice with the arrival of more pleasant weather. Then he was training every day in the gym, working up a sweat and... generating heat. The only person who would really notice when he got so cold was Draco—the man he stood still for, slept next to every night for the last year and a half. Draco would know the difference between his former body and this new, post-horcrux model he inhabited. 

Harry started to wonder if being cold all the time was a side effect of what happened to him... having been that close to death. Since the spring, he wanted to lay in the sun like a lizard, soaking in the heat every opportunity he got—happy memories of Romanian summers spent shitless on the beach, perhaps, but to be honest as the weather turned cold again he was having trouble with his own heat, especially when he stayed still for a long time. Perhaps that was a part of why he got up from his desk so often at work, inventing excuses to walk around just to keep his blood pumping in the constant air-conditioned environment. He'd been downstairs reading another book on loan from Dr. Beasley and hadn't bothered to light a fire in the hearth or cast a Warming Charm on himself. 

He needed someone to ask about this, someone to talk to. But there were no experts on magical spouses bringing you back from the precipice of death.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry had hoped to keep everything within the Ministry. But of course some filing clerk somewhere leaked it, and here he stood in a press conference; Nash and Robards scowling behind either of his shoulders, forced to explain himself on a matter which was rightly no one's bloody business but his own. 

"I'll keep this brief," said Harry from the podium, not doing much to keep the frustration out of his voice. "Two weeks ago I requisitioned the wand of Tom Marvolo Riddle, better known as Lord Voldemort." 

He gave it a minute—for the flashes of cameras and the rush of whispers moving around the room to calm down. As the person believed to have defeated Voldemort in a duel, by law Harry had the right to take possession of his fallen enemy’s wand. So in effect, he was asking the Ministry for _his_ property back now that they'd had a reasonable amount of time to conduct their investigation. Nothing so unusual… except that it was fucking Voldemort's wand he was asking for. And the fact that Draco had killed him, not Harry, but because they were married that didn't actually make a difference as far as the law was concerned. 

Harry could request the wand on Draco's behalf and the paperwork would've been exactly the same. The requestor was also the "remit to," and that he'd filled in as:

 

                                    Draco & Harry Potter

                                    12 Grimmauld Place

                                    London UK NW1

 

He always wrote their names alphabetically. There was an etiquette for letter-writing he’d been taught in primary school. When writing a husband and wife, the husband came first. Writing to a married couple where one partner had a title such as Doctor, Lord or Lady, the titled person was referenced first regardless of gender, in order of precedence. He supposed that, technically, he had an Order of Merlin to his name; so if someone was being stodgy about it, Harry’s name might be listed first. 

His school teachers had left out what was proper with a same-gender couple, of course, because being gay was illegal before the 1960’s, and there was still no such thing as gay marriage in Great Britain. One had to go to France or Spain for that; he and Draco were only legally married in France because Draco was born there, and the only other married queer couple he knew—Ephraim Summerby and Corbin Warrington—had gone to Spain. 

So Harry forcibly decided for himself that the most polite form would be to go alphabetical… partly because that put Draco first. It was what he wanted regardless of whether others would notice or follow his example. It might’ve been some dumb Ministry form but to Harry, it was still important. 

Harry got on with the particulars, only eager to get the whole thing overwith. "The wand is thirteen and a half inches, yew, with a phoenix feather core. It was seized by the Ministry after the Battle of Hogwarts in March and has been kept in a secure, confidential location. _Priori Incantatem_ will show that the last spell cast was the Killing Curse. I've requested ownership of the wand, as is my right by law. I'm sure you can imagine that I have my own reasons for wanting to own a wand that's taken the life of my parents and nearly killed me. Twice." 

He took a moment to glare at each individual reporter or photographer standing in the front row, letting his irritation build until he had trouble keeping his hands at his sides. He wanted to punch them all out. It was a struggle to stretch the stress out of his fingers without a spark of blue light erupting. 

"It was my intention to present the wand as a gift to my husband for our first anniversary. So thanks for ruining the surprise, everyone. I hope you're proud of yourselves. Now I have to think of something else to get my husband because you lot let the cat out of the bag." He pointed to the door at the back of the room through which they all needed to leave. "Pip pip, then. Off you pop. Nothing else of interest." 

Cameras flashed in his face—until he saw dark spots swimming in his vision. 

"Harry! Harry!" reporters shouted. "Is that really all there is to the story?!" and "Why do you want You-Know-Who's wand?" 

Harry turned to Nash. "Are we good?" he asked under his breath.

Nash looked over Harry's shoulder at Robards, then nodded. He could leave and they'd handle the rest. 

"Cheers," Harry said dryly, trying to observe the niceties and preserve his good relationship with his superiors... even if he was feeling murderous. Nash understood the look on Harry's face and knew it was best to get him out of the room before he lost his considerable control on his temper.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR’S NOTE:** A million words. A million fucking words with this chapter. 
> 
> So, all of the puzzle pieces are officially laid out by this point. It’s up to Harry to chase down the loose ends and begin assembling the larger picture. 
> 
> I’d like to offer a kind of Raffica prophecy; four seemingly inconsequential words which, when viewed in hindsight, lift what Harry is missing to the surface like a chemical reaction. Watch out for passages mentioning these four words, and perhaps recall past instances and events involving them. 
> 
> Here we go: house elf, fiancée, bacon. 
> 
> Pip pip!


	15. Everlong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Potters take a brief holiday in America

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** language, sap, guilt, politics, virulent hypocrisy stemming from a guilty conscience, sports-related violence, smoking, alcohol, and a car accident
> 
>  **AUTHOR’S NOTE:** The entirety of this chapter was written within a 26 hour period. I was drunk for most of it. Enjoy.

 

_And I wonder_

_When I sing along with you_

_If everything could ever be this real forever_

_If anything could ever feel this good again_

_The only thing I'll ever ask of you_

_You've got to promise not to stop when I say when..._

_Breathe out_

_So I can breathe you in_

_And now_

_I know you've always been_

_Out of your head_

_Out of my head I sang_

“[Everlong](https://youtu.be/eBG7P-K-r1Y)”

Foo Fighters

 

 

 

There was a voice at the back of Draco’s head—lilting, fluttery, anxious… his mother’s voice. She said that failing to make social commitments raised eyebrows, leading others to suspect something was amiss. And nothing could ever be suspected. “Stiff upper lip” was a part of what muggles called his DNA. Out of necessity, Draco had become quite adept at presenting an iron-clad public façade that absolutely nothing was wrong. Keeping engagements was point number one. 

It didn’t occur to Draco that they might back out on their promise to spend the muggle holidays with Leon and Charlene Harper; the white-haired couple were like grandparents to Harry, after all, and would certainly understand a pair of newlyweds preferring to have time to themselves after the events of the last year. 

Draco started packing their bags without a word. He assumed the weather was cold in midwestern America and packed accordingly. 

Harry took a few days off from work; coordinating with Nebojsa so that they both took the time, not wanting to leave his new partner in the lurch. The lads had a few odds and ends to attend to back in Romania. They planned to meet up with their Slavic mates in New York one night along with Harry’s acquaintances from Salem, to make a night of it. Apparently it was Salem tradition to go out before their Thanksgiving holiday and get thoroughly smashed… which was the kind of tradition Draco could get behind. Sometimes it took a holiday, or going to another country, before Harry would let his hair down and get lashed.

 

 

 

 

The Harper family home was lovely, decorated with objects acquired from Leon’s travels as a Hit Wizard and Head Auror, balanced by the whimsy of Charlene’s Creole heritage. Draco understood she’d briefly taught Divination at Beaubatons whilst the great Seer Casandra Vablatsky was on sabbatical, writing what had become their own schoolbook, _Unfogging The Future_. The Harpers’ house was eccentric, academic, and pleasingly warm—especially with the two inches of snow covering everything in sight. The Potters were given a guest room with a queen bed overlooking the front lawn, lightly screened from the road by a few tall pine trees, their boughs heavy with ice and thick white snow like icing on a cake, drooping under the weight. 

Every now and then the wind would knock a piece of snow off the branches—the snow making a wet _splat_ as it hit the ground and the branches rebounding, sometimes striking against the house with a scratching sound like a cat pawing at a door. Draco had to be reminded more than once what the noise was, as he jumped about a foot out of his seat at dinner, nearly spilling his wine. 

Draco was shocked when the temperature swung abruptly—by morning the snow was completely melted, leaving no trace but for puddles and muddy dead grass everywhere. The Harpers and Harry assured him this abrupt change in weather was normal, that it might snow and thaw several times before winter set in for good. Draco thought the season ought to make up its bloody mind and stick to it. 

Leon Harper suggested the Potters amuse themselves by taking his tickets for a thing called “hockey,” which Draco had to assume was some type of muggle sport. The old man also tossed Harry a pair of keys. 

Draco only saw Harry this comfortable, this at-home, with their mates in Romania. Harry had spent months with the Harpers—and Draco began to see the rub-off on his husband’s own behaviors. Charlene’s habit of putting food in front of you if you were silent too long. Leon’s quiet urging of young people’s independence by throwing a set of keys at them or handing off a gun without a single verbal admonition because he trusted you to mind yourself. Harry had adopted these mannerisms—Draco saw them after the war, in London and Romania. They were likely good habits, enforced by successful and happy people in an effort to help Harry be the same. 

They’d succeeded where everyone else had failed Harry… in being something like real parents, the kind of mentors and protectors whom even a distrustful man like Harry could go to for help. 

Draco couldn’t make out whether this trip to Ohio was a victory lap or just another parenting opportunity. 

Draco followed Harry’s comfortable gait to the garage—followed his husband’s broad shoulders clad in a familiar black leather jacket which Draco had spelled-up in size yet again, not wanting Harry to be without it. Hit Wizard training had put the finishing touches on Harry’s already athletic body, landing him squarely in the drool-worthy category even with his clothes on. 

Draco noted two motorbikes parked side-by-side. Harry pointed to the more old-fashioned of the two. 

“Ours,” he said simply. “Leon and I got it running again, and compatible with the Trans-Locations Barriers the Americans use to get around, but… we can’t drive it on the streets without an American license plate. That’s not legal.” 

“Musn’t upset the muggles,” Draco drawled under his breath. 

Harry pointed to the other motorcycle. It had a wider frame of shining chrome, heavier-looking, with a long leather seat which would easily accommodate two larger bodies like Leon and Charlene. “Leon’s ’68 Triumph,” said Harry, the hint of a laugh turning his lips. “I barely weighed enough to ride it last year.” 

Draco touched the overlarge headlight, his fingers tripping onto the metal handlebar. The machine seemed to vibrate with magic under his hand. 

Harry noted the shift in Draco’s expression. “Leon enchanted it to be Apparition-compatible. Barely.” 

The pureblood arched a brow, telling Harry to go on. 

“Well, the enchantments are sound but Leon’s never been able to make it through without splinching something.” 

Swallowing, Draco shook his head. “Only the Yankees are mad enough to mix muggle and magical technologies.” 

“It’s convenient,” Harry shrugged. “When it works, anyway.” 

He was referring to the type of guns he’d carried in the war, mixed muggle and magic, now standard issue for Hit Wizards. Harry brought his home a few times to show it to Draco, taking it apart at the kitchen table to clean it, explaining how they were made and how they worked. Harry kept talking about getting Draco one. He resisted, but feebly—he could sense the future clear enough when it fired like a cannon from his husband’s hand. 

Draco needed to hold out a while longer, until the kinks were worked out. Eventually, Draco foresaw civilians applying for permission to carry such weapons for self-defence, or for their Squib relatives should they be attacked. Those who weren’t as magically gifted as themselves now had this method to fight back against a skilled attacker. The whole world was going to change, the playing-field leveled after thousands of years of dependency on talent, training, and aptitude. Now anyone with a magic-compatible gun could defend themselves against a well-trained Death Eater. 

All because Harry Potter and a couple of inventors got it into their heads to combine their worlds. They couldn’t foresee the effects of their creations quite as Draco did, from the perspective of their enemies. It was only a matter of time before Draco had one of those magic-spitting guns pointed at him for something he’d done—having been a Death Eater, marrying Harry… they could take their pick, really. 

“I… can see that,” Draco conceded, struggling to bring his mind back to the motorbike Harry was talking about. “So long as you’ve got the bugs shaken out….” 

“I thought we’d go the normal way,” offered Harry, twirling the keys on his finger. “Road trip? It’s a muggle thing. They go somewhere far away on purpose; traveling is half the fun of it for muggles, spending the time together.” 

Unless Draco was very much mistaken, his half-blood husband was asking him on a muggle date. Again. 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Draco would not admit to enjoying the drive… but he did. Harry taught him things along the way—“this is called an interstate highway” and “that’s the throttle, and these are to change gears.” Draco sometimes found it hard to hear with the wind in his face. He kept a solid grip around Harry’s waist, hiding behind his big shoulders to stay out of the wind when they tore down the highway at-speed. At least the frozen temperatures in days past had killed any bugs which might’ve flown in their faces as they rode the forty minutes south. 

The motorcycle was almost like a broomstick—except they were riding a controlled explosion between their knees, rumbling hot metal, rubber tires in constant contact with the pavement which flew by beneath their boots. Draco could feel the friction, the press of the machine against the earth. It was oddly comforting, grounding… so long as he didn’t think of the fire within producing that smoke coming out of the tailpipe. 

Muggle inventions often struck him as needlessly dangerous. Why did motorbikes and automobiles have to be propelled by fire? Why did guns have to be so deadly? At least wizards confined the things which would kill you to natural and supernatural, with very little in between which was impervious to the magic of a half-decent wizard. These muggles seemed to be asking for death, riding around in their smoke-belching fire-traps. 

At a petrol station, their helmets off, Harry put Draco in the driver’s seat, starting the bike up before jumping on behind him and giving him a lesson in the car park. Draco was fine until he had to engage the clutch to switch gears. The vintage motorbike made the saddest sound when it stalled. At least it was better than that metal-on-metal grating the one time he’d accidentally done something Harry called “grinding the gears.” He wasn’t accustomed to having to use both his hands and feet to control the damn thing. It was significantly harder than operating a motorbike in a video game, and far less intuitive than riding a broomstick. 

“It takes practice,” Harry told him, sharing a bottle of iced tea whilst sitting on the curb outside the petrol station. The Americans had a very shit idea of what constituted ‘tea.’ Harry warned him before he took a swig. “Took me a few months before I was reliable. If you want, we can bring the Bonneville home for you to practice.” 

“You wouldn’t ride it to work?” asked Draco. He’d been introduced to the muggle concept of ‘commuting’—that rather than Apparate or floo or use a Portkey, muggles would drive their cars everywhere, including to and from their places of employment. Harry would have grown up with the concept of taking a car or bike or some form of public transportation each day; to Draco, leaving your house on a daily basis was for the working class. Which, he supposed, made even the Minister of Magic working-class. He was starting to see some holes in how he was raised, the least of which being the idea that people who went to a job each day weren’t necessarily beneath him, but perhaps had a different concept of what constituted work-ethic, or lacked the means to support their families from the comfort of a Wiltshire manor house filled with liquor, fine furnishings, and house elves to care for it all. 

Harry ran a hand through his hair, considering. “I’d rather you have it, honestly. It belonged to Sirius and… maybe riding it every day might be a bit much for me. You should enjoy it. Sirius would’ve fancied the idea of another escapee of pureblood culture tearing around on his bike, ruffling the muggles.” 

Thinking about his dead godfather, Harry’s hand stayed at the back of his neck, rubbing idly. His hair was long enough to flow over the collar of his jacket, his fingers hidden beneath a fall of raven black somewhere between wavy and curling. Once he let it grow out, Harry’s hair went from a rat’s nest to manageable to downright attractive. He’d finally found something of a style which worked for him. 

Draco was tempted to push Harry’s hair out of his face, a lame excuse to touch it, run his fingers through those soft waves, but… the muggles already shot funny looks their way for their accents. He didn’t want to introduce the idea that they were queer, too. Harry had warned him about muggles’ reactions to that sort of thing, especially outside Europe. He was made to understand young Americans were sometimes killed—mob-lynched by their their peers—if there was so much as a suspicion of their being gay. Bullying was the least of a queer kid’s worries, as the violence didn’t go away as Americans got older. It only intensified. 

Harry—a natural peace-keeper—didn’t want to start a fight… but he’d sure end it. So said the wand concealed in his jacket’s inner pocket, and the fresh American government credentials which Leon had given him upon their arrival. Just in case. Draco was honestly surprised Harry wasn’t carrying one of his guns. Apparently The Boy Who Lived considered it crass to carry a firearm on a date. 

“Bit more practice,” Draco agreed. 

“And a helmet,” added Harry. They’d borrowed from Leon. 

Draco nodded. “Sure. It wouldn’t do to bash my brains out on the concrete after you went through all that trouble to save me.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

“Do you want a coffee or something?” 

Draco turned, adjusting his hair after removing his helmet, and looked at Harry. His husband had never been slick—after the war he often said exactly what he thought without filter or distortion. So Draco couldn’t understand why Harry was bluntly offering coffee at three in the afternoon. 

Draco said as much. “At three o’clock?” 

“We have a couple hours to kill. The game isn’t ‘til seven.”

Draco glared at him.

Harry held his arms out, a gesture of helplessness. “Parking is a nightmare at the stadium. Leon said to get here early, get a bite to eat or something before the game. I thought you might fancy seeing what a university looks like.” And he jutted his chin to a collection of brick buildings at the end of the car park. There were wide lawns and trees, little parks here and there, with muggles walking about. 

“Fine,” Draco agreed. “Coffee and a walk. Then you buy me a pint somewhere, and whatever passes for fish and chips.” 

Harry nodded. “ _D’accord_.” 

He hadn’t heard Harry speak French in ages. It was a small gesture, but a consideration none-the-less. Harry was showing he hadn’t forgotten—what Draco taught him, or what Draco was deep down. He sometimes considered himself as much a Frenchman as he was English. Now his identity papers reflected that: his muggle ID was French, as was their marriage certificate. Harry had it framed and hung it on the wall in his study. Sentimental prat.

 

 

 

 

Draco understood the golden-colored sweatshirt he wore under a his own jacket had once belonged to Gideon Harper. It was eerie how well the dead bloke’s clothes fit him—though he wasn’t wild about the color, thinking it washed him out a bit, especially with his hair brought back to white-blond. 

After five minutes on the university campus, Draco realized Harry had suggested he wear the sweatshirt in an effort to blend in. Half the muggles around them wore the words ‘Ohio State’ embroidered on their chests as well, or printed on caps, or across the backpacks they carried—a sort of institutional loyalty, similar to Hogwarts students wearing house colors even on mufti days. 

Most of the students had coffees too. They didn’t seem bothered by the hour of the day, drinking caffeine when it pleased them. Or perhaps they had professors like Binns who would otherwise put them to sleep. If they’d been allowed food in classrooms at Hogwarts Draco might’ve brought the largest coffee mug he could find; something like a German beer tankard, half coffee and half something far stronger to get him through his day. 

They sat on a bench, paper cups of take-away coffee warming their palms, watching muggle students their age pass by. 

“What do they study here?” 

Harry supplied, “All sorts of things. It’s a state school, so they teach a wider range of subjects than a privately-owned or specialized college. They have a law school, a medical school for doctors and nurses, a school for business,” he pointed to a few buildings which Draco had failed to notice had metal lettering above the doors declaring the name of a muggle who’d undoubtedly donated money to have the structure named after themselves. “People study biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, architecture and design, journalism, music—”

Draco made a noise at the back of his throat—not quite a growl, and slightly damp from the presence of hot coffee in his mouth which he refused to swallow until his disapproving noise had been noted and could be ceased for the sake of swallowing. He didn’t actually have anything to say. He figured the noise would suffice.

“I’m just saying….” Harry acknowledged his noise, shrugging against him. They both leaned against the hard back of the bench, Harry’s legs extended lazily over the pavement. “Muggles outnumber us thousands-to-one. They always have. You don’t suppose, with all that man-power and all those minds, _maybe_ they’ve learned more about some of these subjects than we have? Maybe there are things we can learn from them, to better ourselves? Separation breeds not only misunderstanding and distrust, but prevents the exchange of knowledge. And knowledge is critical to ending prejudice.” 

Harry had a point… damn him. Draco needed a very deep breath. The air was chilly, damp, stinging his lungs in a way it hadn’t on the drive south. 

“You. Are. Mad.” Draco told his husband flatly, devoid of emotion. “You’re probably right, of course. But how are you going to convince eight-hundred-thousand of our kind—who’ve spent their whole lives believing they are superior in every possible way? You’re telling them a monkey or a pig has the same cognitive abilities as themselves and deserves as much consideration—ought to be given a seat at the dinner table. They’re not going to hear it. It’s preposterous.” 

Harry’s answer was soft, patient. “I convinced you, didn’t I?” 

“Yes, well…” Draco searched for a way out of the topic, landing on humor as his most viable escape. “You suck me off so I’m obliged to listen to your madness.” 

That got him a smile, but Harry wasn’t deterred from his argument. Damned Gryffindor was like a dog digging a hole to some buried treasure only he could smell. 

Harry made himself more comfortable on the bench, stretching his now very long legs—longer than Draco’s. Most of Harry’s new height advantage was in his lower body as his torso stayed more-or-less the same as before, filling out sideways in his shoulders and arms with only a little alteration in length. With his glorious, inky-black beard and faint shadows under his eyes beneath tinted sunglasses, Harry could pass for about twenty-five. The many scars on his body helped affirm his apparent age; a man who’d seen some shit and lived to tell about it. Meanwhile Draco looked sixteen at best, and that was _with_ a goatee and tattoo. He hid his scars as much as possible, not having Harry’s comfort in airing his past as it was written on his skin. It irked Draco that he seemed to be standing still whilst everything and everyone around him changed with the speed and brilliance of that bolt of lightning he and Harry now shared. 

Harry regarded Draco over the top of his sunglasses, just as he used to over his glasses when Draco was being a git in Potions class. “I’m not trying to convince Death Eaters to embrace muggles. That would be barking. But everyday people… I think there’s hope there. We have to stop treating muggles as inferior, because they’re not. Except for a single genetic mutation, they’re exactly the same as us. The sooner we can get ourselves to agree on that point, the better. That we have people like Hermione or my mum among us—gifted and muggle-born—should be proof enough. The only difference between us is magic, and that doesn’t make a person so different; it’s as much a skill as anything else, like an Olympic athlete or a gifted composer. We don’t discriminate based on any inherited quality but magic, and that’s unjust of us. 

“Once we remove that divide, we can stop the Death Eaters’ ideology from taking root in future generations. In a few hundred years there won’t _be_ any more Death Eaters, because the people who’re willing to act on that rubbish will be rounded up and tried for their crimes, and those left will have enough basic understanding and respect for muggles to agree they’re not to be made slaves of. Within two or three generations, everyone could have a half-blood or a muggle-born in their immediate family. That’s how we change minds.” 

Draco’s lips twisted. “That’s the plan, huh? That’s what you’re trying to do in the Ministry? Phase one, round up the baddies. Phase two, re-educate the public. Phase three, wait for people like my mother and Mrs. Longbottom—latently prejudice but not vocal about it—to die off. Then you’ll have your paradise.” 

Harry was silent a moment. His eyes were closed. After a while, he whispered, “You’re mocking me.” 

“It’s unrealistic, for starters.” Draco took a sip of his coffee, warming his throat before he said more, but Harry interjected. 

“Absolute, totalitarian secrecy is what’s unrealistic,” Harry announced under his breath. “There are maybe a quarter of a million kids out there with errant magic, and we’re arrogant enough to believe we can stop every accident and modify the memory of every muggle, every time? _That_ is ridiculous.” Harry was on a roll, speaking what he really felt. “Not to mention covering up actual crimes, and magical disasters, and creatures, and random dumb flukes? Frankly, it’s a fucking miracle we haven’t been outed by some drunk idiot trying to impress a bird in a pub! It’s only going to become more precarious as muggles advance their video-recording capabilities. All we need is one imbecile to use magic in the line-of-sight of a security camera—then the video’s on the evening news in Newcastle or New Delhi and we’re toast, done-for, outed. My idea of metered and controlled integration is actually more practical, manageable with our existing resources, and maintainable long-term. 

Harry kept going, speaking from his experiences of the last year, trying to find a solution to a problem wizards had debated for centuries. “We can only avoid a surveillance camera if we’re taught what it is, and learn the spells to disable them… and develop new spells and magical aids against whatever else the muggles invent. We can’t keep up with their technology or protect ourselves from exposure if we don’t participate in their world. It’s counter-intuitive; but careful and curated interaction is the key to our survival—like acclimating yourself to poison over time to develop immunity. The longer we isolate ourselves, the further we fall behind, and the more at-risk we become, ripe for discovery before we’re ready. ” 

Harry Potter had the exasperating ability to state the most ludicrous things and make them sound commonplace. _I’m going to smuggle a baby dragon out of Hogwarts_. Or _I’m seventeen and I’m fully committed to going to war with the most powerful wizard alive_. Next up it would be _I think I’ll rob Gringotts_. Harry had such natural confidence and bloody steel nerve that you believed anything coming out of his mouth, no matter how pants it was. Even Draco had to stop himself sometimes, to pull back and assess whether he was falling under Harry’s charismatic spell; if what his husband was saying actually made sense or was complete and utter Dumbledorian cock-strutting bullshit. 

This was one of those times. His husband was a revolutionary thinker—brilliant, slightly unhinged—because he had no respect for wizarding culture. Harry would burn down civilized society if he thought they’d all be better off from scratch. And maybe they would be. Draco wasn’t ready to light the match and find out. Perhaps Harry had achieved a level of frustration where he was reaching for his wand, ready to start that fire for their own good. 

After glancing around to make sure no one had taken notice of them, Draco leaned close, speaking through clenched teeth into Harry’s shoulder. “You’re suggesting we amend the International Statute of Secrecy?!” 

“I’m suggesting,” Harry kept his voice low, his green eyes fixed on his hands around the cup of coffee in his lap. He spoke his mind in a reasoned tone, “That perhaps we stop backing our own people and muggles onto separate intellectual and emotional continents with an ocean between them, insisting no one go swimming or build boats in order to cross. We’re human beings: we’re going to cross because it’s in our nature to be curious, to explore, to learn… and yeah, to fuck. I’m suggesting that controlled, regulated bridges are what’s best for everyone—ways for us to be involved with muggles, and for them to have contact with us when it’s necessary. So that when a witch or wizard and a muggle get up the duff, they don’t feel like Fred; like there’s no where to turn, no middle-ground, forced to lie to their partner and leave the magical world. There’s no form of social support or protection in those situations, where it would make the most sense to let the muggle into our world instead of kicking everybody out. I’m saying our laws ought to recognize that we’re equals—the magical parent, the child, and the non-magical parent. It’s inhumane to split people apart like that. Because right now our laws say we’re superior to muggles, and that’s straight-up Death Eater thinking.” 

His husband had been thinking on this for a long time. Draco was getting the more polished version, his thoughts having had time to compress into a solid argument which he would take before those whose ears he could bend. The advantage of being Harry Potter was that when he spoke, everyone stopped to listen. Which put a lot of pressure on Harry, a man who’d prefer to live his life quietly rather than stand up and shout for every injustice. Harry’s affection for others warped into a painful self-administered guilt if he didn’t do everything he could to help. So he forced himself out of his shell like this even if it was against his nature. Harry raised his voice and called attention to himself not because he liked it, but because he believed he needed to. 

Draco sat perfectly still, listening to this trial run of Harry’s newest rhetoric. 

Harry’s voice took on, if possible, a more pained tone. “When one of us meets a Heather Lightley or a Jack in a pub… there ought to be a way to disclose what we are early on and have a shot at an honest relationship rather than deceit, which is surely death to a relationship. Or when a criminal among us harms a muggle, that muggle has a right to know who wronged them and why. And the fact that we keep it from them—wiping their memories instead of letting them process what’s happened—only reinforces the intellectual and legal construct that they’re sheep we can sheer and not _people_.” Harry spoke with so much passion, determination… heart. Draco couldn’t help but become transfixed, sucked into this idea of a better world which Harry was painting before his eyes. “I’m suggesting that when we _believe_ muggles are the same as us, we _act_ like it. And if we _are_ the same, then our laws have to reflect that fact. Not the one-sided bullshit we call justice.” 

Harry was determined, and incorrigible; like the muggle Emperor Nero about to burn down Rome. No words Draco could utter would dissuade him from throwing the torch, lighting the fire—the pyre—to rewrite magi-muggle relations forever. 

Draco sighed. “…Why push so hard for this?” 

“Because, if we don’t start integrating now, and rapidly so—we’re going to die out,” Harry told his coffee cup. “One or two more wars, or a couple of attacks at major events like the World Cup—that’s all it would take to end us as a species. Need proof? Hölmfröst. Or look at Durmstrang: one of our most illustrious schools lies in ruins _two years_ after the Death Eaters attacked. No one’s insisting it be rebuilt or reopened because there’s no one left to kick up a fuss, let alone raise money and manpower and _do_ something about it. I’m told there are dead bodies which still haven’t been recovered, people presumed dead, but no one knows for sure. They’re lying there, rotting. We’ve lost one of the three schools that even dared to teach the Dark Arts, and all the survivors who worked there or were being educated there have been displaced.” 

Harry rubbed a hand over his mouth, thinking hard. Because he was defending the place of the Dark Arts in the greater arcana of magic. He understood it was necessary to have places like Durmstrang… for wizards and witches like themselves, gifted in dark magic, who would come along and need somewhere to advance their talents. Harry understood that his beloved Hogwarts wasn’t enough, and wasn’t right for everyone. Draco hadn’t much felt at home there, always wishing he’d been allowed to go further north to Sweden. 

“No one will ever graduate from Durmstrang again,” said Harry sadly. “And the other schools can’t handle the number of kids who’ll need to be educated as we re-grow our population over the next twenty and thirty years. That should be signal enough that things need to change. For every Durmstrang and Hölmfröst we know about, how many families or towns or businesses are out there failing in silence?” 

Morose, Draco whispered, “Extinction has always been a threat. Yet we’ve managed to survive.” 

“Yeah,” Harry turned sour. “By raping and pillaging. That’s medieval thinking. It doesn’t work in the modern world… and I think… we can be better than that.” 

“Not all of us,” mumbled Draco—alluding to his family, and people like the Ionescues or Didiers. 

Harry readily conceded. “Fine. _Most_ of us are better than that, with the exception of die-hard loons like the Death Eaters, and the occasional organic wacko like Voldemort. By making integration with muggles more accessible and therefore more normalized, we move in the right direction culturally. I’m not saying it’ll be easy. It will take generations. But it’s a more stable, long-term policy than raping and pillaging, and a bit easier on the conscience, too.” 

Draco laughed into his cup. Harry could turn a phrase or two, especially when it came to turning people’s ideas against them in a debate. He might not think of himself as a politician, and he wasn’t quite cut out for that role, but he certainly was a statesman of sorts. Somewhere in the last few months Harry had grown into his new calling as the moral compass of the modern magical world. 

“Imagine…” Harry gestured out over the university campus, at the muggles going about their business of learning, oblivious to the two wizards sitting amongst them plotting a new course for their kind. “If our potion makers were cross-trained in muggle chemistry. If our herbologists studied muggle plants, too, and found uses for them. If we could mass-produce clothing or medicine on the scale that muggles do. We’ve already integrated ourselves into law enforcement, like they’ve done here. I know there’s so much more we can do when we work together. That starts with education,” he looked around again. “With places like this. Getting our kind to study in muggle schools, working along-side muggles to solve the problems which press us both.” 

Draco drained his coffee. “And you want _me_ to consider being one of the first to study at a place like this? To lead by example, you insufferable Gryffindor twat.” 

Harry set his cup on the ground, turning on the bench to face him—taking Draco by the shoulder and fixing him with a steady glare. “You are an astounding musician, you priggish Slytherin icicle,” Harry returned fire, even mimicking his sentence structure; sometimes their thinking was alarmingly similar for being such different men. “And there’s no avenue for you to pursue music in our world. Who would teach you? Where would you perform? There’s nothing for you on our side unless one of the Weird Sisters randomly drops dead.” 

“It’s rather shocking we have any music of our own, actually,” Draco admitted. “There hasn’t been a proper composer among us since the 30’s.” Since before the first Death Eater War. And they weren’t likely to have another with a quarter of the population dead. The likelihood of another magical recording artist popping up was slim, given the lack of advanced training or performance venues, just as Harry said. Anyone who happened to be a good singer, instrumentalist, or composer would invariably become something else—would pursue another career path if there was no ready living to be made through music. How many talented artists had given up on music in the eighteen years he and Harry had been alive? And how many more might they miss out on? 

Harry squeezed Draco’s shoulder. “I see how much you enjoy playing with the guys, and those have all been muggle songs. You found something in their music to make your own. So if music is something you fancy, something you might want to do more of, then… going to a muggle uni that specializes in music is an option. No one has to know about it. I don’t want you to feel like a guinea pig for my education-integration idea. That wasn’t my point. I thought you might enjoy pursuing music, that’s all, and going to muggle school is a way for you to do more of what you love, without pressure or scrutiny from our world. A bit of a fresh start.” 

Draco cocked his head. “What’s a guinea pig?” 

Harry broke out laughing, a pleasant chuckle under his breath. “Uh… it’s a cute, fluffy little marmot muggles used to do experiments on, like a rat. Muggles decided animal experimentation was cruel, and they’re trying to get rid of it now. They’re attempting to become more civilized, to self-correct as their collective morals shift… just like us. It’s a learning process.” Clearly a progression which Harry thought wizardkind ought to emulate, as they currently treated humans like guinea pigs in Harry’s opinion, though regarded them as less ‘cute.’ 

Draco tipped his head a bit more. He couldn’t knock the skeptic drawl out of his voice even when he wanted to. “And you think I could learn something from muggles?” 

“I think there’s a lot you could learn from them,” Harry suggested. “And them from you, if you’d let them.” 

Harry proceeded to pick up his more-or-less empty coffee and toss it into a nearby rubbish bin—he had excellent aim, which wasn’t a typical ability in a Seeker, but perhaps one of a Hit Wizard. He stood, urging Draco up with him. “Come on,” he said, “let’s see if I can’t convince you.” 

And Harry pulled him off through the campus, searching for something only he knew, walking amongst the muggles living their ordinary lives. Harry seemed to find the right building and walked Draco inside, read a listing on the wall, then took the elevator to the third floor. Draco hadn’t heard of elevators prior to turning seventeen, and had never actually been inside one until well after he married Harry Potter. He didn’t care for the wheezing noises it made, nor the bump when it arrived, all of which Harry assured him was perfectly normal. Draco begged not. 

They emerged into a kind of library, but not any normal one. There were very few books, and mostly reams of loose paper—music, Draco realized, looking around. It was a library for sheet music. His entire life he’d never seen so much of it in one place. 

His mother told him there’d once been a music shop in Knockturn Alley selling instruments, records, and music books. He never got the chance to go; it closed for lack of business by the time he was out of nappies. Perhaps because no one wanted to be seen in Knockturn Alley after the first fall of Voldemort… or perhaps because magical people didn’t support the arts, financially, and the death of the last shop was a byproduct of a declining interest in music. 

Draco found himself stunned. He’d never expected muggles would have preserved what his own culture discarded with such ease. 

Harry walked right up to a young woman sitting behind an information desk. She looked like a student—she was roughly their age, casually dressed, and reading a book because the library was relatively empty. She had a plastic tag on her jumper with her name. 

Harry smiled at her—fuck, he was heart-stoppingly handsome when he wasn’t trying. The girl immediately perked up as Draco watched his husband lean an elbow against her desk, speaking conspiratorially, like he was pulling her in on some great secret. Harry had no clue how sexy he was; how he was like cat-nip to women—and bisexual men—now that he’d come into his own. Harry’s charisma came from buggery of all things, and a bit from killing people. He’d been an interesting person all along, but those experiences pulled the inner beauty out of him until it was physically painful to take your eyes off of him when he spoke to you with the charm turned on. 

“My mate over there’s a musician,” Harry told the girl in his deepening voice still with a hint of Surrey. “But he’s never heard _Lay Mi_ _z_. Any chance you have it lying around?”

Her eyes widened at his voice: it seemed their British accents were the first thing Americans noticed anywhere they went. The fact they were also a couple with matching wedding rings could get overlooked in the flabbergast induced by the way they talked and compounded by good looks. 

“Come with me!” She took off down a row of shelves, knowing exactly where she was headed. 

Harry motioned Draco to follow—which he did after heaving a put-upon sigh, and removing his coat now they were remaining indoors. He watched as Harry had the same idea, peeling off his jacket as he walked.

Beneath Harry’s leather biker jacket was a navy jumper in luxurious cashmere, with offset stitching in pale green—better at bringing out his eyes and complimenting his tan than dressing him in the same heavy shade as his eyes and overwhelming the senses. Harry’s eyes were arresting enough; they didn’t need much by way of accent to stand out. Especially with his long hair refusing to stay put behind his ears, framing his face. Even the young woman showing them the way glanced back to observe how Harry moved in his denims, just the right amount of tightness around his thighs, the swell of his arse unmistakable. Each complimentary texture of fabric flowed over his body, more than suggesting the shape of muscles beneath. 

Draco snapped his eyes to note his direction before he walked into a shelf and embarrassed himself thoroughly. It was a good thing Harry Potter never looked that hot in the Hogwarts library, or no one would’ve been able to read a complete sentence in seven years. Draco counted himself lucky his husband was a late-bloomer: he had all that wizard to himself. He got to watch the slow process as Harry came out of his shell, finding himself. 

Draco caught up to Harry and the muggle girl. She was showing him an overlarge folder, almost a folio, with indexed pages of music corresponding to scenes or acts, the pages held together by a few bands of metal. It was some type of play, then. Likely an opera. 

Harry hadn’t waited, as he was on a mission and figured Draco would catch him up eventually. Draco wasn’t close enough to hear them, but saw Harry mime something like a piano, asking if there was an instrument nearby which they might borrow. 

The girl touched Harry’s arm, feeling the pleasant material of his jumper and the even more agreeable experience of his hard body beneath… which ought to have irked Draco on some level, but he couldn’t summon it. Harry was gorgeous, her reaction to him only human. Draco rolled his eyes again and followed them, to a certain degree accustomed to sharing his husband with the entire world. At least this muggle girl looked at Harry as a potential lay, and didn’t expect him to slay monsters or save her from certain death. Compared to the way magical people idolized Harry Potter, a muggle’s plain and base sexual interest was somehow refreshing. 

A bank of closed doors lined the far wall of the music library, each door with a little window in it. Draco had to rock up onto his toes to see inside—a muggle electric piano in each room. The girl brought Harry to the very end of the row of rooms. 

“Here,” she said, unlocking it with a key secured to her wrist on a twisty rubber bracelet. 

“Cheers,” said Harry, holding the door open for Draco to step inside. 

That was an odd muggle mannerism Harry kept from his pre-Hogwarts days. The more they went around non-magical places, the more Draco saw muggles do it for each other on dates, as well as for those they respected—the elderly, military persons, authorities and those with titles like the Ionescue brothers. Draco stopped viewing the act so strangely once he understood what Harry was getting at. His husband didn’t view him as weak or an idiot incapable of opening a damn door. It was a muggle sign of utmost respect. 

Sometimes it took an understanding of muggle culture in order to unscramble the things his husband said and did. For that, it was almost worth getting to know the muggles a bit better. Draco hated it when he proved Harry’s theories right in his own head. Once purebloods started falling in love with mixed-bloods and muggle-borns… it would be over. In a few generations, there would be no more Death Eaters; because everyone would have someone they loved who came from this non-magical world. 

“Cheers,” Draco echoed, nodding his thanks to the girl before going into the room. 

It had a full grand piano rather than those plastic trifles. Harry let the door close behind him. He intended to stay in the room and listen to Draco play. 

Harry went through the folder until he found what he wanted, propping it on the music stand above the keys. 

“Can you play it as you go?” Harry asked. 

Draco’s eyes were getting sore from giving his husband so many dirty looks in so short a period. It had been a while since Harry was this annoying. “I _can_ sight read, you great oaf.”  

Harry took up a position at the side of the piano. “Then I’ll turn the pages for you, so you can’t peek ahead.” 

Petulant, Draco stuck his tongue out. 

“One song,” Harry reiterated, remarkably patient. “And if you still think muggles know nothing about your life, then I’ll never mention the idea of you going to uni ever again. _Capiche_?” 

Draco smirked. “ _D’accord_.” And with that French word fittingly on his lips, he sat down to play what he found to be a French opera called _Le Misérables,_ The Miserable Ones. With no knowledge or other clues as to the themes of the opera, he began to play. 

The muggle girl had given them the rehearsal book, meant for singers and an accompanist on piano. Draco grasped the production was a much grander arrangement than the outline on the pages before him. 

He immediately regretted his choice to play slowly in order to grasp the melody after spotting the first sustain. Shit. He sang it—not faithfully or remotely well, but enough to satisfy Harry for a simple sight-reading. The melody followed a pattern, short phrases of just three or four syllables with a sustained note between, connecting them. The simple structure made it difficult, less forgiving of mistakes. 

The words were a muggle praying to their god. “ _In my need, you have always been there_.” Draco could say that about precious few people he knew, and certainly no god or higher power watched over his life. 

The second stanza… Harry was the king of all sopping jackasses, making him sing a song about watching someone you love die. “ _He is young… he’s afraid. Let him rest, heaven blessed. Bring him home._ ” 

He had to sing it three times, that phrase “bring him home.” Begging some higher power to spare a man’s life, to return him to his family. He’d said those words thousands of times—to Harry’s face and alone in bed at night, spoken under his breath into the yield of a pillow. Neither his pillow nor Harry judged him for it. _Come home_. All he’d wanted of the war was for Harry to come out the other side of it with as many limbs and brain cells as went in; to escape with his life. He nearly hadn’t… and they still didn’t completely understand why. 

Harry turned the page. 

Draco realized the character singing was at this point in the opera holding the dead or rapidly dying body of a man close to him, whom he considered a son. The notations lead him through a powerful _crescendo_ , calling out notes he only had shakily, rarely practicing something so simple and straight-forward as this song. There was nowhere to hide. He had to hold each note and pray he didn’t run out of air on a pitiful wheeze. 

It was a beautiful, heart-breaking song; Draco was barely doing it justice, wishing he’d had the chance to look it over, and yet knowing why Harry had insisted he sight read. He’d have refused to sing anything like this had he known the contents in advance. Manipulative boy-hero cunt. 

A return to _pianissimo_ , softness. “ _Bring him peace… bring him joy. He is young…_ ” Draco almost choked up. Stupid Harry Potter turned another page for him. “ _He is only a boy_.” 

His mother said that. It was what she trotted out as her excuse to Lucius any time the topic of the Death Eaters came up. Narcissa always felt her son was too young—he was the only child she’d ever have, and she didn’t want to risk losing him to that violent lunacy which had driven her husband to become the man he was in the end. Lucius… perhaps he never cared for anyone but himself. Perhaps he only saw in others what they could do for him—even the Dark Lord had been a means to further self-aggrandizement. Lucius never regarded his own son as “only a boy.” Because if Harry—his idol’s greatest enemy—was a boy, then so was Draco. Muggles didn’t consider them fully legal yet. They were just kids fighting a war against grown men. 

The song was building and he was going to botch it for the lump in his throat. “ _You can take, you can give. Let him be… let him live._ ”

He needed to breathe. It was stupidity and pure mawkishness to get worked up over a song. Also it would sound terrible if he started crying, his voice seizing up, unable to hit the frightfully high notes he saw coming. 

He had to belt, and it took everything he had not to cry, not to stop playing and punch Harry Potter in the face. “ _If I die… let me die_.” 

His eyes shut, and he was in Slytherin Common room at wand-point, Harry’s body still warm at his feet, nothing but a cloak in his hands, blood on his face… so much blood that night. He could still taste his husband’s blood in his mouth even as he sang the fucking words he’d thought in his head. That he was going to die, and even then he didn’t want Harry to be gone. That if by some miracle his own death could have brought Harry back, he’d have done it. Green light surrounded him, and screams, and the great furor as the castle came apart around them. “ _Let him live._ ” 

“ _Bring him home…_ ” his voice shook. Because Harry might not have come home no matter how much he cried or screamed or sang, no matter what deity he prayed to. “ _Bring him home…_ ” They didn’t have a home outside of what they’d built together; so ‘bring him home’ meant ‘come back to me, us, together.’ Harry was his home, that he was so desperate to return to. The only real home he’d ever known, where he was accepted and loved for the deeply flawed person he was, no strings attached. Unconditional, unrelenting love. 

One last time he had to sing those words, ending in a high A, held for twelve counts. Draco only played the right-hand, the higher notes of the accompaniment, his left hand leaving the instrument—rising to hover over the keys in a tight fist. There was a tremor in his voice he couldn’t hide: Harry was the only one who knew that sound, that scraping neediness of fear, of loneliness, and something like blind hope. _Faith_ it could be called by people who believed in something far greater than themselves. He wasn’t one of them, but he had Harry. “ _Bring… him… home_.”

Singing that last note, nearly a wreck, he let his fist uncurl—giving Harry Potter the finger. He lost his breath at about the ten count, but his action had the desired effect. When Draco looked away from the music it was to find Harry with a stern look on his face—delighted to hear him sing, less than thrilled about the middle finger coming his way, and likely wondering whether Draco was going to start crying or land him a straight hit to the stomach. 

“I fuckin’ hate you…” Draco muttered through his teeth. 

“You’re gonna call me names, and that’s fine,” was Harry’s reply, using both hands to curl around Draco’s, pressing his finger back down—holding Draco’s hand cradled in both his own. “But I feel like… maybe one day… you could write something like that. Not necessarily about what happened in the war, or even about us… but…” His shoulder lifted, nakedly charming even in his floundering for words. “You know what I mean.” 

“I’m sure I don’t.” Draco shut the book of music—not wanting to look at it a second longer than he had too. The blasted thing had nearly made him cry. It had help from Harry Potter. 

Harry insisted, “Even if you don’t wanna write your own music, you should keep playing… and singing, I hope,” his husband said the right thing, the supportive thing. “I really liked what you were working on back at school. You started composing while I was away.” 

Draco had decided his compositions were terrible, and promptly burned most of them. His reply was flat. “I was stinking drunk.” 

“So? I’m pretty sure Noel Gallagher’s on something most of the time.” That was the front-man of Harry’s favorite band, and the writer of the song _Wonderwall_ which Draco had sung on their last day in Hogwarts’ Great Hall six months ago. It felt as though barely a few weeks had passed, let alone half a year. “You’re really good, Draco. Playing, singing, arrangements, your original stuff… anything. I think music makes you happy, right?” The Chosen One leaned against the piano, leaning down until his face was close. “That’s all I want, you big dolt.” 

“This was… not a happy song,” Draco countered sullenly.

“Right. But it was true.”

Draco tossed the folio of music on top of the instrument. He’d sung what Harry wanted, and now he needed some distance from it. “I guess…” he blustered, blowing his hair out of his face. His breath was so strong it fluttered Harry’s dark hair as well. It was a tricky thing to get his voice to sound normal past the dry hitch behind his Adam’s apple, but he managed. “Maybe… we can keep talking about university. Later. Some other time. Right now you owe me a drink.” 

“Done,” said Harry, surging forward to kiss the top of his head.

 

 

 

 

The muggle girl was waiting outside the room, making Draco thankful he hadn’t lost it. He figured his eyes were only the slightest bit red. Harry handed back the folder of music, thanking her. 

“Sorry,” she said to Draco. “I couldn’t help listening. You’re… just…such an incredible singer,” she gushed, holding the music to her chest like a much younger girl with a beloved toy. Apparently it was a popular opera, which explained Harry’s knowing of it when his muggle education had ended years ago. “So, um… what the hell are you doing in Ohio? You should be on Broadway with a voice like that!” 

Shifty-eyed, Draco didn’t have an answer to her questions. Mostly because he didn’t know what a ‘Broadway’ was. 

“He’s in a band back home,” said Harry. Then he expounded with, “A metal band,” making the girl’s staring eyes move from Harry back to Draco, clearly disbelieving. She didn’t see him as the heavy metal type. 

Draco slid his sleeve up, showing his tattoo. The girl blinked furiously, having not expected the tiny posh English bloke to have such a nasty piece of ink. The Mark still made him uncomfortable… and it was a part of his own battered flesh. He’d never be rid of it, he presumed, so long as Harry was alive—his husband’s magic having taken over the bonding spell when they defeated Voldemort together. As long as Harry was around, Draco would have that awful snake and screaming skull on his skin. 

“His tastes oscillate between Rachmaninoff and Rammstein,” Harry teased. “Just trying to fill in the gaps, make sure he doesn’t miss anything.” 

“I am more than guitar solos and shouting into a microphone,” Draco droned, as though Harry said it to him a thousand times—even though it was a thought The Chosen One had never actually put words to. Harry didn’t seem to mind that his spouse, a classically trained musician, was spending his time getting drunk, playing video games, and engaging in unpleasant muggle music as his only interests. Harry generally let Draco do whatever he wanted short of a murderous rampage or streaking in the streets—and the second one was only off limits because Harry was a jealous, possessive prick who had a problem with other people seeing his husband naked. 

Harry shrugged back into his leather jacket. “Screaming into a microphone is fine by me, luv. But I believe I owe you a drink for that performance. Thanks again for the music.” 

A hand around Draco’s shoulders ushered him away, to a fair imitation of a decent burger and several pints on their charmed ID’s at the nearest pub, crowded with uni students and people around for the game that evening. 

True to his promise, Harry didn’t utter another word about Draco going to a muggle school, turning their conversation towards mundane subjects like what bands he’d like to see, and why Americans had their own version of football which wasn’t nearly as good. In his way, he was teaching Draco about muggle things without shoving it down his throat—as Draco had done when they first got together, forcing Harry to acclimate to _his_ lifestyle, _his_ expectations. Harry never forced. He created the opportunity and let Draco explore, only raising an eyebrow when certain words or phrases were off, gently letting Draco know he was drifting back, defaulting to what he knew. 

With Harry… he saw how it could be: wizards and muggles, co-existing. After thousands of years of slavery, war, and relatively recent isolation, it might be time to attempt something like peace. It took a soldier, a man who’d seen the worst, to find that kind of hope.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Each with a flimsy plastic beer cup in hand, they picked their way down a steep slope of concrete stairs, all the way down to the ice rink. Draco found it impressive the muggles found a way to keep such a large sheet of ice indoors without any magic. Their stadium was crisp, the muggles dressed in coats and sweatshirts, colorful blankets wrapped around their shoulders as they ate snacks and pounded beers before the game ever started. 

A strange vehicle made slow circles around the ice, cleaning it and evening out the surface. Draco snorted so hard he nearly fell down the stairs when Harry informed him it was called a ‘Zamboni.’ 

“Ludicrous name,” he snickered. 

“I believe it’s named after the bloke who invented them,” said Harry. 

The ice was surrounded by a half-wall and very high, thick plastic which bore scuffs like white streaks of snow blowing by forever preserved in the muggle material. Their seats were in the second row, right behind what Harry told him was the penalty box—which he was lead to understand ought to be frequented heavily in a good game of hockey. Harry had explained his own brief comprehension of how the game was played over their late lunch. 

They’d have a great view of the ice and the benches of both teams throughout the game. Leon’s tickets were for the season, meaning he sat in the same seats every game. Presumably the old man had these seats for many years, going with his son to cheer for what they assumed would be his future college. Draco remembered being just seven years old when his own father left him unattended at a quidditch game; Lucius got wrapped up in his business dealings and sent a house elf to retrieve Draco… only after the game was well-finished and he was alone in the empty box his father had bought out, wondering whether he’d been forgotten, and how he might get home if he truly was on his own. 

His cousin Gideon had a very different type of father, and a very different sort of life… one of which Draco found himself distinctly jealous as they walked down to their seats, careful not to spill their drinks on the impressive incline. 

Finding their numbered seats, the muggle man and his wife seated next to them stared, the man’s mouth open and his face notably pale even in the chilled arena. The muggle was fixed on Draco like he’d seen a ghost. Harry realized immediately. The Chosen One stuck out his hand to control the situation. 

“You must be friends of Leon’s. We’re relatives from across the pond, came over for a visit. I’m Harry.” The muggle shook his hand, but was still looking behind him at Draco. “And this is my husband, Draco.” 

The muggle shook his hand next, woodenly, staring; sufficiently distracted by Draco’s resemblance to his acquaintance’s dead child that the appellation of ‘husband’ went in one ear and out the other. 

“I’m sorry,” his wife apologized. Draco thought he heard a Canadian accent, but it could’ve been a general north sound to her syllables. “It’s… you look so much like Gideon.” 

Draco flinched, licking his lips. “I gather.” 

“Leo and Dee rarely missed a game,” the woman supplied. Presumably neither did the couple they’d be seated next to for the following two hours—die-hard hockey fans. 

“Draco,” the man repeated. He hadn’t stopped staring. “That’s an odd name.” 

“Family name,” Harry explained, gesturing for everyone to sit down. The muggles returned gingerly to their seats, eyeing the foreign arrivals. 

“You have a nickname or something?” asked the muggle man. “I can’t imagine growing up with a name like that, no offense, and not getting your ass kicked.” 

“Jonathan!” his wife smacked his shoulder. 

“Actually, _I_ did most of the arse-kicking,” said Draco, bringing out a sly smile. 

Busy swallowing a mouthful of beer, all Harry could do was nod, pointing at Draco with his free hand. “School bully,” Harry confirmed. “He sent his goons after me loads a’ times.” 

“Goons?” Jonathan repeated, then a smile broke across his face too. “Yeah, you’re Leo’s people, alright.” Apparently over the years they’d acquired some understanding of Leon’s involvement with paramilitary contracting in addition to his owning a gun range. 

The muggles didn’t seem bothered by the suggestion of violence in their young lives, and Draco understood far better why that was after the players took their opening laps on the ice. The muggle athletes were covered head-to-foot in padding, which meant they were going to try to hurt each other. He leaned to the edge of his chair as the little black puck was dropped. 

Once the game began they were lured into a fast-paced brawl as blokes as big as Dima knocked into each other on ice skates, slamming each other into the boards hard enough to loosen teeth. More than one fight broke out, making good use of the penalty box. Draco drank most of Harry’s beer while he wasn’t looking, cheering every shot and groaning at each unfair penalty assessed. Draco wondered that there was anything considered ‘unsportsman-like’ in this game, which he likened under his breath to muggle quidditch on ice. It was nearly violent enough. 

Two players needed to be taken off the ice for injuries—one punched in a fight, his tooth knocked out, the other’s face cut by the blade of a skate, his helmet knocked off in a fight as one of his multiple opponents went down, clipping him with the knife-sharp blade on the bottoms of all of their feet. Neither man wanted to be taken out, each swearing at his coach as he went and shaking a bare fist at the bloke who’d caused the injury. 

“Why don’t we have hockey in England?” demanded Draco on his third beer. “This is bloody brilliant! I’d go see this.” 

Harry smiled. “Then I reckon we have an excuse to come back and lean on Leo’s hospitality.” 

Draco nodded. “Damn right!” And then he was on his feet as the fifth fight of the night broke out.

 

 

 

 

Harry had switched from beer to water during the second period, wanting to sober up a bit before driving them home. Draco kept drinking, and as such was a wee bit sloshed on the back of the bike, the world a pleasant haze beyond his helmet visor. 

Traffic was at a standstill—all of the muggles leaving the ice arena were trying to get on the interstate, and the entrance ramp was backed up into town. Idling at a stop light, his helmet pressed against Harry’s shoulder blade, Draco noticed a little boy in the backseat of the car next to them. The boy waved, excited by the sight of a motorbike. Harry and Draco waved back. The kid pressed his nose against the glass before chattering to his parents in the front seat. 

Draco looked around at all the lights muggles used to find their way in the night. Every restaurant and bar brimmed with an orange glow, flickering lights of every color outside of their movie theatres and nightclubs. They succeeded in making the magical world appear gloomy by comparison. With the street lights at regular intervals above, and headlights and taillights everywhere, it was almost too much, too bright. Draco closed his eyes as they inched forward, the bike vibrating beneath them to match the thrum of car engines all around. 

Harry was humming to entertain himself, his deep voice blending with the engine sounds. Draco recognized the opening guitar riff to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” leaving his husband’s pressed lips. It was a catchy melody; the muggles had played it while they were leaving the stadium, explaining why it was in Harry’s head. Draco hummed along, too. 

The light changed, green behind Draco’s eyelids, and traffic began to creep forward. “Finally,” whispered Harry. His feet left the pavement, back on the foot controls, ready to shift to second gear if they made it up to speed. 

The rumble of an engine—something large, a deeper sound than any of the cars nearby. Harry stiffened beneath Draco’s hands. His lean body leaned over the front of the bike, tense, alert, scoping out their surroundings. 

“Fuck!” Then Harry was roaring at the cars nearby. “Move! Move!” He waved his arm, shooing them. But there was nowhere for them to go, locked by traffic trying to get to the highway. Harry revved his engine. “Fucking _move!_ ” 

Draco looked down the cross street. There were two cars barreling towards them—racing each other, going far too fast to stop. The two cars were headed right for them. Anyone in the intersection was going to get hit, including him and Harry. 

Harry was trying to get people out of the way, many of whom didn’t see the racers coming at them from the side, their eyes pointed ahead, waiting for the congestion to clear. 

“Fuck!” Harry shouted again, equal parts angry and scared, adrenaline taking over. “Hold on!” 

A few cars were trying to clear the intersection but they weren’t fast or agile enough to do much. Harry drove the bike into oncoming traffic, the motorcycle’s engine roaring under them as he shifted up, preparing to bolt. He’d tried to save the muggles and they weren’t listening to him. Now it was time to protect themselves. 

Harry took off like a shot. He weaved between cars, leaning the bike like a broomstick he couldn’t roll more than a hundred and eighty degrees, their knees coming close to the pavement. Draco clamped his thighs around the metal frame, arms gripping Harry’s chest, holding on for dear life—they slipped by cars coming at them head-on, avoiding collisions by centimeters. Cars started honking, thinking they were impatient or plain crazy. Each time Harry tried to signal, tried to get them to see the racing cars about to hit them. He tried to help even as they made their escape. 

They made it out of the intersection as muggles on the sidewalks started screaming. The monstrous sound of Harry’s engine probably called their attention, helping them realize something was terribly wrong. A second later Draco heard the crunch of metal and glass as the racers collided with the cars still trapped in the intersection, unable to maneuver their way to safety. 

Harry’s heart hammered beneath Draco’s hands. He used the breaks, slowing them down now that they were out of harm’s way. Harry steered back into the correct lane; weaving between vehicles as they slowed down, cars honking, people shouting, lights everywhere flashing as people saw the damage they were fleeing. Draco imagined heaps of twisted metal and broken glass littering the pavement. 

“Oh my God. You okay?” 

Draco opened his mouth to answer. Instead he screamed—the first sound he’d made—because a large, panicked car was veering into them, their bike in the driver’s blind spot. There was no way to avoid getting hit. 

“No!” Draco held Harry, screaming… right before he instinctually Apparated them out of harm’s way. 

They landed in the middle of Leon Harper’s driveway, straddling the bike, the engine humming beneath their bums. 

The world around them was utterly silent: no crickets, no bird-calls. Not even the subtle wet _splat_ of muddy ground after the snow had melted. They went from a riot of sound—breaking glass, screaming, the squeal of tires on pavement and the stink of burning rubber—to this dead silence. Draco could hear his own nervous system, a shriek in his ears, in the sudden quiet. 

Harry panted, pulling in air; looking around to confirm where they were, that they were okay. His hand left the clutch, pushing against Draco’s fingers gripping his jacket; wedding ring to wedding ring in the dark night, pressing those cold fingers with his own heat, pressing them into his heart. 

“You alright?” he asked again. He tapped the brakes with his right foot, setting his left down to catch the bike, leaning them to a stop on the wet gravel. 

Draco mentally checked himself over. He appeared to have all the fingers and toes he was supposed to, and wasn’t missing anything significant like ears or bollocks. Perhaps he’d dropped a few eyelashes—and about ten years off his life for fright—but he seemed physically whole… and disappointingly sober. The sudden and imminent fear for his life seemed to have burned several beers right out of his system. 

“I think so.” 

“Holy shit…” Harry whispered the muggle curse. He bowed his head. “I wanna go back—for that kid and his parents, to make sure they got out okay.” He took a shuddering breath that shook his lungs. Draco felt it under his hand and against his chest pressed snug to Harry’s back. “But I can’t think of a way to get back that wouldn’t cause more of a scene than our disappearing. You?” 

Draco shook his head. He was sweating under his helmet, his pulse drumming a strangled beat in his ears. It was a struggle to find a level voice. He squeezed Harry until his arms hurt—The Chosen One didn’t seem to mind. “Is that… what the war was like?” 

Harry lifted his shoulders against him, shrugging. “More or less. With wands and wizards in addition to the random elements trying to kill me.” 

“Hell.” 

“Yeah, exactly.” Harry pushed Draco’s chill fingers into his stampeding heart, needing the contact. His hand was a steady pressure. “We need to tell Leon what happened. In case anybody got our license plate number, or if there’s video of us Apparating. We’ll need his help.” 

Harry knew Draco’s instinct would be to cover the whole thing up—to burry it, and never speak of it again. He sought permission before divulging what had happened, even to his mentor. They would need help to maintain the Statute of Secrecy. And the motorbike was registered to Leon, so presumably the muggle authorities would come to the old man for an explanation. They needed Leon, their ally, to get through this. 

Harry’s instinct wasn’t to hide himself away but to take action… to always fight back. He never seemed to freeze. Harry was never unsure of himself, not for a second. Draco envied that self-knowledge. Harry had always known what was right—more-so that what was expected of him. When he screwed up, it was because he was trying to help. Draco couldn’t say as much about the train wreck in his own wake. 

Draco nodded. “Okay… yeah, okay.” 

The house glowed ahead of them, a beacon of light through the dark, the winding drive leading up to it like a tiny castle, their refuge. Harry—his home—was already safe in his arms. 

In the soft light of the house was a shadow on the air: wings flapping… a crow landed in the drive. The bird seemed to look at them, a silhouette shadow in the night, framed by the glow of the house. It didn’t squawk or caw, only looked at them as though it belonged and they did not. After a moment as still as a stone, the crow flexed its wings and took flight, disappearing into the woods. 

Harry kicked off, taking the motorcycle down the drive at a stately pace. After the fright of nearly dying in a car wreck, Draco didn’t mind moving slow. Harry got off the bike to punch in the garage code. He knew the combination by memory, opening the door and waving at Draco to take the bike in—removing his helmet to peel his own sweaty hair off his forehead, revealing his scar. If memory served, the Dursleys always told him his parents died in a car accident. He had to be thinking about it, wondering whether the panic and fear they’d just experienced was a worse way to go than a jet of green light to the chest, or if it was irrelevant. No matter what… it hurt. 

Draco guided the machine into the garage. He shut off the engine and propped it on the kickstand as Harry had shown him. His hands barely shook as he removed his helmet, tossing it and the keys at Harry to be hung on one of the pegs on the wall. 

Leon opened the door to the garage, poking his salt-and-pepper head in. 

“Wasn’t expectin’ ya back yet, lads.” One look at their drawn faces and he knew something was wrong. The old man changed tack. “Scotch? Bourbon?” 

“Please,” said Harry, answering for them both. He knew Draco’s mind perfectly. 

“And a cigarette,” said Draco. 

“Cigar?” offered Leon. 

“Even better. Cheers.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The three of them sat on the back patio overlooking the woods, cigars in hand, a very nice bottle of blended scotch on the table with three glasses and some ice—though Harry was the only one who took it on the rocks. Draco and the old Hit-Wizard-turned-Head-Auror drank straight, having built up a tolerance. Harry only started drinking last year. They weren’t even legal in America, but Leon didn’t appear to care much for that. They were legal back home, and that seemed good enough for his scruples. Theirs was a frightful evening in strong need of a nightcap. 

“Couple of idiots drag racing near the uni,” Harry explained succinctly, using the American parlance. “We got caught bumper-to-bumper in an intersection, no way out. Had to go through oncoming traffic.” Unsaid was the fact that Leon’s driving lessons of last year had saved their fucking lives. Because where else had Harry learned to handle an engine as deftly as his Nimbus? Harry never mentioned explicitly, and so Draco inferred. “We barely got away. Multiple wrecks behind us.” 

“Then some flighty bell-end trying to get out of the ruckus nearly hit us,” added Draco, knocking back his whisky. 

Leon shook his head, a cloud building around him as he breathed smoke from his cigar. “You lads have got shit fer luck. Canna get a night off, can ya?” 

Harry wasn’t smoking. His hands were free to pour the next round. “Draco jumped the bike,” he said simply. “Saved us from serious damage.” And by that he meant guaranteed dismemberment; they’d have flown off the motorbike and gone through some muggle’s windshield. Draco didn’t need to have studied muggle physics to figure that much out. The ability to Side-Along Apparate Leon’s motorbike had literally saved their lives. Harry admitted as much. “We’d have been launched like ragdolls otherwise.” 

Harry still had a knack for understatement, though he was more honest with Leon than most. The old wizard was a veteran of the first war, and taught Harry much of what he knew—including the art of the soldier’s understatement. Still, Harry held very little back when it came to telling Leon what had happened compared to how cagey he was with others, even his old pals Ron and Hermione.

Leon’s eyes widened, turning to Draco, his kin. “Really?” He’d never been able to Apparate with the motorcycle without splinching, and had quit trying a few years ago—probably around the same time he lost his son. Understandable. Grief did funny things to your passions, robbing you of one more thing you loved because the hurt wasn’t enough already. 

Draco dropped his shoulders in acknowledgement, taking his refilled glass with a nod of thanks to Harry. He knocked it back in one. “Believing one’s about to die violently rather moves a man.” 

Leon glanced back at Harry. The Irishman didn’t have to say anything. His bushy eyebrows and paternal perception did the talking for him. 

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m impressed,” Harry lifted his glass to Draco across the table, a silent toast to what he’d done—how he’d saved their lives. Again. “Just not surprised. I’ve seen what Draco’s capable of.” 

The blond scoffed. 

“Come on,” insisted Harry, his eyes hard in the starlight. “Voldemort was in me for sixteen years. His horcrux bled his abilities into me by _Se Impetro Munus_ , making me capable of anything and everything he could do—everything he had in him on the night he killed my parents and tried to kill me. And when I died at Hogwarts, my horcrux—or soul fragment or whatever we’re calling it—I went into you,” he stared at Draco, daring him to protest otherwise. “Giving you all of me, plus what I carried from Voldemort. You’re the most powerful wizard alive, Draco. Just because you choose to apply yourself to getting smashed and learning guitar solos doesn’t erase my knowing what you’re capable of. I’m glad you do what you do, by the way. It’s not an insult. Quite the opposite, hun,” Harry added the endearment, sliding ice cubes across the bottom of his glass, speaking from the heart. “I don’t expect you to be a soldier like me. That’s not who you are. You never asked for my abilities, or Voldemort’s. But they’re yours to dispense with as you like. I’d rather you ignore it all and follow your own path, anyway. Be an artist; it’s who you are already. I save people, but what you do… that connects people, heals them, which is equally important.” 

Leon raised his glass. “Hear, hear.” 

Draco fought a thousand feelings—swallowing them down with whisky because he wasn’t good at putting words to his heart. He could act a part, he could lie and conceal, or get people to lie down and spread their legs for him, but when it came to being honest… it hurt too much, ripping apart his hasty stitches, showing those fresh wounds. Harry was right that music helped—it was a way to be honest, to show emotion with some distance from truth and facts. Music was as much his shield from the world as his cipher back to it. 

Draco didn’t shy away. He held Harry’s gaze, Killing Curse green, piercing him through the night. 

 _Oi Wonder Boy,_ he thought crassly _. You’re sucking me off tonight_. 

Harry nodded. _Fuckin’ right I am_.

 

 

 

 


	16. Sugar, We're Going Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Draco attempt normality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** a brief mention of the Holocaust, mentions of past trauma including attempted suicide, a threat of violence which could also be interpreted as a threat of sexual violence, alcohol, underage drinking, bars, flirting, jealousy, compersion, voguing and 90's gay club culture (why am I so _OLD_!?!), cross dressing, gender norm anxiety, drinking games, LGBT politics, sexual content (handjobs, shower sex, T &D, begging, edging, orgasm denial, hair pulling, sub space, light impact play)
> 
>  **AUTHOR’S NOTE:** This chapter is needlessly long because I’ve been plodding away at it for the better part of a year. Satan knows I love my fucking foreshadowing. And callbacks. Recurring images and subplots for days!

 

 

_Drop a heart, break a name_

_We’re always sleeping in, sleeping for the wrong team_

_We’re going down, down in an earlier round_

_And sugar, we’re going down swinging_

_I’ll be your number one with a bullet_

_A loaded God Complex, cock it and pull it_

 

 

“[Sugar, We're Going Down](https://youtu.be/uhG-vLZrb-g)”

Fall Out Boy

 

 

 

 

A year after Malaya Moreno tried to kiss him, Harry got to introduce her parents to his husband. His life was so strange that, by now, it was nearly normal. 

Draco was polite, charming—he was groomed for situations like these; meeting a witch’s parents, getting adults and strangers to like him. He knew how to work a room. Harry stood back and let him work his magic. 

Draco had help in the form of Misha Ionescue. Harry invited him along. They’d spent the day hanging out; they saw the Stonewall Stormers trounce the Fitchburg Finches, followed by an all-you-can eat sushi place where Misha’s excellent Japanese got them a round of free drinks, the beer bottles shaped like tiny Buddhas. Apparently whilst Harry was in the loo, a girl came up to their table and gave Draco her phone number. Misha kept teasing him for stammering that he was married while trying to hand it back to the young lady. 

Harry understood Draco was trying so hard to be the husband The Boy Who Lived deserved—the old Draco Malfoy, Ice Prince of Slytherin, might’ve kept the girl’s number, ringing her up when he was in want of a shag. Draco Potter wouldn’t do that. Because Draco was new to turning interested people down politely, he wasn’t precisely smooth about it. Misha at least had the good sense to shut his gob and stop teasing around Malaya’s parents. 

Harry invited Misha to keep Mal company. He thought his bubbly, endlessly energetic mate could distract her a bit, make sure she had a good time and perhaps she wouldn’t hang on Harry so much, or attach herself to Draco. Harry had felt like a sore thumb the last time he was around Malaya’s friends; now a married man and a Hit Wizard, he was practically a chaperone. Mr. Moreno certainly gave him that commiserating, adult-to-adult look as he handed over his car keys, wishing them a pleasant evening out.  

 

 

 

 

Piled into Mr. Moreno’s orange McLaren, the radio on, Mal could finally flirt with Misha in the backseat. 

Misha was more tactful that Draco had been that afternoon. "You're a beautiful voman. Sadly I'm spoken for." 

Malaya’s expression said, _Just my luck. All the good ones are taken_. She managed to keep her voice bright despite her disappointment. "Yeah?" 

Smiling, Misha admitted, "Harry's ex, actually. Jinevra Veasley." 

Malaya’s eyebrows rose: the magical world was small, but not _that_ small. "How'd you two meet? Through Harry?" 

"The battle of Hogwarts. It vos razher romantic. I killed a man, a Death Eater, and saved her life. She didn't see my face. But she recognized me later, by my voice. I played my guitar at a party at Harry and Draco's. She heard my voice, valked right up to me, and zhe rest...." He sighed happily. 

Mal exclaimed, “Oh my God, that’s so romantic!” 

Draco made a crude, exaggerated barfing noise from the passenger’s seat. 

His pureblood husband saw romance as little more than a tool for manipulating a target rather than a sincere form of expression. Draco struggled to accept most overt forms of emotion, really. It was part of why Harry had to hold himself back sometimes, to scale-down and keep an element of the casual to the things he did for Draco.

Harry had never understood couples holding hands in Madame Puddifoot’s Tea Shop… because he’d never loved someone before Draco, never been willing to shoot himself in the foot to see the man he loved smile and laugh at him. He got it now—why people did stupid, crazy, impossible things in the name of love. 

Draco was the first person Harry _wanted_ to take to dinner, to plan elaborate surprises for, to perform grand gestures for. He’d always wanted to find someone he felt that way about… in his fantasies, his future love had always been female. And perhaps _he_ was the one who had to adjust his expectations, and not let his feelings get hurt when Draco didn’t relish the thought of being treated like Harry Potter’s woman. Draco vastly preferred getting drunk at a hockey or quidditch game to candle-lit dinners; the latter made him feel like he had to perform, like he was back under his father’s thumb, expected to seduce some businessman’s daughter for his father’s benefit. Draco wanted to feel special, but only on his own terms. 

Draco wasn’t ‘out’ before Harry—he couldn’t have been, or Lucius might’ve killed him. In many ways, Draco was equally green when it came to the day-to-day of long-term relationships, and keeping the spark going. 

As much as Harry might feel free to express his feelings through romantic gestures, Draco wasn’t there yet. Draco still had that mentality of hiding his relationships, hiding the things he cared about so they couldn’t be used against him. Draco always concealed his sexuality, letting everyone think he was straight for his own safety. If Harry went too far with his ovations, Draco would get uncomfortable, suspecting he was being buttered up for something; a paranoia left over from his treatment at the hands of both his father and his ex. Before Harry, Draco’s homosexual tendencies had only ever been used as a weapon, a way to control his behavior. Discreet sex with men was how he rebelled; if it wasn’t a secret he was shagging a boy, Draco wasn’t sure what purpose it served. 

As a result, Draco had a very low tolerance for traditional romance—especially coming from another bloke. So Harry found other ways to show he cared. 

He’d never driven with Draco in the passenger’s seat before. That was a normal thing for other couples yet so rare for them. Because they did everything out-of-order or sometimes in reverse—it wasn’t their fault, but rather a byproduct of their sometimes very strange lives. 

Stopped at a red light, Harry reached across the center console to find the middle of Draco’s thigh. He let his hand rest, feeling fitted denims warmed by the trim body beneath the fabric. It was a first for both of them. 

With his gaze on the traffic light, he could feel Draco looking at him—wondering what the fuck he was up to, what he wanted, what the gesture meant. Perhaps Draco thought Harry was asking him not to show so much contempt for others who believed in romance and enjoyed over-the-top displays; not to be rude to Malaya or Misha as they continued to swap sappy stories in the back seat. 

Harry gave his husband’s leg a squeeze, driving one-handed as the light turned green. He just… wanted his hand there. He’d rather hold hands, of course, the way he saw couples in movies and on tele, but… that would be pushing it for Draco. A hand on his leg was progress.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Misha insisted on paying Malaya’s cover charge for the karaoke bar where they were meeting a gang of her friends. He also quietly paid for Harry and Draco, too. He shook his head at the married couple—he didn’t want to be thanked, so the Potters kept their mouths shut, Harry offering a silent, appreciative smile. 

Misha had old-world manners. And Draco almost seemed to presuppose the gesture. In the back of his head, Harry began to wonder if there was some sort of formal protocol about persons with titles always being expected to foot the bill for their party… and if so, how many times he’d unknowingly broken with proper etiquette, jumping to pay for his Romanian friends—especially over the summer when they were hard-up. Harry wanted to pay because that was what mates did in his mind, especially when one had disposable income and the other not. Misha could be a bit stodgy about that sort of thing—more sensitive to being disrespected as the youngest member of the family—whereas Dima would relish Harry’s unwitting disregard for tradition. 

Inside the crowded city club, Harry could see over most people’s heads. He used his advantage to look around the bar’s main room, searching for faces he recognized. Not seeing anyone, they moved to another room where there was a stage and people singing into microphones, reading their lyrics from small television screens. Harry explained the process to Draco, pointing out a DJ booth where there were books of songs for people to choose from. 

Draco touched Harry’s hip to get his attention, jutting his chin to the far corner of the room. At a high bar-style table, Harry spotted Dmitry and Nebojsa sitting on stools. The Serb had a martini and Dima was glowering at his double whisky like it had done something to deeply offend him. Somehow, Harry could feel how agitated his friend was, like a subtle bite of smoke on the air alerting him to a fire. He attributed his sensitivity to a year of being married to Draco; he could sense when an emotionally stifled person was about to go off, and Dima was a hair away. 

Harry put a hand on Misha’s heavy shoulder, asking, “What’s your brother’s problem? If he doesn’t like karaoke, all he had to do was say so.” 

“Oh no,” Misha shook his head, leaning closer to Harry to explain. “He iz probably just depressed. Nebojsa vanted to go to the… uh,” he couldn’t remember the name for a second, searching his memory. Light glinted off the piercing in his eyebrow. “Death Museum,” he said blandly. 

Harry squinted. “The _what_?” Even for Sia, a Death Museum was pretty creepy. The two of them had seen enough dead bodies over the course of the war that Harry couldn’t quite understand why Nebojsa would ever want to walk through exhibits about death on their off-day. As dates went, it was unusual… even for his friends. 

Misha flinched. “ _Blaya_. That’s not the right vord….” He tried again. “The war, in the 1940’s? Halla-zomething?” 

Harry felt his mouth go dry. “You mean the Holocaust? They went to a memorial?” 

Misha nodded. He understood the effect which a place like that would have on his brother, which was probably why he was sticking with Harry rather than bounding over to say hello. 

Harry couldn’t fathom why Sia would bring Dima to a Holocaust Museum—Dmitry who, for all his bluster, was a highly sensitive person, especially to suffering. Was Sia simply trying to teach his partner about major events in muggle history, the same way Harry taught Draco? Or, perhaps more sinister… it was entirely plausible that Dima’s ancestors could’ve had something to do with the genocide sixty years ago, or somehow profited from it, and Nebojsa wanted Dima to recognize the impact of his family’s choices on the world. Maybe he was trying to teach his partner what happened when men like his father were left unchecked. 

As a tactic for scaring Dima into better behavior, it was rather drastic in Harry’s opinion.

“Why?” Harry couldn’t help but ask. 

Misha gave a nervous glance around, as though he didn’t want to be overheard. With the noise of people and singing, it was unlikely. Still he shuffled into Harry’s personal space, head tilted in for privacy, speaking into Harry’s ear over the music. 

“Nebojsa’s entire family vos murdered, _frate_. Only hiz grandmother survived the camps.” 

An image snapped to the forefront of Harry’s mind—one of Nebojsa’s many, many tattoos; what muggles in the military called a rib tag. Soldiers often tattooed their name and rank onto their torsos, usually on their rib cages because it was the largest body part and therefore most likely to remain intact in the event of an explosion. If their upper body was found, their remains could be identified by their ink and returned to their families. 

Harry didn’t understand the meanings behind most of Sia’s tattoos. He felt it might be rude, or too personal, to ask about them. So he’d never put it together that letter Z followed by a string of numbers inked on Nebojsa’s ribs was _tha_ t type of identifying marker. The numbers were his grandmother’s prisoner ID from the concentration camps… Nebojsa’s way of remembering her experience, her pain living on in him. It wasn’t the type of tattoo most people would choose to get—but for Sia who’d been a prisoner of a death camp, too, it made sense that he would want to carry his grandmother’s number as a reflection of their shared experience. 

Harry hadn’t known. He never made the connection. With Nebojsa being so devoutly Christian, it never occurred to Harry that his best friend’s grandparents might’ve been in concentration camps. Harry’s education on the subject had been tailored for a child’s understanding. His brain associated the genocide with Jewish people, but… many other ethnic and social groups had been persecuted, too. Millions of people died, hundreds of thousands from the Balkans. It made a certain geographical sense that Nebojsa’s muggle family had been swept up in the violence and terror—it had to be his non-magical side, as a witch or wizard would have been able to avoid capture by Disillusionment or Apparition. Back then, the magical community had retreated to their safe-havens like Hogsmeads and Diagon Alley while the world outside burned. 

Harry bit back the urge to swear. Cursing wasn’t appropriate. “Fuh… I didn’t know.” 

Misha placed a hand on Harry’s back. “How vould you? He doz not talk about it.” 

No wonder Dima looked so distraught despite the cheerful atmosphere. It was a pretty big step for Dima, to have gone with Sia and supported him through reliving his ancestors’ torture and deaths. Those museums were hard enough to walk through when the devastation and loss of life wasn’t personal. 

Perhaps, after nearly dying himself in the wizarding war, Sia was searching for lost family members—investigating whether he might have relatives out there in the muggle world. Museums would have records of the dead as well as survivors. It was possible that Sia had cousins somewhere, that he wasn’t the last of his family. 

Malaya had dashed off and found her own large group of friends whilst Harry and Misha talked between themselves and Draco surveyed their surroundings, noting the locations of the bar and the loo. Misha was looking over at Mal now, his hand between Harry’s shoulder blades giving a slight pressure. 

“Ve should go make introductions,” the Prince suggested, ever-polite. 

“Y-yeah, of course.” Harry tried to snap himself out of a suddenly glum mood. His gaze stayed with Dima and Sia, knowing it would be proper to introduce them to Mal and her friends, but also wondering whether they were up for it at the moment. He thought they might want to be on their own for a while.   

Draco had already raised his arm, signaling across the room. With his jacket off and sleeves rolled up, it was hard to miss the Dark Mark waving at you. Magical people could always spot that symbol in a crowd, especially someone like Dima who’d seen it on the arms of every member of his family. He was barely old enough to remember the first war; but the arms of aunties and uncles and cousins holding him as a two year old, playing with him, would’ve born that mark. It was a part of his childhood the way others remembered the logo of their favorite action figure or cartoon… if that childhood idol had later shown up and tried to kill you as a teenager, anyway. 

Dima brightened up immediately. Seeing the Dark Mark actually made him happy; knowing that Draco was the only man in the world with that ink, its meaning was forever altered in Dima’s mind, associated with Harry and Draco instead. A smile twisted the corner of his mouth, and he raised his glass to Draco. Nebojsa had his drink to his lips but his freezing blue eyes spotted the Potters standing with Misha; black eyebrows went up, pleased to see them. 

It was somewhat of a uniquely magical experience, to see someone in London and then plan to bump into them a few days later in a bar in New York City. The only muggles who had that sort of global socializing were perhaps pilots and flight attendants, or high-level business executives who regularly flew around the world. Wizards could cross the globe in a blink if they wanted—all they needed was a wand and to set their mind to a destination. Harry got used to popping back-and-forth between England and Romania over the summer. Inviting his mates across the Atlantic was only logical. As far as Harry knew, they hadn’t been back in the States since the war. They needed good memories to drown out the bad, the same as Harry. 

Dima shot his whisky, determined to cheer himself up now that his mates were here. Leaving his empty glass on the table, the big wizard got up and started working his way through the many tables, making a quick path to them. Even in New York City, people instinctively got out of Dima’s way. It was a quality Harry was still jealous of after a year and a half.

He’d left Sia behind—to keep their table? Because the Serb wasn’t done with his drink yet? Or because Dima got so excited at seeing the Potters that he plainly forgot his manners, ditching his date to come say hello? 

Dmitry slung an arm around the back of Harry’s neck, a casual half-hug as they kissed cheeks. Draco got the same treatment before Dima tried to cuff his baby brother—missing because Misha was too fast even for a Hit Wizard to catch. He laughed, smacking Misha on the bum instead. Mikhail was incensed at being treated like a kid, sensitive to it after everything they’d gone through. 

Snagging Dima’s thick wrist, Misha tugged him over to Malaya’s table to make nice. Laughing a bit at Dima and Misha’s fraternal rivalry, Harry and Draco followed. 

Draco started to make introductions. His elegant pianist’s hand lifted, indicating Dima before Misha… precedence, Harry realized. Dima outranked Misha, and Draco’s lifetime of training reminded him that introductions should always go in order of seniority—not of age, but of rank. “His Serene Hi—” 

“No!” Dmitry coughed out, cutting Draco off mid-title. Though it was likely the proper thing for him to be introduced to strangers by his title, Dima absolutely hated that shit. That was why on the night they met, he’d simply been Dima, and not His Serene Highness, a future Duke. His mates knew how not to set him off… and perhaps sensed that titles wouldn’t matter so much to Harry, who spent his entire life being called The Boy Who Lived and not by his own name. 

“Dmitry,” he introduced himself, jabbing a thumb at Misha. “My brother, Mikhail.”

Malaya went around, naming all of her friends. Harry was terrible with putting names to faces, though he vaguely recognized two blokes and a gal they’d gone out with last year. There were at least a dozen Salem kids, and Harry stood no chance at remembering any of their names, including the ones he’d met before. He resigned himself to an evening of pretending he couldn’t hear anything over the music lest it appear he forgot somebody’s name. He didn’t want to seem rude; he’d always been rubbish with names unless they were printed on the back of a jersey, and getting hit in the head a few times between quidditch and the war didn’t exactly help with his recall. 

Misha offered to treat everyone to a round of shots, and the night took off.

 

 

 

 

Two rounds in, Malaya poured over a book of songs, tugging Draco over by his elbow. 

“You need to sing something,” she told him matter-of-factly. Then, to her friends, “Draco has an amazing voice, just wait ‘til you hear him!” 

Draco begged off, his features still. Shifting silver eyes were the only visible sign he was uncomfortable. “I don’t know many songs,” he protested. A lie—he knew plenty of rock songs, some of which were American and bound to be in that book. Draco didn’t mind singing in front of strangers; he’d done it in London. But those had been muggles, people who knew nothing about him and had no bias. These were magical people. They knew he’d been a Death Eater, knew he was a poof and married to Harry. The judgments which might come with that knowledge made him hesitant to get up on stage. 

Mal didn’t give up easily. “I’m sure we can find something. Here.” And she pushed the book closer.

Nebojsa could read upside down. Sitting opposite, he pointed. “You know zhis vone.” 

Draco bit the inside of his lip, sucking at it—creating a long, pinched expression which was a mirror copy of his mum. It made him look disapproving, which was misleading. It was the expression they wore when unsure of how to act, how to fit in without upsetting anyone or exposing their own anxiety. Narcissa still made that face sometimes when her doctors talked to her.

Harry could read Draco’s thoughts without their connection. His husband didn’t want to sing alone. He hadn’t practiced in a while, and he feared embarrassing himself, feared being anything less than perfect in a room full of strangers. 

“Duet?” he asked Sia.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry made sure Draco got a proper drink in him before it was time to hop up on stage. He heard Draco whisper to Nebojsa, “Spliff me, mate,” but unfortunately Sia didn’t have any weed on him… presumably Dima had smoked it all after the Holocaust Museum. So Draco attacked his drink for courage instead, then downed most of Harry’s, too. 

They’d gotten an empty table not too far from Mal and her friends where Harry now sat, Draco and Sia at the bar getting another round, Dima in the loo. 

Mal came over and asked Harry, “What’s the deal with Draco and singing? He’s super good, but… he doesn’t seem to know it, or wanna show off at all.” 

Yes, she had the measure of Draco. Things he _knew_ he had a talent for—piano, jokes, sex, fashion—he readily deployed. He bragged loudly and often when he was confident in his abilities. Singing was very different. Draco didn’t behave as Mal had expected when she tapped him to sing. 

Harry put his drink down. He spoke to his hands around the sweating remains of rum, ginger beer, and melting ice. 

“Baggage,” he said succinctly. “His father, Lucius, was a piece of work—thought singing was an effeminate hobby, so he never allowed Draco to learn and forbid him from doing it. Thought it would make the family look weak for some shit reason. Still, Draco wrote a song during school—about my team’s Keeper, my best mate Ron. Wrote it to rattle Ron’s nerves and taught it to all of Slytherin to sing on the pitch on game days. It was incredibly cruel but… well-executed, you know? Catchy. Got caught in your head. It rhymed and everything. 

“But his dad found out—that Draco had broken the ‘no singing’ rule. Lucius hit him so hard he blacked out… then refused to speak to him. Draco would’ve been… fifteen? This was a few months before his dad got arrested and went to prison, one of Draco’s last memories of him.” 

“That’s fucking horrifying!” Harry couldn’t tell if she was more frightened or angry. 

“Yeah, well… that was growing up with a Death Eater for a father. Like living in a dictatorship. Nothing short of blind loyalty was accepted, with corporal punishment for even the most minor infractions. So it still pushes a lot of old buttons for Draco when he opens his mouth in front of a microphone. He only started this spring. It’s gonna take a while before he’s comfortable singing on his own.”

 

 

 

 

Draco stayed close to Nebojsa, his human crutch, as they climbed the stairs to the stage. 

Harry liked the song Sia had picked— _December_ by the American rock band Collective Soul. It wasn’t difficult. They could sing it and just have fun. And the message… it was a song about not living up to people’s expectations, asking other people to stop projecting the unreasonable and just leave the singer the fuck alone. 

The bright lights washed the pair of them out—especially Draco, making it hard to see his features, pale brows and lashes due to the stage light bouncing off his very white skin. Nebojsa was even paler, his face only distinguishable due to his black hair, tattoos, and the black metal piercings in his lip and nose. 

A guy at the back of the room raised his voice, his shout carrying into the next room. “Goth alert!” 

Harry thought the man was teasing but, a second later, the stage lights dimmed a little, the brightness reducing until Draco and Sia were no longer squinting against it, and their skin behaved as normal skin again and not mirrors. 

Draco quickly rolled down his shirt sleeve, buttoning the cuff to hide the Dark Mark. He didn’t want anyone looking too closely at it. The Salem kids still gave him a cheer, clapping, encouraging. They all knew he’d defected to be with Harry. Their marriage was still the best-selling day on record for _The Prophet_ , including the second time Voldemort died. People kinda didn’t take them too seriously after the first time turned out to be wrong, but two famous blokes hooking up sold more papers than the death of the most violent, prolific terrorist of their age. Go figure. 

The guitar intro to their song started, and a few strangers cheered, too. 

Sia signaled to Draco, who was nearly a foot shorter than him. Draco’s face reached his pectorals. Sia would have to bend down to rest his chin on top of Draco’s head, even when the pureblood was wearing leather boots with thicker bottoms. One of Sia’s skinny fingers pointed up, his eyebrow rising. Draco looked up and nodded, his own finger pointing down. He’d sing the lead and Nebojsa would do the echo which—if Harry remembered his musical lessons—was an octave above. 

Neither of them needed to look at the screen for the lyrics. They knew the song by heart. 

“ _Why drink the water from my hand? Contagious as you think I am?_ ” 

Months of practicing gave their voices a perfect blend. In the original version, the higher part was done in falsetto but Nebojsa didn’t need to go there. He’d trained his head-voice for so many years that he had those notes in his back pocket. Draco watched his mate’s mouth instead of the screen, making sure they stayed in time, the microphone between them. 

Draco let the tiniest rasp into his voice on the descending pattern. It was his own feelings, his sensing of the hypocrisy of people who only pretended to like him because he was married to Harry. Plenty of people still thought he was the scum of the earth for the Mark on his arm. Yet people drank their salvation from _his_ hand, not Harry’s as they were lead to believe.

Draco and Sia signaled each other again, switching parts. Nebojsa would sing the melody and Draco would go high. 

“ _Just tilt my sun towards your domain. Your cup runneth over again_.” 

Nebojsa perfectly mimicked the scratchy, emotional descent Draco had sang—because people used him all the time to make themselves feel better. They sucked him dry until they were happy and he had nothing left to spare for himself. And Draco’s voice took on Sia’s monastery-trained high tones, able to stretch up and find those notes without getting loud about it. They were balanced, understanding what would make the other’s voice sound good and adjusting as they went. 

Dima came back from the loo to sit with Harry and guard their partners’ drinks. “Pop music,” he grumbled, sliding in beside Harry. Anything too bright or to happy, or anything with a happy ending was not easy for Dima to swallow. He preferred his art to be realistic, and according to his reality life rarely worked out the way you wanted. Dima didn’t say anything else—just gave the smallest shudder of his shoulders. He put up with the genre he didn’t care for because their guys sounded so bloody good together. 

In the bars before the chorus, Nebojsa started absently playing the bass part in the air. Draco copied him, knowing the acoustic guitar chords. Because Nebojsa played lefty and Draco righty, their hands faced the same way, looking almost like they were teasing at holding hands while they sang. 

They split the chorus, too. Draco sang the first two lines, “ _Don’t scream about, don’t think aloud. Turn your head now baby just spit me out._ ” 

That last line made Harry think of something very different—the song was about people using the singer, yet for Harry ‘spit me out’ had a very clear sexual connotation. Harry had never spit Draco out. Not once. He always swallowed. It was just… something he wanted to do, to show Draco that he was wanted and it was okay. That harry accepted him no matter what. 

Silver eyes flashed, looking away from the mic to catch Harry across the room. Yeah… he was thinking about busting his nut in Harry’s throat, too. 

“ _Don’t worry about, don’t speak of doubt. Turn your head now baby just spit me out_.” 

Of course Sia sang the line about doubt. It was so fitting, with his religion and what people in England generally thought of him—as nobody. They all doubted what he was capable of. 

Dima leaned closer to Harry. “Iz just me? Or doz zhat sound sexual?” 

Harry shook his head. “Not just you, mate.” 

They switched around again for the second verse, Sia singing the lower part and Draco higher. “ _Why follow me to higher ground lost as you swear I am?_ ” 

That was eerily on-point. A number of people in the magical community would reject Nebojsa for being bi, the same as they’d stopped following Harry when he came out. Maybe Sia thought he could help more people from in the closet? That sounded more like Dima than Sia, though. How else would his friend be lost? Of the four of them, Nebojsa was kind of the only one with his shit together. 

He was their grown-up, the mum of their group. Even Misha called him ‘mom’ sometimes, because in many ways Sia was the closest he ever got to a trusted maternal figure. It was Sia who taught him about sex, who coached him on how to treat women and shave his face and a thousand other small rights of passage. 

In metaphorical ways, maybe he was lost. From his dead family. From his homeland because he had nothing and no one to go home to. His tenuous situation in Romania where he couldn’t show his face I public because he was wanted as a suspected drug dealer. And his relationship with Dima wasn’t going anywhere, either. They were living together but, a he clearly pointed out, there was no ring, no plan for what happened beyond co-habitation and sharing a mortgage. 

“ _Don’t throw away your basic needs_ ,” Draco sang, Sia’s voice an eerie shiver above him. “ _Ambiance and vanity_.” Which, for anyone else, were anything but necessities. But for a creative, posh little wizard prince like Draco, those things were absolutely necessary for him to keep creating art and expressing himself like this. He wouldn’t have rolled down his sleeve were it not for vanity. And if it wasn’t for the curated combination of alcohol in his blood and Harry at a nearby table looking up at him, smiling, proud of him… Draco wouldn’t be on that stage. The two of them made their own ambiance of affection wherever they went. 

There was an “ooh” in the background of the original song, another falsetto. Draco and Sia could do it without that thin breathiness. They sounded solid, singing together in the style of the monks Sia studied under—sustaining, timing their breaths by glancing up or down at each other, stealing air when the other was covering so that the sound was uninterrupted. 

Sia broke out another monk trick. Harry had heard him do it a few times before in church. Nebojsa could split his voice in two—singing two different notes an octave apart at the exact same time. He said it was the same technique bass signers used to reach the insanely low notes in some of their hymns, but it could be mastered by someone in a higher vocal range as well. It had to do with training the two flaps of skin which made up the vocal cords to vibrate at different frequencies from one another. The result was two distinctive notes, as though he and Draco were both signing, even as Draco closed his mouth and leaned away from the mic. 

In a ensemble or choir of just a few people, it was quite useful to get multiple notes from one singer, filling out the group’s sound. That was why Sia learned the sub-harmonic technique along with the bass singers. Done solo, it was… like some kind of magic to those who’d never heard it done before. 

Malaya turned in her seat, looking back over her shoulder at Harry. “Holy shit!” she mouthed. 

Harry just pointed back at the stage, knowing Sia had taken over the background so that Draco would sing the rest of the song himself.

Having to sing over Sia got Draco to be louder. Without their instruments in hand or the noise of a live drum set shaking the floor, a part of Draco had forgotten to project himself. With Sia to compete with, he at last found the voice Harry was used to.

 

                                    “ _December promise you gave unto me,_

_December whispers of treachery,_

_December clouds are now covering me,_

_December songs I no longer sing_.”

 

 

Sia took over singing the words under Draco, freeing him up to repeat the chorus. 

When Draco sang the familiar words, the crowd started clapping along. The rasp on his voice when he sang the words “spit me out” was… decidedly sexual, letting the song be interpreted that way. That while people thought they were degrading him, using him and then discarding the rest of him as garbage… really he was getting what he’d wanted from the start, which was their attention. As long as he could get somebody to listen to him—to _believe_ him—then he knew he’d be okay. 

That was something Harry unwittingly taught him. He’d been one of the first people to hear when Draco screamed for help. His mum got the ball rolling and then Harry took over.

No one would ever use Draco again, Harry vowed. Those days were long over. But he could sing about the experience, how he’d felt, everything he’d gone through. Singing helped him realize where he was now, how much better he was, the life he’d made for himself. No one would be using his body or silencing his voice ever again.

 

 

 

 

They got the loudest round of applause than anyone else so far. Malaya jumped out of her seat and clapped, yet she was so short and the bar-height stools so tall that it barely made a difference. A few people reached out to offer Draco and Sia high-fives or a handshake. Mortified, Draco ducked his head and walked swiftly back, grabbing the fresh drink Harry had gotten him and downing half of it. 

Nebojsa followed, slipping in next to Dima and picking up his martini. 

After Draco sat down beside Sia, still a bit pink in the cheeks, a muggle bloke sauntered up to their table—late twenties and stylishly dressed, dark hair and glasses, a lowball mixed drink in his hand. The man’s eyes were fixed on Draco as he came right up to the blond wizard. 

"Juilliard or Tish?" he asked in an American east-coast accent, casual, as though he knew them already. 

"Sorry, don't follow," Draco frowned, his head tilting. 

The muggle gestured between Draco and Nebojsa. "Where do you two study music? Julliard or Tish? I'm a TA at The New School, and I'm sure I’d remember a voice like yours in auditions. So you've gotta be at NYU or Juilliard. Which is it?"

"Ve're not students," Nebojsa answered for them both, space between his syllables, his hackles up. Harry could tell by the way Sia set down his martini—a practiced, careful calm—looking squarely at the muggle, unblinking. In a second, Nebojsa transformed from his calm, affectionate mate to something entirely different—sharp, powerful, decisive; more like the persona he wore at the office. His immediately cold attitude made it abundantly clear he wanted nothing to do with this muggle. Draco was closer, at the edge of the table, his own attitude far less clear. Then again, it had been over a year since anyone had approached Draco in a bar. A lot had happened since the last time Draco got hit on. 

"Really?" The muggle’s dark eyebrows went up. "That's a shame. What do you do for work, then?" His question was aimed mostly at Draco, but included Nebojsa out of some modicum of social politeness. It was clear the incredibly talented smokin' hot blond was the one the muggle wanted to be talking to, and the tattooed Serbian was just hovering, in the background but conversationally in the way. 

"Military," said Sia succinctly. "Anti-terrorism." His accent bounced on T sounds, a distinct enunciation, making the simple phrase sound vaguely ominous, almost threatening. 

"Wow," the muggle looked surprised. "What about you?" His attention was back on Draco like a magnet. He set his drink down on the table, ingratiating himself. 

Noting the glass encroaching next to his own, Draco shrugged a blasé shoulder. "Oh... nothing. I'm just a trophy wife." 

Harry nearly choked on his rum. He'd never heard Draco use that phrase before—it was muggle, not magical. So where the fuck had he learned it from? And why would he say something like that about himself? 

The muggle laughed—assuming Draco was joking. "No, really. What do you do all day?" 

"Really," Draco's eyes widened, mockingly. "I sit around. I drink, look pretty, try not to be late for band practice." Which was funny only to his present company, as Draco was notoriously late for practice even when it was held in his own damn house. 

Harry gave his husband the side-eye. Was that really all Draco thought about his life? That he existed to get drunk and be amusing? What about his work with the Hölmfröst group? What about the Minister's Ethics Committee? His social and political contributions? The articles he helped Harry write for _The Prophet_? The properties he owned? And the band? And being a godfather? It broke Harry's heart that Draco might think so little of himself. The way he rattled it off, so dryly, without an ounce of flamboyance or self-pity... Harry couldn't tell if that was really how Draco felt, or if he was trying to be boring so this muggle would piss off. 

"So you're in a band," the muggle latched on. "What's the name? I'll look you guys up." 

Draco glanced back over his shoulder—looking to his friends and his husband. Dima's nose was buried in his scotch, and he wouldn't have been any help, anyways. Nebojsa looked like he was grinding his teeth, wishing the tosspot would bugger off. Harry... he probably looked like he wanted to murder the bloke for annoying Draco.

"Uh..." Draco turned back, summoning his confidence in order to handle the situation himself. "We don't exactly have a name." 

"No name? How are people supposed to find you or go to your shows?" 

"We're... not that type of band," protested Draco. He glanced down, sliding his drink away from the muggle’s; a clear indicator that he wanted the conversation and their proximity to end. "Not looking to get famous. Fame is a drag, right?" 

Dima snorted into his top shelf scotch. As a prince, he would know all about the downside of fame. 

"You _should_ be famous," the muggle told Draco sincerely, leaning closer, making eye contact. "A voice like yours... it's unforgettable." 

Draco's features closed off, going from wary to hard. He leaned as far away as he could get on his stool. The muggle didn't take the obvious hint that he was making Draco uncomfortable. He had his elbow on the table, trying to cozy up even as the blond retreated. 

Harry couldn't hold back anymore. It was one thing to press your luck, but Draco clearly wasn't into it, and the guy needed to back off. "Alright mate, it's time to fuck off," Harry said loudly, pointing back the way he'd come. His Surrey slipped out a bit. 

The man glared at Harry’s interruption, an elbow on the table, still leaning into Draco—driving the smaller man bodily back even as he was obviously trying to escape physical proximity. Any further and Draco would go tumbling off the back of his seat, or fall into Nebojsa. It couldn't be more clear that Draco wanted nothing to do with him… and maybe that turned this bell-end on, targeting a young-looking chap and chasing hard, pushing boundaries to the point of discomfort. Maybe other blokes gave in, or didn’t have a solid group of friends to retreat to. Harry got the impression this was how the muggle picked up blokes in bars, and he disliked the tactic in the extreme.

"And who the hell are _you_?" barked the muggle at Harry, bristling at being interrupted.

Harry felt his eyebrows rise along with his irritation. "Me? I'm just a bloke who loses his temper when morons who can't read body language or take a fucking hint keep hitting on his husband." It was enunciated, rude, and came out of nowhere. But it was also incredibly satisfying to say exactly what was passing through his head with zero filter. The fact that he was three drinks in might’ve had something to do with how easily he could drop his walls and speak his mind. 

"Husband?" the muggle repeated, confused. "No way you’re married. That's not even legal!" 

" _Je viens de France_ ," murmured Draco, his glass in hand, about to sip his drink. "Not our fault Americans are behind-the-times. We are definitely married." He had his drink in his left hand, wedding ring clear on his finger as he sipped, some of his confidence returning now that the stranger was out of his personal space. 

Harry truly did not care for having the validity of his marriage questioned by some berk in a bar. "Go on, then," he shoo’ed the guy away one more time after showing off the matching silver ring on his own finger. "Find somebody else to bend you over tonight." 

Insulted, the muggle picked up his drink to leave... but at Harry's words his head snapped back to Draco, shock on his face. His mouth hung open, fixing Draco with an expression of flabbergast. 

"You're a _top_?!" His disbelief was so plain, he very nearly laughed right in Draco’s face. That, more than anything, hurt Draco's feelings; like Harry, he hated it when others made assumptions about their sex life or preferences based solely on their looks. It wasn’t fair. 

"Bloody tosser," said Draco, truly insulted, his temper revving the fuck up. His voice rose in volume, dropping in pitch, showing how angry he actually was behind his cool Malfoy glare. "Fuuuuuck off! Unless you want my husband to take you outside while I watch, an’ not in the good way." 

Harry didn’t mind Draco’s implication that he’d beat the living shit out of this muggle—a part of him wanted to, but he wouldn’t actually do it unless the bell-end posed a legitimate threat. 

A second later, his brain processed another way Draco’s words could be taken… that Harry might fuck this fellow up, sexually. Rape him while Draco watched. But surely Draco spoke off the cuff, meaning standard violence and not sexual violence? Draco grew up in a culture where threats of rape were the norm; when he felt cornered or angry, his language turned violent… to protect himself. Draco didn’t believe himself or Harry capable of rape—but the muggle had no way of knowing that. Depending on how many drinks the muggle had in him, Draco’s far more sinister threat might’ve gone right over his head. Draco’s language had always been layered, with many hidden meanings. Harry had learned to decipher Draco’s code on the fly. 

There was a scrape of chair legs as Dima stood up, making himself useful by looking God damn frightening. Suddenly everyone was seeing the face of a wizard who'd attempted to kill his own father and held no qualms when it came to starting a punch-up in this bar to defend his best friend's feelings. On top of which, Dima did not appreciate the implication that being a top or bottom made one lick of difference in the respect a person was due. 

Harry and Sia had the exact same instinctive reaction—each put a hand on Dima's rippling shoulder, pushing the dangerously-built wizard back down into his seat. 

"Paperwork," muttered Harry. 

"Suspension," threatened Sia, both speaking from the corners of their mouths. 

The muggle was already skittering away—Draco’s threat combined with his present company’s appearances had been enough. Dima grudgingly went back into his seat with a low growl, tossing back his drink like it might make him feel better. He didn't tolerate anyone treating Draco poorly, nor did he care for the rude assumptions about pitching and catching preferences. 

"Sorry," Harry told Draco across the table. "I don't take kindly to anyone ignoring your signals. I should've let you handle it." 

Draco's silver gaze moved over each of them: Nebojsa swirling the dregs of his cloudy lilac martini, Dima staring vengefully at the bottom of his glass, and Harry's visible disappointment in himself... he thought he had a better grip on his rage. Apparently all it took was one flirty pillock getting in his husband's personal space to make him snap. 

"Thank you," said Draco, directed to each of them. Nebojsa for trying to take over the conversation, Dima for being a physical threat, and even Harry's blanketly jealous rage acting as a deterrent. Draco knew they meant well, had wanted to spare him the awkward encounter if they could. 

"Refill?" asked Harry, changing the subject for everyone’s sake. 

Draco nodded, slipping off his stool. "Yeah. I'll come with. Dima? Sia?" Both nodded they'd take another round. 

Draco came to Harry, his arm with the Dark Mark sliding around his husband's low back—to keep close as they wandered back to the bar in the other room... but also because Draco wanted to be close. 

"That was...." the pureblood couldn't decide how to describe the encounter, lapsing into silence. 

"Uncomfortable," Harry provided. "Regrettable. Not my finest hour." 

"Nor mine," admitted Draco with a tap of his shoulder into Harry's side. He'd put his arm up around Draco's shoulders as they weaved through the crowd. Draco reflected, "I used to be better at that." 

Draco was a very different person than the wizard Harry had taken to the Gladstone Arms two summers ago. Harry couldn't help but laugh a little, remembering Draco as an icy prick, fending off randy blokes with his acid tongue. He’d likely been full-blown manic at the time. The man Draco had been that night hadn’t given a shit about other people’s feelings. He only cared about himself, his ego, his pride, getting his own needs met. Harry had been along for the ride. 

Draco wasn't the same jaded, angry-at-the-world guy he'd been last year, fresh out of Death Eater hell. He didn't have that scorching vitriol at the tip of his tongue anymore. Maybe because he'd found some peace and measure of happiness, he didn't feel the need to be so degrading towards others who showed an interest in him. Maybe he realized that being so guarded meant people had a hard time getting close; that he might have a better time of it if he didn't build his walls so thick, assuming everyone out there was as bad as his father or Philippe. Maybe he was sick of being a rude cunt all the time. Maybe he didn't have the energy anymore. 

This new Draco was building his empathy, starting to open himself up to others. If that muggle had stuck to talking about music they could’ve had a pleasant conversation—he could’ve been another validation, encouraging Draco to apply to uni to study the thing he loved so dearly. Instead, the guy had been self-serving, trying to pick Draco up rather than have a genuine conversation about his talent and allow a rapport to build naturally from there. He’d gone right to hitting on Draco, which turned the pureblood sour as soon as he tasted ulterior motives. 

It was too bad. Harry wanted Draco to have nothing but good experiences in the muggle world. That wasn’t always possible, of course, but he wanted the best for Draco no matter how irrational that was. 

Draco was trying. He wanted to be different, to grow out of his old ways; understanding that if he changed his actions, things could start getting better. Slowly, Draco was taking his guard down… because he didn’t want to be alone anymore. That meant learning to let people in, even if he got burned. 

Harry squeezed Draco against his side. It was a _good_ thing that Draco found it harder to be an arsehole to strangers: it meant he was outgrowing the crippling narcissism shoveled down his throat, learning to consider how his words and actions made other people feel.

 

 

 

 

The bar was backed up so they had to wait to place their drink order. The bartender took one look at Draco and slid him a free shot of mid-shelf vodka while they waited. Draco got the strangest look on his face—not that he couldn’t believe the free drink, but… something else Harry couldn’t quite place.

Turning away, the bartender smiled over his shoulder, dark eyes on Draco. _Then_ Harry understood what was going on under his asexual nose. 

“That’s… uh… two blokes in less than five minutes,” observed Harry with a note of concern. “And this is a straight bar as far as I know.” 

Draco shrugged, passing his hand with the busted Gaunt ring over the shot glass out of habit—to check if it was contaminated. He said the ring hadn’t reacted to anything since Hogwarts, since the destruction of the remnants of Lily Potter’s magic which had protected Draco as it had Harry as a child… but he still acted as though it might wake up at any time. Magic was, at its core, unpredictable like that. 

Draco decided the alcohol was safe and downed it. He’d always been a ready drinker. 

Returning his empty glass to the bar top, he drawled confidently, “I’d always heard New York was quite queer. Was that your experience?” 

Harry shrugged. “I was only here once, one night. I couldn’t say.” 

The bartender came back for their order. Harry remembered Dima’s double-pour of MacCallan single malt, neat, and Draco’s Moscow Mule. Harry’s own drink was ginger beer, dark rum and bitters on ice, called a Dark and Stormy, which Draco ordered a few times back home and Harry realized he liked—it was the perfect combination of not-too-sweet and not-too-boozy, not apologizing for being alcohol with the slightest burn on the way down. He couldn’t remember Nebojsa’s poison of choice. 

“An Aviation, stirred,” Draco supplied. Harry slid his credit card across the bar. 

The bartender smiled. “Sure thing, though it might be a while.” And he poured Draco another free shot before fighting his way through the other bartenders to find some clean glassware and the necessary supplies to mix their drinks.

Harry spoke into Draco’s ear over the music. “He thinks you’re hot,” he identified, meaning the bartender. 

Draco squinted, staring at nothing as he considered. He didn’t seem to agree. “No… he thinks _you’re_ a walking wet dream, Oh Chosen One, and _I_ look like a light-weight. He’s feeding me free shots so I’ll get ruddy pissed and stumble home on my own, leaving him free to pursue his real target—you.” 

Draco was better at assessing people’s underlying motives—especially when it came to sex. Harry could predict if someone was about to curse him, if they’d punch him with their right straight or a left hook body shot… but when it came to flirtation and sexual machinations, he was wholeheartedly out of his element. He was ready to believe Draco’s judgment over his own. 

The bartender glanced over his shoulder again, eyes on Draco—at first. When he gaze slipped up to Harry, his smile changed from bright to sultry. 

“Oh… fuck me, you’re right,” Harry groaned, feeling half his face go pink, supremely uncomfortable. 

Draco leaned against him. “Mmmmmm. Say it again. Those magic words.” 

He wasn’t about to argue with Draco being flirtatious towards him; that much he could figure out. “You know, most people wanna hear _I love you_ ,” Harry pointed out. 

“Nope. The other three words.” 

Harry couldn’t help the upturn of his lips as he looked down at Draco’s face in the soft lights. They caught in his hair, his reflective eyes, colors passing over him like bright shadows. 

“You’re right,” he said it again—happy to do so because it made his husband absurdly happy. 

Upon hearing those magic words, Draco stood up a little straighter, his pointed nose lifting; a satisfied smile taking his lips, too.

Harry turned his gaze back to the bartender who was still staring at him, blatantly checking him out instead of making their drinks. Harry got his elbow on the bar, leaning over Draco so they could talk without having to raise their voices over the upbeat dance tune three girls were belting out from the stage in the next room. 

“I dunno why he’s looking at me,” Harry grumbled. “You’re better-looking. It’s why you get hit on so often.” 

Draco scoffed at the compliment. “Come off it. You could get away with that ‘humble hero’ bullshit a year ago, but not now.” His chin drifted, regarding Harry with one silver eye. Draco sometimes turned his face away from things he thought were beautiful in an effort to control his reaction, taking that second to school his features so as not to betray his inner thoughts. His face was a blank mask when he said, “The tables have turned, Wonder Boy. I am officially second fiddle.” 

The alcohol probably had something to do with it but... Harry could tell from Draco's eyes that he meant it. 

Harry frowned; he didn’t like to hear his husband putting himself down. "You're much better looking than I am, luv. Ask anyone in this damn bar, they'll agree with me." 

Draco pressed his lips, considering. "You know… I think I will!" His voice went bright—giddy, even—as he peeked around Harry’s shoulders, looking down the bar. He spotted a group of four university-age girls nearby. “Perfect,” he nodded, grabbing Harry by his forearm and dragging him over to bother a couple of disinterested third parties into settling their disagreement for them. 

Draco walked right up to four muggle strangers, his lanky body dripping with a charm Harry hadn’t seen in a while—it wasn’t the chilly aloofness Draco had learned from his father, but a combination of his own creativity, some of Dima’s casually-sexual body language, and a youthful, happy smile borrowed from Misha. He added to those elements a liquid grace which was all his own. The result was nothing short of disarming. The women didn’t know what hit them.

Draco tipped his head, his hair seeming white and glowing under the colored lights in the club. Draco had no trouble angling his way into their conversation. His drawl was liquid sex as the words left his mouth. “Excuse me, ladies. Sorry. Could you help us out a mo’? My mate and I are having an argument.” 

He jabbed his thumb at Harry. Asked to look between the two wizards, four pairs of mascara-trimmed eyes lit up. His posh accent might’ve had something to do with their enthusiasm. Harry had experienced Americans being a bit nuts for an English bloke just because of their voices. Draco’s charm and looks combined with his stunning singing voice put him on another level. 

“Yeah! Sure!” was echoed amongst the women. Two turned on their bar stools, happy to give the hot blond bloke their undivided attention. 

Draco’s smile was thought-erasing. “Alright, thanks. In your _honest_ opinion: which one of us is more attractive?” He didn’t mince words. He said it and waited, brows up, the corner of his mouth turned up, showing his white teeth in the swirling club lights. 

The girls deliberated. 

The first to speak said, “You're both 10's, it's kinda hard to choose.” 

Harry shrugged off the compliment, stuffing his hands in his denim pockets. “Please. We've actually been arguing. Help us out?” His sound was a bit thicker now that the drinks had set in, bringing out the soft slur which was usually barely detectable in his own accent. The difference between London and south-of only came out after he’d had a few, or if he was high. 

One of the girls appeared to slip on her own shoe, leaning heavily against the bar. She was distracted—her eyes fixed on Harry, mesmerized by his deeper, slightly slurry voice—and proceeded to stub her toe on her friend’s chair. 

Draco caught Harry’s gaze, blond eyebrows jumping. _You’re winning, Scar Head_.

 _Just following your lead,_ _Ice Prince_. 

One of the other young ladies finished her assessment of them. “Well... I'm not a huge fan of guys with facial hair, so... sorry, I'm gonna say your friend.” She cast her vote for Draco. 

The girl who stubbed her foot glared at her like she was out of her mind for disliking a bit of scruff. “I love a guy with a nice beard. I pick you!” She winked at Harry, flirting with him. He was fucking oblivious, but even that registered. 

The girl on the stool closest to Harry blew out a long breath, her eyebrows pinched, looking between them. “Ugh... this is so hard! He's hot, and you're hot, and.... I guess, I kinda prefer taller guys so, no offense?” She apologized to Draco, unconsciously leaning closer to Harry once her vote was cast. 

Draco smiled at her. “None taken, dear.” 

The last girl looked between them, unsure. “ I guess…” she bit her lip. “Whichever one of you is single! 

All the girls laughed, agreeing on that point. 

Harry pulled a whistling breath through his teeth. "Sorry. We're both married." 

"What?" The girls couldn't believe it. Muggles didn’t marry young like magical people did. Also because what he and Draco were doing was likely in the realm of flirting if Harry wasn’t mistaken, and perhaps it was a tad rude for married blokes to start flirting with women in bars. 

"But, you're like... barely twenty one?" That was drinking age for American muggles. Draco looked like he could be under-age, but Harry passed muster. They could’ve gotten into the bar on fake ID’s—they _had_ gotten in on fake ID’s, charmed to make themselves older. Draco’s appearance was so youthful that he looked like he’d need a fake ID even back home. 

"Yeah," Draco admitted—not to their ages, but holding up his hand, showing the silver wedding band on his finger. 

"No way." 

Draco assessed the situation, considering how much he wanted to say. This was the second instance in a quarter of an hour that his marriage had been called into question. He surprised even Harry with the complete truth. "To each other." 

Harry slipped his arm around Draco's back, fingers fitted against his hip, pulling him close. Not to prove anything, but because he wanted to. 

The girls went nuts. 

" _No!_ " 

"I _never_ would've guessed you guys are gay!" 

Harry's voice lifted—a devil's advocate tone. "Not gay. Not exactly," he said mildly. “Just… flexible. Open-minded.” 

"Bisexuality _is_ real, not a myth," Draco declared easily, infinitely more practiced when it came to announcing his sexual preferences to strangers; his words were confident, playful, coming from a comfortable place. He might be learning his new self, but he understood his sexuality inside and out. He tapped his hand against Harry's broad chest, producing a thumping noise against his pectoral muscle. "Besides, he's 99% straight—except for me, right?" Draco looked up at him, pleasant, smirking like the old Slytherin git when he teased. He knew he was right, the sod. And he wasn’t revealing any more than Harry had already admitted to. 

Harry nodded. "I mean, you fall in love with the person, not their equipment, right?" He said it looking down at Draco, but he didn’t mind if anyone else heard his words. 

The ladies were stunned at that. More depth than they were expecting from a casual bar conversation, perhaps? They looked between each other, then back to Harry. 

Draco was frowning. 

"What?" Harry laughed at his husband's pouty expression. "Why are you mad?" He pitched his voice much lower, dropping his head, whispering Parseltongue against blond hair so only Draco could hear. " _You think I don't love your huge cock? News flash: I'm into it because it's yours, you prat_." 

“I take it back,” one of the girls quipped; observing their body language, how utterly at-home they were with each other, how their subconscious selves just wanted to be near. “Of course you two are married.” 

Harry shifted, coming in slow, giving Draco the chance to politely bow out. Draco stayed right where he was, letting Harry kiss him. It was a soft, slow melding of lips, requiring a certain contortion of Harry’s neck and shoulders to get their faces level. Harry took his time, his tongue tracing the sharp line of Draco's front teeth before sucking at his bottom lip. His fingers explored the line of Draco's jaw, fingernails against his lightly stubbled cheek, then splaying out over his ear, tangling in his hair. Harry held him close, claiming his mouth, earning the smallest groan from somewhere in Draco’s chest. 

The girls let out some rather loud appreciative expressions. 

Draco had a thing for publically flustering muggles— _especially_ if it was with gay PDA. It was a way for him to fight, to punch back against everything he’d ever been taught about not mixing with muggles, about staying in the closet, about other people’s opinions having power over his behavior. Draco liked being looked at, lusted after, and he liked the way people looked at them together… especially when their observers had no idea who they were. Being anonymous, an embodiment of erotic beauty, was as much Draco’s art form, one of his mediums, as music. So said the hint of a boner pressing into his thigh. Harry’s hand involuntarily tightened in Draco’s hair. 

“Fuck,” one of the women whispered. “That’s hot.” 

Harry blushed, pulling his lip out from Draco’s teeth, glasses knocked down to the end of his nose. He stopped because their drinks had shown up. 

The bartender gave them a look—lust and envy turning to consternation when he noticed the wedding ring on Harry’s finger touching Draco’s face in such a familiar fashion, and realized he stood no chance of picking Harry up. 

“Y’all should do porn,” he suggested, sliding their order and Harry’s Amex across the bar with another telling wink at Harry: the gesture said, _I’d pay to watch_. 

“Hell yeah!” the girls cheered in agreement. 

A fraction of that made sense to Harry—that people would pay to see Draco naked, fucking. Draco was God damn glorious in bed. Himself, tho? That remained a bit of a stretch. He blushed deeply—up to his ears, heat flooding his face. 

He could snog Draco in public now; he could grind on the dance floor or admit his love in a room full of people. Those experiences didn’t fluster him anymore. He’d grown into it. But someone finding _him_ attractive? He didn’t get it. Draco was the quintessence of male beauty, magic and sex all rolled together. Why anyone might choose him when Draco stood beside him remained a mystery.

 

 

 

 

Walking back to their table, four drinks in-hand, Draco managed to elbow Harry right in the stomach—not hard enough to spill their cocktails, but enough to get his attention in the noise and movement of the club. 

"You know we could've taken any of those women home," he said. "Even after you kissed me." 

Harry didn't say anything. 

"Maybe," Draco continued to needle him, "we could've gotten more than one, aye?" 

Harry's voice dropped lower again—unconsciously slurring again—but this time with agitation rather than natural sexual charisma. "Would you like to shag someone else, Draco?" 

It was an accusation, Gryffindor style. He was suggesting Draco didn't want him anymore—that he was bored more than unfaithful. Draco recognized the coded implication, and would not walk into that trap. He knew Harry’s insecurities all too well. 

"Not unless we're shagging her together, luv." 

Harry's head tilted. "What, like a threesome?" 

They'd had this conversation once before, shortly after they’d started seeing each other, whilst standing in a muggle grocery market. Right before Harry said he loved Draco for the first time. Draco remembered it very clearly as the day he met Harry Potter's insanely jealous side. From that day forward, Draco had operated under strict bonds of monogamy and fidelity. He understood that was what Harry needed to feel secure in their relationship. If it took ignoring his impulses towards other people, then so be it—Harry's happiness was worth never shagging another person so long as he lived: a feeling which scared the right piss out of Draco to this very day. 

He'd never considered being monogamous before Harry—there’d never been any compelling reason to confine himself to a single partner. Meanwhile Harry had been monogamous his entire life; it was what _he_ grew up surrounded by, what muggles practiced and was thereby normal to him. Draco had conceded, hopping to the opposite side of the spectrum in order to be with The Straightest Boy Who Lived. He thought it ought to have been harder, giving up his freedom to snog or fuck anyone he fancied, but… for Harry, he honestly didn’t mind. For the first time in his life, Draco valued another person’s comfort over his own. 

It was utterly un-Slytherin of him. There was Gryffindor material buried in him after all. Something of loyalty—or perhaps not wanting to see his husband hurt, refusing to be the cur who broke his beautiful true heart. 

But Wonder Husband wasn't the same closet-dwelling boy he'd been a year ago. His jealous temper wasn't blowing a hot wind over Draco's face right now. In fact, Harry was something close to calm after Draco gave him the emotional reassurance he needed—that Draco had no interest in what Harry would consider ‘cheating.’ Once Harry felt secure in that, his mind was able to wander. And Harry Potter’s mind was becoming increasingly dirty. 

"You're considering it," Draco declared, a tad giddy. He could read it in Harry's face. He could see Harry's jaw moving beneath his tidy beard as he ran his tongue against his molars—he always did that when he was gathering his thoughts, concentrating, or about to cast a powerful spell. In this case, Harry was considering a great sort of magic—changing his stubborn Gryffindor mind, adjusting his moral code in return, at last ready to compromise. Draco couldn't believe it. "You're actually considering it. Us, fucking a woman... together." 

"Maybe." Harry rolled his big green eyes, conceding. "We can talk about it when I'm sober." 

"You would want her to be someone we know," Draco inferred. "Not some stranger we picked up at a bar." 

"Right. Someone we can trust," Harry agreed on a sigh—Draco was blatantly ignoring his request not to get into it whilst they were drunk. 

Draco stole a sip of Dima’s good single malt—he needed hard liquor to chase an unbidden image out of his head. "I'm not fucking Hermione. She's put together nicely, but no." 

Harry chuckled darkly. Physically, Hermione was Draco’s type—dark hair, long legs and a nice rack. But their personalities didn’t mix well. "She’s very pretty, but no,” he echoed. “I’ve never been attracted to Hermione." 

"You're not _attracted_ to anyone but me," Draco chortled happily, believing that statement to be one hundred percent true. Because Draco could will himself to forget the awkward night back at Hogwarts when Harry had admitted his attraction to one other person on earth: Nebojsa Radić. Draco knew Harry would never do anything about it, and so to him the knowledge became irrelevant—binned. His Bipolar allowed him to edit the truth, to sincerely believe the lie he told himself about being the only person Harry felt attracted to.

Standing in a double-wide archway waiting for a group of people to make way, Harry tapped his hip against Draco’s, getting close. He loved the way Draco felt against him. And he knew Draco loved the looks people gave them when they were affectionate in public—surprised, admiring, perhaps fantasizing. Harry kissed the top of Draco's head once he came close enough, wanting as much physical contact as they could manage without spilling their drinks. 

"I've been into a few people," Harry corrected gently. "In my own way. But nothing I’ve ever felt compelled to act on, and no one as strongly as you." Harry pressed his back against the archway, inviting Draco flush against him so some people could pass by. Draco stepped readily into him, minding the full martini glass and the scotch in his hands. Draco had a quidditch player’s balance even on the ground. It was no struggle for him to manage the drinks and press his chest into Harry’s ribs, looking up at him, listening.

Draco _wanted_ to listen to him, wasn’t cutting him off or being impatient. It was so good to see him like this, comfortable, relaxed, curious and a little sexual. He had to know what the pressure of his firm, slightly-bony body was doing, pushing Harry’s back into the door frame.                                                                   

"I want to be really clear,” Harry murmured. Draco was close enough to hear his quiet words over the music. “It might be a long time before there's a bird I'm comfortable with—as far as me being attracted to her, but also… seeing someone else touch you, suck you off, or get fucked by you," he said plainly. "I'm a very jealous man, Draco. You’re the only one I’ve ever been with. So even imagining us with someone else… that's a tough image for me to wrap my head around. Maybe it's fucked up or possessive, but I need you to be mine." 

"I know," Draco whispered back. He rose up on his toes, seeking Harry's lips—wanting to give him that physical reassurance. Harry gave him a quick peck, a press of surprisingly forgiving lips which made him want to do it about eight more times. "I get it. I appreciate you even talkin’ about it. We don't have to do anything. I'm okay if nothing ever comes of it." Draco took a nibble on Harry's lip, his words slurring a bit because he was drunk, and a bit because he knew it turned Harry on to hear him speak less properly. "It can be a fantasy, somethin’ we talk about ta get off. I'm fine with tha’." 

Harry nipped back at him, wishing he had his fingers free to take Draco's ass in both his hands, pressing their bodies flush together to hide the pureblood's inevitable stiffy. He hovered, being taller, mouth against Draco’s hair, butterfly kisses to his temple, breathing him in. 

"A fantasy… for now," Harry whispered. He felt a zap like electricity shoot down Draco's spine—his own magic, lust, answering Harry's, lighting him up. 

Yup. There was Draco's boner. As reliable as the sunrise. 

Draco let off a low rumble of a groan in his chest. “When did Harry Potter get so fuckin’ filthy?” 

Harry pushed off the door frame, pushing Draco off of him crotch first, urging him on his way back to their table before they threw the damn drinks and started snogging in public again. The temptation was there. 

“You did this to me,” Harry growled. “I learned from the absolute best. Let’s go,” he added. “Before I owe Dima another scotch.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

After karaoke, Malaya and the other Salem kids had ear-marked a Latin club in Midtown which supposedly had the best dance music in New York City. 

Harry gave the name and address to Ron and Hermione on the off-chance they felt like Apparating over. He never expected either of them to come, with the time difference and everything. So he was especially surprised to scan the bar upon arriving only to find Hermione Granger in a figure-hugging red dress he recognized, holding a glass of white wine and watching the impressive displays on the dance floor. 

He was just drunk enough to walk right up and give her a bear hug, pulling her into his chest and rocking her slightly to the beat. “’Mione! So glad you made it.” He released her but held her elbow, his eyes falling back to lock with Nebojsa. The Serbian nodded, understanding Harry without a word—he would watch Hermione’s wine and handbag, and get Draco set up with a drink if Harry wanted to dance with his friend. 

To Hermione’s surprise, Harry guided her forward, getting her to walk into his body with his hand against her arm. He walked backwards into the crowd, smiling, drawing her out onto the dance floor. 

“So… you ask girls to dance now?” she teased him, doubtless remembering the poor showing he’d given at the Yule Ball. Though it was four years ago, he still flushed a little at the thought. 

“I’m gettin’ over myself. Dancing is a thing people do when they’re happy, right?” he squeezed her elbow, clasping her free hand in his. “We have to let ourselves be bad at things. That’s a kind of freedom.” Hermione would understand—they shared a crippling fear of letting each other down, of not living up to their best selves. Sometimes it was the greatest mercy to allow themselves the space to cock up, to make a royal fucking mess of their lives… and then clean it up.

Harry tanked their friendship last year. He was working to repair that rift, but he wouldn’t have gotten anywhere had Hermione not found a place in her heart to forgive him, had she not reached out to him trying to understand his choices. He wanted to reach back now that he could… and he knew Hermione loved to dance.   

He rocked his old friend in his arms, finding the steps by watching Misha and Malaya and everyone else around them. Harry might never be as good as them but—with a few drops of Draco’s knowledge living in his blood, informing him on a sub-conscious level—he could get by. And the alcohol helped. He didn’t need to be as good of a dancer as Misha or Draco. All that mattered now was enjoying the experience. Finally, there was sufficient happiness to go around. 

“Damn you for having a girlfriend!” He heard Malaya shout over the music, talking to Misha as he spun her around under his arm. Their conversation fell into rapid-fire Spanish after that, and Harry got lost. The young prince was a great dancer, showing off with Mal in his arms, doing exactly as Harry knew he would—insuring she had a good time, that she felt special in a way Harry didn’t know how to provide outside of his relationship with his husband. 

Harry lifted one arm, encouraging Hermione to spin under it, her back landing against his chest with their arms wound around, hands clasped. He curled his arms around her middle, just under her bust, his steps small so he wouldn’t trod on her heels. It was too easy to lock their steps together, to fall-in and adjust himself—he’d walked with Hermione for so many years, to Hogsmeade and across the castle grounds that his body already knew how to shorten his steps, to fall into an unconscious rhythm with her shorter legs and small feet in high-heeled shoes despite his new more-adult height. 

Her head could tuck under his chin now. She was laughing, smiling, enjoying herself. Her hand squeezed Harry’s, letting him know she was having a good time. He hadn’t seen Hermione smile like that in a very long time—years, perhaps, before the war. 

Over the top of Hermione’s fluffy ponytail, he saw Draco at the bar raise a shot in their direction—silently cheering Harry for getting out of his tiny comfort zone and doing something so normal as dancing with a girl he’d known for half his life. Draco understood it was a big deal for his shy, awkward husband to run out onto the dance floor.

 

 

 

 

They lifted their glasses—the three of them, all watching Harry Potter. 

“You know… he wouldn’t have done that two years ago,” Draco explained, signaling the bartender for another round. “Harry didn’t dance.” 

What he meant was, _Harry didn’t dance before me_. Harry didn’t do a lot of things before Draco. 

“Vhy not?” asked Dima. 

Draco lifted a shoulder, half a shrug, his face crinkling. “He never learned. He’s awkward around women. He didn’t see much reason to try.” These were false reasons, of course, Draco’s own dance around the truth. 

So Nebojsa spoke it instead—he could see beyond the Dragon’s excuses. “Harry didn’t believe anyvone vould ever vant to dance vith him, because he doesn’t see himzelf as good looking.” 

Dima made a dry, disbelieving noise—as though he were choking on his own surprise. He didn’t understand how Harry could fail to see himself. 

Draco sighed, watching the barman refill their water-clear mezcal. “Yeah. That, too.” 

Being with Draco was a bolster to Harry’s self-esteem; Draco’s very clear desire filled that confused void inside him, wondering if anyone would ever find him attractive, if he would ever be accepted as he was. Draco drew Harry out of his shell before the war. Now those roles had reversed and it was Harry who was out and free, calling to Draco to join him. Draco locked himself behind rules and social structures which no longer applied to him. He stayed in his cage even with the door open wide… because hiding behind those old principles made him feel safe. Draco still didn’t know who he wanted to be outside f the influence of his father and the Death Eaters. 

On the dance floor, Malaya moved to dance with her friends and Harry passed Hermione to Misha—her red skirt flaring, Misha hooking her knee with his easy hand to draw her leg up his side, dipping her, holding her by one hand against her back. Harry visibly blushed under the lights. Harry might dance with ladies now, but he had yet to develop moves like those. 

Misha hadn’t meant to show him up. But Harry felt schooled never-the-less. Misha was two years younger, had dropped out of school and lived on the run, yet he could dance circles around Harry, a married man. 

Draco slammed his shot. 

“Go,” Nebojsa whispered in encouragement. Because Harry was turning from the dance floor, defeated, thinking he could get away with retreating to the bar after what his ego perceived as a defeat. 

Draco needed to feel like he had a place in Harry’s life, some sort of purpose—that Harry yet needed him. That was the nature of young relationships, needing to be the center of each other’s world, blocking out everything and everyone else. It was a desperation fed by the war, by death threats and seeing one another a hair away from death. Nebojsa couldn’t blame them one bit. It would take time to diffuse their hyperactive war-formed instincts, always flying to one another’s side at the first sign of trouble. 

Their shared trauma informed Draco that it was time to rescue his husband’s pride before he crashed. Without intervention, Harry might turn his back on the evening and Apparate home to be miserable and beat himself up. 

Draco slid off his bar stool, his feet moving, taking him out to meet Harry before The Boy Who Lived could give up on himself. Draco avoided at least two women who wanted to dance with him, politely turning his head, changing his path through the crowd, always knowing where Harry was. He caught his husband ‘round the waist in a familiar fluid motion, turning him, taking him back under the lights. Draco didn’t manhandle—Harry let him, thinking Draco wanted to dance. 

The Potters fell into a perfect, easy rhythm—hips rolling, arms winding, finding their favorite hidden places on each other’s bodies. Draco’s thigh tucked between Harry’s longer legs, assuming the lead with a hip to the taller wizard’s groin. It was what they both wanted; Draco because it made him feel like a man, and Harry who recognized when Draco’s skill outpaced his own, giving way, happy to let his husband shine where he himself was unsure. Draco made Harry feel sexy. Especially when he acted on his desires, showing what he wanted. Draco breaking his mask, casting it off to be true, was a thing of supreme beauty. 

They danced as though they’d known each other this way for years; in a way they had, stalking one another around the cold grey halls of Hogwarts, spying, always watching. That knowledge of the other’s tastes and movements translated into a wordless understanding, now they’d found a path to walk together. 

Harry’s hand traced a path up Draco’s spine—face in his white hair, nosing around, smelling him, experiencing those first beads of sweat as they gathered on his milk-pale skin. His big hand cupped the back of Draco’s neck, a forearm tattooed with the Dragon’s name pressing into his back, keeping him close. 

Draco’s mischievous fingers found their way into Harry’s back pocket, grabbing his butt. Cheeky… lucky, too. 

They swayed, knowing each other’s bodies, enjoying the music. 

“So…” Dima whispered in Romanian. In a rare gesture, his shoulder connected with Nebojsa’s chest—looking back and up over his shoulder, finding eye contact. His golden eyes caught in the colored gel lights, glinting like metal, a hint of the magic tied up inside those eyes. During the war he’d worn colored contact lenses to hide the truth. Tonight he was himself without disguise. He pressed until their bodies were flush, until their breath synced. Dima was flirting—as much as he ever would in public. “Is this compersion? I always thought you were exaggerating.” 

Compersion was the opposite of jealousy—the joy a non-monogamous person experienced in seeing their beloved be in love with someone else. Compersion was the food of polyamory, its fuel. Without that shared pleasure in other relationships, the whole thing was pointless. Opening your heart to multiple loves meant wanting the same freedom for your partners; for them to be fulfilled in every way they wanted, for them to reach out and have new experiences, for others to experience the inner intimate beauty of the person you loved.   

Dima never had the desire to hold on to another partner long enough to form that kind of bond. He had sex for the thrill, the newness, and then he moved on. Now, with Harry and Draco, he was at last experiencing compersion—joy in their joy, happiness because they were so in love. 

“ _Bozhe_ ,” Dima swore in awe. 

Because Draco was up on the tips of his toes. He held Harry by his ass and a hand in the thick ink spill of his hair, tugging him down, demanding his mouth. The world disappeared when they touched. They were one mind, one spirit in two bodies. And when their mouths met… magic.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Misha mentioned to Malaya and her mates that he and his brother had gotten a hotel room nearby—planning to sleep off the night before Apparating home. Of course Mal and her friends were welcome to come join them for a nightcap in their room. Nebojsa leaned into Harry, letting him know there were three beds in their two bedroom suite—he and Draco were welcome to crash for the night.

Dima provided the cross streets, and they separated: Mal and her friends to pick up a few pizzas and snacks to share, and the Europeans who looked older to find a liquor store and procure a few bottles. Misha went with Mal and her friends, to watch out for them… also more or less knowing the way back to the hotel in case they forgot.

 

 

 

 

Standing in the brightly illuminated American liquor store aisle, Hermione surveyed wine bottles with Harry; picking one up and holding it for his examination. “What do you think?” she asked, not drinking much. “Is this a good one?”

At last, she thought there was something Harry was good at besides quidditch, nearly getting himself killed year after year, and copying off of her homework. Surprisingly, he knew a bit about wine. 

He picked up another bottle. “You like sweeter, so maybe this one? It’s a Riesling out of Austria.” 

She grabbed a second bottle, tucking both under her arm. “When in Rome!” she declared her intent to descend into his world and attempt to have a good time. 

From the end of the aisle, a high-pitched male voice gave off an effeminate peal. “Ooooooh, gurl! Yeah, you! Miss Serving Christian Dior red dress realness in the liquor store!” 

Hermione laughed—inherently nervous because she was English, and back home people didn’t do that sort of thing, even when complimenting a stranger. 

The man who spoke was one of three black men, all dressed fantastically in bright color, glitter on their cheeks and exposed chests, probably having come from a gay club nearby. One wore a dress, the other a woman’s skirt with high heels. They were nearly as thin as Draco or Nebojsa, though their aesthetic was purposeful rather than a result of torture. 

“Thank you,” Hermione managed, always polite to strangers, a blush creeping up her cheeks. She wound her free arm through Harry’s. If she thought Harry was in any way capable of controlling what was about to occur, she was sadly mistaken. 

Their leader sauntered up to Hermione as though he were on a cat walk, the sequins on his jacket sparkling in the light. Harry hadn’t seen a bloke wear sequins since Nebojsa’s red dress back in Romania. He still wasn’t used to men in women’s clothing. After seven years in the magical world, he was only _just_ accustomed to robes which looked and behaved a bit like dresses. 

The young man stopped before them, not a rude distance, his eyes landing on Harry’s jacket. His fingers flicked in a quick circle, indicating the garment. “Vivienne Westwood’s Anglomania collection?” he asked—not shocked, but feigning something like it, a hand over his heart. Unlike when Dima did it, the gesture _was_ affectation this time. This man was very gay and very in-tune with fashion. 

“Er… yeah,” Harry shrugged. The jacket was his favorite; he’d worn it nearly every day for over a year, and eventually had noticed the female designer’s name on the label. 

“Ooh ooh ooh!” the stranger exclaimed, his eyes floating behind Hermione only to widen. “And it’s Fashion Week!” he exclaimed. 

Dima, Nebojsa, and Draco had found them. 

The flamboyant New Yorker pointed at Dima. “Armani!” he announced the designer of Dima’s clothes before moving to Sia’s tight leather pants and printed silk shirt. “Dolce & Gabbana, very nice, very nice my friend.” And to Draco. He was only stumped for a split second; his glitter-strewn head cocked, asking, “Versace? Vintage?” 

Draco held up his hands—a bottle of good vodka in each. “Guilty,” he droned, not like it was a bad thing and he’d been caught, but owning his fashion and the obscure knowledge which had clocked him. 

Dima had multiple packs of beer balanced between his big arms. Each of the queer strangers noticed the bulge of his significant muscles as he held the weight which, to him, was nothing. 

Their gazes made Dima uncomfortable—knowing from a glance, from their clothes and the sound of their voices that they were openly gay whilst he was _not_. Being checked out by other guys didn’t make Dmitry queasy: it was the internal struggle that no matter how much he liked their appreciative gazes, he couldn’t do it back without exposing his own secret. Being around openly, effeminately gay men made Dima intensely nervous, something like self-consciousness in an otherwise brash man. Harry could see his friend start to bite the inside of his lip. 

As though they could sense Dima’s internal conflict, the rowdy men turned their attention back to Hermione. 

“Gurl, give us a twirl!” one of the others encouraged her. 

Laughing, Hermione released her hold on Harry to oblige with a quick spin, her skirt flaring out around her. The guys all clapped and cooed, telling her how amazing she looked. She did look gorgeous, with all her curves on display which she often hid beneath a robe or conservative work clothes. Harry knew she was beautiful but… apparently his type was androgynous, with more angles than generous curves. 

Dima and Sia were communicating—the side of Sia’s mouth twitching, never quite speaking, and then Dima bucked his chin, agreeing to whatever his partner had suggested. 

Harry realized when they arrived at the register. The clerk had them all pull out their identification, and while they did so Dima said quietly, “And theirs, too.” He tipped his head, meaning the three flamboyant men in line behind them, still complimenting Hermione, getting her to talk because they fancied her crisp London accent. 

Their ring-leader gasped. “Daddy, you’re too sweet! 

Dima visibly bit his lip, treating the guys to a shadowy sideways glance which made him look like a movie star posing for a photo shoot—the villain character, charismatic but distrustful. Dmitry was a bit too classically handsome to be real. Finally, in America, Harry realized who Dmitry looked like: a young James Dean, especially with a cigarette in his mouth. 

“Not true,” he told them darkly—because like Draco, Dima couldn’t take a compliment without negating it. 

That was who he was at his core, though. He _was_ a sweet person, despite everything his father had done to fuck him up. Even after all that pain, bits of his true self shone through.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

They met up with Misha, Mal and her friends on the street corner. Food and drinks loaded up between their many arms, they walked into the hotel which occupied most of the city block. 

The doorman recognized them—Dima and Misha were hard to miss, and Nebojsa's appearance was memorable, too, from his pretty face to his stylish glam-goth-rocker wardrobe. The muggle man bowed at the waist after opening the door for them. "Your highnesses." 

Mal's girlfriends exploded on Misha. "You're a _prince_!?!" Their astonishment lasted through the lobby—a fantastic display of art deco design which was like stepping through a Time Turner to the 1930's, all sumptuous glamour—all the way to the elevator, the button for which Dima mashed rather forcefully. 

All around them shone polished marble floors and soaring white columns supporting a triple-story ceiling. Dima didn’t even look, shuffling the boxes of beer in his arms, adjusting his grip. These sort of surroundings were normal to him, nothing to gawk at. Harry couldn’t help but notice how glamorous it all was, how historic, how attractive. Then again, Dima was around a bloke like Sia all the time. Perhaps he ran out of appreciation for beauty, having used it all up on his partner and his art. Dima’s paintings belonged on display in a place like this. 

It was crazy to think that a year ago they’d slept in the woods in Norway, running from the Death Eaters after Ravenwood. A year ago they’d been homeless. Tonight they were sleeping on feather beds in New York City’s Waldorf Astoria… or so proclaimed the golden letters above the entrance. Of course Dima felt at home here: a good many surfaces were laid thick with gold, just like home. 

Workers in the lobby gave them looks, like a rock band and their sizeable, excitable entourage returning after a show. Sia and Draco looked the part, surely. Hermione’s dress was beyond beautiful, following her curves. She looked like she belonged in the company of royalty, no matter that a bit of sweat on the dance floor had smudged her eye makeup. Dima’s clothes were simple, a green jacket with a tshirt and dark denims, but obviously high-end as that gay man at the liquor store pointed out. Harry supposed even he looked alright himself. The muggles who worked the night shift probably saw a good many people stumble in drunk. It was a hotel, after all. Their crew were perhaps more subdued than most late-night drunk guests, some of them being English, and Misha keeping the Salem kids more or less contained by his example. They were in a ritzy, famous hotel. They ought not to act like wild animals. 

"Ve are not royalty. Not really," Dima griped. He’d set a quick pace across the lobby, expecting the Salem kids with shorter legs to follow him. Harry and Sia kept pace, Mal practically running because she wanted to hear what he had to say for himself, his ruse. She was a bit breathless listening to him speak now. "Zhe titles are of defunct empires, a courtesy, history. Truly, ve are notzhing." 

Harry begged differently. "C'mon. You live in a bloody palace. Forty bedrooms? Every last one of them covered in gold." 

Misha countered, pizza boxes balanced on one hand. "Ve _own_ a palace. Ve _live_ in a one bedroom flat in Southwark vhich Dima fills vith canvases as big as I am." 

Dmitry shrugged. "I like installation pieces." He did have a penchant for large-scale paintings. Some of them took weeks to complete. 

"You _like_ painting until four in zhe morning," his baby brother griped. 

Dima was ready with a snappy retort, his auburn eyebrows rising over golden eyes. "Vhich is vhy you have separate bedroom, Mishenka." That and the fact that all three of them were sexually active—two of them with each other—and while they were a family who loved each other very much, they didn't need to see each other fucking. That was a firm boundary. 

Mercifully for Dima, the elevator arrived. They packed in about twelve people, and the rest would need to wait for another. The air smelled like cigarettes and pepperoni with a hint of Dima’s woodsy cologne. 

"Which floor?" one of the Salem wizards asked. 

"Top," said Dima, Prince of Understatements, before the elevator doors closed.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

They had a suite. The key card Nebojsa wormed out of his snug pocket unlocked double doors to reveal a grand living room with its own wet bar, sumptuous couches in white satin fabric, and a high ceiling inlaid with a swirling pattern of gold leaf, complete with a small chandelier. 

“Dima booked a standard double room,” Nebojsa explained as they walked in. Dima dropped the beer on the bar and, as soon as he confirmed the coast was clear, he pulled his wand from his pocket and cast a Cooling Charm over the lot of it. “Zhe hotel manager recognized hiz name and upgraded zhe room. Zhey insisted on zhe Royal Suite.” 

Harry looked about. There were subtle touches here and there: carved furniture, vintage photographs, tassels on the pillows and crystal ash trays. One of the photographs was of The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, who lived abroad after his abdication. This must’ve been a hotel they frequented, the room named after the famous couple. It reminded Harry a bit of his visit to Ten Downing Street. Hard to believe they were going to get hammered and hang out in a place like this but… after a summer at the palace in Romania, it didn’t strike Harry as quite so strange. He was certain Draco preferred it to another bar after the luck they’d had today. 

Beyond the living space were French doors opening out to a balcony. 

Harry watched as Draco troubled Dima for a cigarette before disappearing outside. Mal thanked Dima again for the invitation before following Draco. 

Out in the night, his dragon lit up with a wandless flame. Malaya stood with him, leaning against the banister. Harry turned his head away, feeling no compulsion to read their lips. 

He moved his gaze instead to Dima and Sia, chatting with people from Salem as the next elevator-load arrived; well, the Salem kids were talking as the foreigners listened, their body language reserved, faces still. 

Harry knew them well enough to read what they didn’t want anyone else to see. Dima and Sia were debating internally, trying to decide whether or not they would come out. They knew it was safe because Harry and Draco were out, were acquaintances with these people; but for the two of them there was a lifetime of residual trauma and mistrust to overcome. He could see it in their faces… Dima’s tight jaw like he was grinding his teeth when he wasn’t speaking, and the way Sia let his long hair cover half his face rather than push it back and show his stunning features. Their bodies were close, Dima's shoulder angled in front of Sia's body—his shield, protecting his partner from danger by drawing attention to himself, just like the night they’d met. 

Dima did the talking, Sia behind him, listening and thinking things over. They were so good at hiding their feelings for each other that, unless they openly said or did something, no one here would be the wiser. 

From the corner of his eye, Harry sensed movement. He turned his head in time to see Malaya out on the balcony move towards Draco. He saw her lean in, rocking up onto the balls of her feet in order to kiss his startled husband on the mouth. 

Malaya was drunk—they both were, though Draco surely had more of a tolerance. It took a fraction of a second, one blink, for Draco to realize what was happening and decide he didn't want it. His hands rose to Malaya's shoulders. He didn't push her away, but rather held her still, stepping himself back... until he could lock his arms, ensuring she wouldn't be able to kiss him again, holding her back. 

Draco knew what it felt like to be rejected; Philippe had burned his heart, using him before casting him aside. So Draco wouldn't push Malaya away, wouldn't inflict that kind of pain on another person. Even when she’d done something wrong, Draco wouldn’t hold that against her—because he’d made plenty of mistakes in his life, too… enough that he didn’t believe punishment was effective. He didn't want to hurt her feelings; instead, he wanted to teach her. 

Harry watched Draco's lips as he licked them, a hint of Malaya's lipstick staining his mouth. The deep red color reminded him of the blood on Draco's lips when he'd fought Death Eaters at Hogwarts—blood on his mouth in the midst of a battle. Harry had to take a deep breath to stop his heart rate from picking up. 

"I..." Draco's lips stopped, his tongue darting out to lick them again. Harry knew his husband’s speech so well that he could read Draco’s lips from double the distance. He imagined a low, factual tone to Draco’s words. "This would break Harry's heart. I'm sorry, but I won't hurt him like that." 

Harry's heart swelled. Lately he'd begun citing his marriage vows when women hit on him—Harry was a loyal person, a soldier sworn to his duty. He often looked at his marriage as something to remain true to. Draco didn't have that sensibility: Draco was a Slytherin and a pureblood, through and through. When presented with the opportunity to cheat, he didn't deflect with promises or obligations. He simply said he didn't want to hurt Harry, didn't want to lose him. The risk wasn't worth it to him. He liked sex with other people, but he loved Harry more. Maybe it wasn't the most effective way to get someone to back off, but it was painfully honest for Draco. 

Harry felt a tug in his throat. He wanted to go out there—but he waited. Unlike the predatory bell-end at the karaoke bar, Draco needed to take care of this himself. He didn't need a Chosen One intervention. Draco was more than capable of handling this. Harry _wanted_ Draco to handle it on his own, to set his own terms, building boundaries as he needed rather than as Harry dictated. 

Draco's hands tightened on Malaya's shoulders, careful to keep his cigarette out of her face and away from her long hair. "He's watching us, by the way. He saw." 

Her eyes went wide. "Oh shit," she swore, and probably groaned. Then her head tilted with worry. "How do you know that?"

Draco swallowed, trying to find the words—or rather, the words he'd say publically, to this young witch he hardly knew. "It's... complicated." 

 _Yeah_ , Harry nodded. Draco once carried a literal piece of Harry's soul inside him. They were bonded by vows, by magic, by experience, by blood… and by a horcrux magic they didn’t yet fully understand which had saved Harry from death. That was the definition of complicated, and not something Draco would want to get into on a good day, let alone drunk on a Manhattan balcony with a witch who'd just tried to snog him. 

"I've always known when Harry had eyes on me," Draco admitted. "He watched me all through school—my benevolent stalker," he snorted, rolling his eyes. "It's more intense now, being married. But he means well. And he's not upset, I promise." Draco consoled Malaya; identifying the feelings turning her pretty features. His arms softened, one slipping down around her waist to invite her close. He was okay having her near him now that he'd established that kissing wasn't acceptable.

Draco was getting better at setting limits, and expressing himself. He still spoke through a filter sometimes, especially with other people, but he was learning to take his walls down one brick at a time. 

Draco found Malaya attractive, the same as Harry. So said his thin fingers brushing circles against her back, his inhale pulling in her scent. Draco had an instantaneous sexual drive which Harry lacked—a desire to fuck within minutes of meeting someone he was compatible with. Meanwhile Harry had no urge to act; he could acknowledge that someone was good looking, a simple fact which had nothing to do with him, and then move on, never pursuing or considering anything more. Draco felt a calling, a rising of his blood with every potential hook-up. It was a fundamental difference in sexuality, a result of upbringing and natural urges, which caused their brains and pricks to be wired differently. Harry could appreciate what Draco felt… maybe because he could feel it from across the room, the part of himself forever locked to his husband, body and soul, his own libido perking up because Draco was aroused. 

Draco was fighting his instincts. He enjoyed the touch, the experience of Malaya's body so near, but that was all it would ever be. In a way, Draco was comforting Malaya whilst proving to himself again that he could stop. He teased himself. Knowing he could cut himself off when the time came made Draco feel powerful—just like when they had sex. He needed to ride the edge; that was a huge part of Draco’s arousal cycle, what turned him on and kept him hard during their marathon fuck-sessions. Harry understood, and wouldn't begrudge him that brush with danger. He trusted Draco to handle himself. 

Harry couldn’t make himself be angry with Malaya. He understood too well how it felt to be mesmerized by Draco. The man could cast a spell on you with his charm, his vulnerability, showing you a glimpse of the shadows in his heart. That was his gift as an artist. He made it so easy to fall, to let the magic of his spirit wash over you. And the more he let himself experience life and freedom, the more his inner self shone through. 

Out on that balcony, under the moon and the city lights… he was the most fascinating, most stunning, most magical creature Harry had ever beheld. He was more than a man. Draco was made of magic. 

"Are you sure he's not angry?" Malaya asked tightly. She got a bit lost, looking up into Draco's silver eyes. Harry couldn't blame her one bit. 

A sly smile turned the corner of Draco's mouth, showing his white teeth. "Yeah. I know Harry. He's watching us right now thinking it's a shame he's such a jealous bastard—wishing he wasn't so damn greedy, that he'd learned to share... because we look bloody hot together." 

That made Malaya laugh. She was getting a flash of the old Draco—Prince of Slytherin, seducer of witches and wizards alike. Most of Hogwarts had lusted after Draco Malfoy at one time or another. Each of them had their reasons—most of it boiled down to Draco's sex appeal, that hint of hedonism and abandon hidden beneath his blond locks, shining behind silver sickle eyes. Draco was a highly sexual person, and being married didn't change that. But he was learning to redirect his urges and control his actions in accordance with what he really wanted. He had no desire to hurt Harry... no matter how much he might want Malaya, Harry remained most important to him—more important than his own lust, his own satisfaction. Draco didn't think a few minutes of getting off with Malaya was worth stabbing Harry in the heart. 

And they _were_ fucking gorgeous together. Even Harry could admit that. Her dark hair and fresh copper skin against Draco’s parchment paleness; yin and yang, complementary opposites against the lights of the city at night. 

Harry considered Malaya a friend, but... not the sort of friend he'd ever be willing to share his husband’s sexuality with. If he and Draco were ever going to fuck someone else… that person needed to be someone much more mature—someone in control of themselves and in touch with their emotions. Malaya would be a terrible choice. She didn't have what it took to withstand the fire around them, burning their hearts. 

Draco recognized that core incompatibility and was letting her down gently. He let Harry be the barrier, the reason why it wasn't possible for her to get any more intimate with the Potters. And Harry was glad to play the role of the bad guy in this instance. Malaya wouldn't begrudge them for keeping to their marriage vows—especially knowing what a bleeding romantic Harry was. 

“You know…” said Malaya. “You’re almost too good for _him_ , and that’s sayin’ somethin’.” 

“Agh! Gods, no,” Draco shook his head, pulling his cigarette back to his mouth a moment, blowing smoke. “Talk to anyone who knew me before Harry an’ they’ll tell you I’m a man without a soul. So it’s a very good thing Harry’s soul is big enough for us to share.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The Salem crowd wanted to play Spin The Bottle. Harry fixed them a look—brows drawn together and down, eyes fixed over the rims of his glasses. He wanted them to realize they were being inconsiderate, giving it a moment to sink in. Most of them were drunk, failing to realize they were being prats. 

Harry gestured vaguely over himself, Draco, Hermione, and their Slavic mates. "We're all in committed relationships, so that doesn't work," he said flatly. 

"Oh, duh," Malaya snorted. "Sorry. What should we play instead?" 

Someone suggested a game called "Never Have I Ever." The Europeans hadn’t heard of it. 

“It’s a muggle drinking game,” Mal explained. “Each person says something they've never done—like ‘never have I ever climbed a tree’ and all the people who have climbed up a tree have to take a drink. When magical people play it, we do a group spell at the beginning, enchanting the glasses, binding everyone to be truthful while they play. 

"You don't have to tell the story behind it or anything," she added. "The truth thing is based on your memories. So if it's true about you, a drink will appear in your glass and you take it. That's all." 

Harry considered that, with his hodgepodge of odd life experiences, he was either going to be shitfaced or stone sober in the next hour.

 

 

 

 

"Never have I ever kissed a professional quidditch player." 

Obviously this was aimed at a witch who started laughing when her glass refilled. Hermione blushed, picking up her glass as a mouthful of sweet white wine appeared. Maybe her relationship with Viktor had been confined to the European newspapers... or maybe with everything that’d happened, people forgot that Harry Potter's friend had dated quidditch star Viktor Krum. Draco's glass filled, too. Harry knew his husband had snogged a few of the cute quidditch players his father arranged for him to meet, no surprises there. 

Dima and Sia toasted each other, downing their shots. Dima had whisky, while Nebojsa drank a mouthful of dark brandy out of a small snifter. Harry wondered if before dating each other they might've fooled around with their friend Vitya Novikov, or someone else from Durmstrang who went on to play professionally. Misha wasn't drinking; since he was a pro player, maybe it didn't count? 

When it was Hermione's turn, she had a good one up her sleeve. "Never have I ever played quidditch," she announced. Which was technically true. Hermione was pants on a broomstick—she could barely get the thing to rise up into her hand. She'd watched him and Ron and everyone else fly, but Hermione never played the sport. The act of flying in general made her queasy, which was why she always used Apparition, Portkeys, or muggle means to get around. 

Many people groaned. At least three-quarters of the room had their glasses fill. Dutifully, Harry took his drink, toasting Hermione with his raised glass. "Good one, 'Mione. Get us all pissed." And he shot down his beer. 

Harry decided it would be his goal to try and get Draco and Nebojsa trashed, since they were in for the night. Draco would take quite a few drinks to get there. And Nebojsa... yeah, he probably needed to drink a ton before he got loose, too. Harry had to think of things unique to the two of them. 

When the room quieted down after Hermione's big play, Harry announced, "Never have I ever fucked a member of royalty." 

His mouth a tight line of pressed lips, Draco raised his shot glass. "Yer a cunt," he announced. Some people laughed, others seemed shocked that the Potters talked to each other that way. More than a few people could be seen trying to figure out amongst themselves who Draco could have fucked who was part of a dynasty. Little did they know the answer’s two younger brothers were sitting on Draco’s other side. 

Nebojsa's brandy refilled. He raised it to Harry. "I hate you." Just like he'd said at the Order of Merlin ceremony at Hogwarts. 

"Yeah, yeah," Harry drawled back. "Whole lotta _hate_ , here," he teased, his eyebrows up. It was pretty obvious to anyone watching—which was more or less everyone in the room, really—that their banter was affectionate. Harry talked to Nebojsa the same way he talked to his husband—filthy and freely, without restraint. It was rare that he felt that comfortable. The drinks were helping loosen him up, making him less anxious about the strangers around them. He had his mates and his husband in his corner of the loose circle seated on the floor and on couches, so he felt fine. 

He probably ought not to swear quite so much at a guy who'd been a hair away from becoming a priest of the highest magical order. Nebojsa might give them a pained look for their foul mouths but he never outright asked them to stop. Like Draco had once told Harry, they had to accept one another as they were, not try to change what was in their natures. It was no fun to be around someone who was constantly nit-picking you, making you feel like crap. 

Nebojsa of course wanted them to be good people, to try harder not to fuck things up. But he accepted they were going to swear, get drunk, do things they weren’t proud of, and occasionally outright break shit. And he wanted them to be honest as much as he wanted them to do good things with their lives. Swearing, getting blitzed, and a rare bit of fuckery in alleys was preferable to going on a murderous rampage, or taking their own lives. He'd rather they worked their issues out this way than the former. So he told Harry he hated him and laughed when Draco made off-color jokes. He'd rather be with them—watching out for them, making sure they stayed out of any real trouble—than on the sidelines because he couldn't keep up when they occasionally went off the rails. 

Someday there might come a time when Nebojsa needed to go off-book, and they'd be there to watch his back when it happened, making sure he didn't get arrested or hurt anyone. 

Nebojsa had fucked a Prince. He still did... usually in the mornings, if Harry heard correctly over the sound of the water running in the shower. It was a fact, and Sia had to drink to it. 

It was Draco's turn to get Harry back. "Never have I ever..." the pureblood gave himself a moment to think, licking his lips, his fingers toying with the empty shot glass in front of him. "Dated my best mate's sister." 

Harry's glass wasn't the only one to refill. He saw two guys from Salem forced to drink as well. Draco smirked. Everyone knew he was going after his husband. Harry took his shot, laughing good-naturedly. He didn't mind. He'd gone after Draco, so it was only fair. 

Next was Nebojsa. The Serb took a second to think, his teeth against his black lip ring, moving it against the tiny hole in his lip. Harry always watched that little motion when it happened. He should probably stop looking at his friend's mouth so much—Sia's nervous tick was creating a bad habit in himself. 

"Never have I ever spent a night in jail." V's and R's made a lyric, poetic sort of movement under his accent. That pretty lilting statement was for Dima. The big Romanian picked up his glass, waiting for his whisky to appear. He’d spent at least one night in lock-up. Doubtlessly his father had covered it up. 

Harry picked up his beer.

"Harry!" whispered an affronted Hermione, elbowing him in the ribs. "When did that happen?" 

He groaned. "Moldova." Hermione could deduce it was at some point during the war, which was when Harry did the majority of his traveling overseas. 

Dima's whisky lowered at hearing where Harry had been arrested. "I fucking hate Moldova," he declared—his voice a bit louder than normal, the first sign he might’ve been drunk. "Backvards pisshole of a country." 

Hermione didn't look very impressed. 

"Seriously," the corner of Harry's mouth pulled up, sardonic. "The prison didn't have hot water, or a kitchen. They fed us once a day—an apple or a single slice of bread. Fuck Moldova."

"Fuck Moldova!" repeated the Ionescues, plus Draco. They raised their glasses in salute, Draco's and Misha's empty. 

Harry hadn't told Draco much about his time in prison. It didn't really matter. He considered it more of an annoying accident than anything else. But technically he'd been arrested and thrown in jail for something like four days. He drank his beer for having woken up multiple times handcuffed to a hospital bed, unable to leave except by magical escapist means. 

It was Dima's turn next. 

"Never have I ever..." Harry wondered if this would be directed back at him, or if Dima would take the opportunity to get his boyfriend plastered. He chose to go after the Potters. "Gotten married in zecret." 

The girls made romantic sounds. Harry and Draco picked up their shots—The Boy Who Lived dropping a quick kiss to the top of his husband's head before drinking. 

Misha glanced down the line, deciding whether he'd go after the Potters, his brother and Sia, or pick another target. He smirked at his big brother, then Sia, then Draco. "Never have I ever made out vith Harry Potter." 

Malaya was looking at her drink with a cross expression—perhaps thinking her guilty conscience might fill the glass for having tried to kiss Harry once and been rebuffed. But the spell controlling their little game was quite literal. And since she hadn't gotten her lips against Harry's, it appeared not to count. She breathed a tiny sigh of relief. 

Nebojsa's glass filled. So did Dima's. Just as Misha knew they would; after all, he'd probably seen them fool around in that London alley out of the corner of his eye. It was likely he'd turned his back, not wanting to watch his brother suck Nebojsa's dick. And he’d been with them, in disguise, at Hogwarts… where there were plenty of cupboards and unused classrooms to pp ff to for a snog. Their little brother knew enough to embarrass them now. At least he hadn't said "Never have I ever gotten a blowjob in a public alley," for which Harry was thankful. 

"Dmitry!" Hermione scolded—leaning forward, looking past the Potters and Nebojsa to do it. Her hair brushed against her empty glass because _she'd_ never kissed her friend, nor did she think anybody but his husband ought to be locking lips with Harry. 

Dima put a hand over his heart, the other holding his shot of whisky. "Vot?" he protested. "Polyjuice Potion. Vos not actually Harry."

Hermione rolled her eyes. Many curious people were pretending they weren't listening to the conversation between the foreigners. Hermione seemed to think Nebojsa, like Draco, was beyond scolding. She glared narrow-eyed at the Serbian sorcerer but didn't say anything as he drank his dark-colored brandy, pale eyes fixed on the ceiling, embarrassed by the whole thing. 

Come to think of it, Harry had never actually seen Nebojsa blush—and he wasn’t turning pink now, either. He just looked uncomfortable, the tendons making up his throat strained as he swallowed. 

Several girls pointed at Nebojsa, knowing he'd somehow kissed Harry Potter, too, and wondering how that came about. Harry could hear people asking each other what Polyjuice Potion was. He heard the words "dark arts" whispered behind hands; technically the potion was considered neutral magic, but heavily regulated due to the obvious dangers. Harry doubted he and Draco were the first to use it for sex, nor would they be the last. 

The fact that Dima and Nebojsa had snogged using his body didn't bother him. His friends covered for him for nearly a month, and they were together every single day for that time. Of course they'd snuck off to a broom cupboard from time to time. And Harry had wanted Sia to be in his body, anyway, to recover from his injuries. It was fine that they'd kissed, or even fucked. He hoped they'd enjoyed themselves. He'd given them _carte blanche_ permission to do what they needed with his form. 

The wizard sitting next to Misha thought a moment, flushed a bit, and declared, "Never have I ever gotten high." 

Harry and Draco were far from the only ones. Along with their Eastern European mates, about a third of the American crew had to drink to that. Draco raised his glass, toasting to, “My kinda people.” 

Harry began to regret being the first to mention sex. Now that it was out there, the Salem kids took hold and ran with it. 

"Never have I ever slept with a chick," said one witch. 

Harry watched his glass refill. He wasn't sure whether sleeping with Draco under Gender-Swapping Potion counted or not. But apparently his brain believed that getting a blowjob from Heather Lightley was close enough. 

The majority of the chaps in the room had to drink. There were a few pink-faced chaps who weren't drinking. And Dima, with a sideways grin on his face to hide the anxiety he felt, wasn't drinking either. He'd never been inside a woman sexually, and apparently he didn't believe that being Polyjuiced into Hermione's body and having sex with his boyfriend while _he_ was a woman counted, either. Two girls from Salem took shots, too. Harry was happy to see that nobody poked fun at the girls who’d experimented or weren’t straight. 

The next person was a wizard who logically followed with, "Never have I ever had sex with a dude." 

More than a few of the witches looked sheepish when their glasses remained empty; Malaya among them, blushing violently. Hermione flushed too. She hid behind her hair which she’d let down, glancing away because her glass was one of the empty ones. One Salem guy let out a squeak and downed his drink so fast he choked—causing everyone to notice him. 

Harry picked up his glass, clinking it with Draco's, winking. Everyone knew he and Draco fucked—they were married. The cat was outta the bag. 

Sia, Dima, and Misha did the same, bringing their glasses together in a silent cheers. 

Harry had an inkling that Misha was open to men, though like Harry he vastly preferred women. Apparently between the fall of Durmstrang and the war, Misha managed to squeak out an opportunity to get busy with a bloke. Maybe before Durmstrang fell? It seemed that blokes fooled around early at their school, judging by Dima and Sia... and Viktor, and everyone else Harry had ever met from Durmstrang now that he thought about it. Maybe if they'd had a Hogsmeade or some other distraction nearby, they mightn’t have started screwing so young. As it was, Durmstrang was isolated in the middle of nowhere. They also had no houses, and no house rivalries to act as a natural deterrent against hooking up across loyalty lines. The lack of things to do probably contributed to their doing each other at a younger age than their Hogwarts counterparts. 

Salem was the smallest of the magical schools—Harry imagined it might be difficult to meet someone you were compatible with amongst such a small population. It made sense that many of the Salem kids appeared to have significant others from South or Central America, students from Castelobruxo. Harry had even heard Misha speaking Japanese a few times at the bar, so there were Salem-Mahoutokoro couples, too. 

The next statement really threw him. A Latina witch gave a little American-military-style salute to Harry before announcing, “Never have I ever fantasized about banging The Boy Who Lived.” 

A groan of embarrassment swept the room. More than half the room had to drink to that—nearly all the women, and a surprising number of men as well. Hermione was safe; in seven years, she’d never thought about having sex with Harry… probably because he wasn’t her type. 

Harry could not un-see Dima and Misha drinking… and Nebojsa, too. They’d thought about having a toss with him? It was just a thought, a harmless fantasy. They were well within their rights to have the idea pass through their heads. But it still made Harry supremely uncomfortable that anyone other than his husband viewed him as sexually appealing. 

He sat perfectly still—stunned—as more than half the room drank to fantasizing about him in bed. 

 _Don’t make me some fucking sex icon,_ Harry grumbled in his head. _I’m clueless._  

“ _Secret’s safe with me_ ,” Draco hissed under his breath, his own glass lifted to his lips. 

Of course, if Draco hadn’t started hitting on him they’d never have gotten together in the first place; it took Draco’s longing—and acting upon his fantasies—for anything to happen. 

What made Harry shiver was the idea that other people had these fantasies, too, these expectations for him which he could never live up to in a million years. They saw him as so many things he wasn’t. Anyone trying to fuck him was gonna be severely disappointed. Or disturbed. 

A Japanese bloke turned the topic back to violence, saying, "Never have I ever been in a bar fight." 

Dima was literally the only one in the room who had to drink to that. Harry assumed this happened in Romania, before the war, since apparently Sia hadn't been there and Misha was presumably too young. Dima had a history with muggle police, and apparently starting punch-ups in bars was at least semi-related. That might’ve been how he landed his ass in jail, come to think of it. There wouldn’t have been a phone number to call if he was arrested, so no one would’ve known to come bail him out. His father probably bought off the authorities to keep Dima's record clean… or just Obliviated them. That was the most Death-Eater-like. 

The next chap had it in his head to get the ladies to drink. He had a fairly clever way of accomplishing that goal by declaring, “Never have I ever menstruated.” 

All of the witches had to drink… and Dima, too. He didn’t seem bothered by it—after all, he regularly turned into a two-ton flying monster and then barfed his guts out after returning to his human form with severe alcohol poisoning, so a bit of blood between his legs as part of a normal bodily function wouldn’t gross him out in the least. 

Trying to be as subtle as possible, Harry inched his hand across the fine carpet to touch Hermione’s shin. He wanted to make sure she was okay, not embarrassed that Dima got her period. She tapped her fingertips against Harry’s knuckles, letting him know she was cool with it. She seemed to have the same attitude as Dima, that it wasn’t any different than going to the loo or catching a cold—it was simply a natural thing her body did, and nothing to get squeamish about. 

“Polyjuice?” a witch asked Dima from one of the white sofas. He nodded back. 

The guy who’d made the statement was laughing. Misha delivered a good set of words to shut him up. 

“Hey. Everyone in zhis room exists because zheir mozher had a period.” 

The chap rolled his eyes but didn’t say anymore. 

To Harry’s surprise, Dima chimed in after swallowing his whisky. “Iz actually very painful. All I vanted to do vos stay in bed vith pain potion and drink until it vos over. I have no idea how vomen do zhis every month. Zhey are strong—stronger zhan me.”

At this, every witch in the room either started clapping or verbalized their support, cheering Dima. One drew her wand and conjured some sparks and flower petals to shower down on Dima… the most unlikely champion of women’s sanitary rights Harry could possibly imagine. 

There was surely a witch or two in the room thinking about dragging Dima back to his bedroom for a shag tonight. If any of the ladies tried their luck… well, they were in for another surprise.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

They took a kind of intermission after the first jaunt round the circle—giving smokers a chance to go out on the balcony, to use the loo, or grab a snack to sop up some of the alcohol in their systems. 

Harry's body appreciated the respite in drinking as much as the chance to stretch his legs. He didn't sit for long periods, even at work. He needed to stay active—his brain especially succeptable to the endorphins from exercise, as he got grumpy without some type of movement in his day, even if it was walking to the tube stop and taking the train rather than Apparating. His body demanded he move around every so often. 

After what he deemed an acceptable amount of chatting with Mal’s mates, he stepped out on the balcony where Draco and Dima were smoking. Somehow they managed to be alone. The sounds of the city echoed far below them, car horns and people talking and laughing even at this hour of the morning. The lights from nearby buildings and the street below created a kind of haze, a bubble the city lived under where it was never truly dark at night. 

Harry came up and stole a drag off Draco’s cigarette. 

"You're tryin' ta get Nebojsa drunk," his pureblood accused out of the blue. 

Harry shrugged off the accusation as he admitted to it with smoky breath. "I haven't seen him get lashed in ages. He's long overdue."

Dima raised an eyebrow at Harry. "He doz not get drunk vith _yoo_ , _frate._ "

Harry's brain finally caught up, blushing violently, stammering, "Crap. Right, y-yeah… sorry." Because the last time he and Sia got really hammered… they'd kissed. On the mouth. There had been tongue. 

So Nebojsa made a point of never getting too drunk around Harry to make sure the actions of that night would never be repeated. Making Harry’s attempts to get Sia drunk now a solidly mixed signal. That was probably why Sia went off to make conversation with some Castelobruxo chaps—he hadn't said much to Harry or been nearby. Nebojsa didn't want the fact that he was smashed near Harry to lead him to do something he'd regret sober. The distance was on purpose…so he wouldn’t kiss Harry and… in case Harry got stupid and tried to kiss _him_ again. 

 _Damn_ , Harry thought. _My_ _best mate is a really decent chap… and I’m an insensitive asshole._  

“I, uh...” Harry fished around for words. “I didn’t mean it like that.” 

Dima and Draco were both giving Harry weird looks. He’d never seen Dima’s eyebrows pitched that high before. The corners of Draco’s mouth kept twitching like he was holding back a smirk. 

“Vell, _I_ do not mind,” said Dima, leaning against the banister, his cigarette forgotten about as he looked at Harry. 

“No, nor do I,” Draco echoed cryptically. 

Harry had no fucking clue what they were talking about. So he shook his head. “I’m bloody well tanked. Gonna go back inside.” He shrugged and took his leave. 

That didn’t stop the feeling of a pair of eyes on his back as he left—silver and gold, precious metals fixed on his retreat. He knew those two would be talking about him after he was gone, and he didn’t care. They could say whatever they liked. Ultimately they both wanted to help him, so he didn’t mind if they talked behind his back. 

He wandered back into the party to find Mal and see how much longer this drinking game would go on.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry's head started to swim. His laugh was louder than normal. He moved slowly, a hand on the ground to steady himself as he shifted to a more supportable sitting position. Draco was leaning against him, heavy and lax and comfortable, trusting Harry with his weight. 

He was rapidly on his way to being truly fucked up. The last time he'd been this drunk... he'd wound up in an alley, his back against a wall, Draco blowing him with Nebojsa at his side, Dima sucking him off. The last time he'd been this stupid he'd kissed someone else. And right now he was in a room full of people, at least half of whom would do just about anything to get on top of him. He was outnumbered and rapidly losing what control of his faculties remained. 

He checked his watch. Fuck. Twenty more minutes of this. 

He pressed into Draco. _I'm really pissed, luv_ , he told his husband through their link. He licked his lips, biting them, chewing on a tiny bit of dead skin from the cold weather. “ _I kinda want all this ta be over. I wanna go in that bedroom over there, blow you, and fall the fuck asleep_.”

" _Ssssssseconded_ ," a snake-like hiss. Nebojsa leaned around Dima's back, meeting Harry's eyes. 

" _Fuck, did I say that out loud?_ " Harry blushed. 

" _In snake tongue, thankfully_ ," Draco shrugged. At least the entire room hadn't understood him—just his friends, which was fine. 

The whole room was staring at them, though. It was whispered about after the war, but most people still didn't believe that Harry Potter was a Parselmouth. It was unfathomable that two others with the same rare ability were in the room, let alone those two fellow Parselmouths being Harry's husband and best mate. They'd all heard Sia and Draco answer him, heard the hiss from their beautiful mouths. They wouldn’t know that Draco wasn’t born with the ability, but rather had gotten it as part of a blow-back of magic when rescuing Harry’s soul. 

"Never have I ever spoken Parseltongue," said the next person in line, taking the available avenue to get Harry Potter _more_ drunk. 

" _FUCK YOU!_ " Harry and Draco hissed in tandem. 

" _Pissssss off_ ," said Sia at the same time, milder in his language if not in his vehemence.  

All three of their glasses filled, and they drank. 

Harry knocked back two big mouthfuls of beer, wiping his mouth and slamming his glass back down on the carpet. He looked at the fellas. 

" _I never got this drunk over the summer_ ," he whined. " _Wot the fuck is going on?_ " 

Sia and Dima shared a look—silently communicating, like he and Draco could? Or was their ability to understand each other without speaking a result of having been best mates for half their lives? Sia reached over and touched Harry's shoulder in a wandless, wordless Translation Charm which Dima apparently considered himself too shit-faced to accurately perform, leaving it to his boyfriend. 

"Training," Dima answered in a drunken drawl Harry could hear even in Romanian. "Muscle gets you fucked up faster." 

Misha took over, explaining the science behind it. "In theory, the water retained in your muscles holds the alcohol, so you don’t get wasted. But when you’re extremely cut, and dehydrated, and you drink while you’re dancing…." 

" _It goes right into your bloodstream, an’ suddenly you’re trashed_ ," Harry finished. " _Damnit_." 

People were staring at them—for speaking snake tongue, and Romanian, and rudely conducting private side conversations while the rest of the group was still playing the game. Harry was too far gone to care that he was being rude.

The bloke who was next was arguing with his girlfriend anyway, and hadn't made his statement yet. He wanted to say something which she seemed to find in bad taste. She folded her arms, giving him a dark look. He wasn't going to get laid tonight. But his ego thought his words would be worth it. 

"Never have I ever..." he said, looking around, a suspiciously smug expression on his face, "tried to kill myself." 

Gasps and groans. It was totally inappropriate, insensitive, and downright rude. 

Harry growled, a twin sound leaving Nebojsa's throat. That was a tender, personal subject—not the sort of thing to be brought up amongst people who didn’t know each other well. This idiot was exposing people’s secrets, and possibly outing anyone with a mental illness. For sure, Nebojsa considered it his responsibility to protect people with those kinds of dark struggles. Those were the kids he looked after at Durmstrang… young people at risk of suicide. 

Harry watched as glasses around the room filled, the faces of their owners ashen, embarrassed, or mortified: Malaya, a couple of other girls, a few of the shyer blokes. Dima. Draco. His own. Harry supposed that his plan to throw himself in front of Voldemort was a form of assisted suicide. Had he survived the Killing Curse a second time, saving Draco, he’d planned to use his Beretta to take himself out, to be sure Voldemort’s final horcrux was destroyed 

He knew Draco had tried to end his life—he nearly overdosed the autumn of their fourth year, after everything went down with Philippe. He’d tried and failed several times after Lucius went to prison; each time one of Draco’s plots to assassinate Dumbledore failed, Draco had concocted a plan to take his own life, instead. Each time he was interrupted or his plan ruined. When Harry hit Draco with _Sectumsempra_ , at the time he wished it would’ve killed him. He resented Snape for saving his life which he no longer wanted. Draco woke up in the hospital wing, disappointed to still be breathing. 

It didn't shock Harry that Dima had tried, after everything his father put him through. Like Draco, he'd grown up in the shadow of a murdering psychopath. If ever there was a wizard worse than Lucius Malfoy, Tihomir Ionescue was him. Voldemort inhabited his own snake-faced species—no one really knew what he'd been at the end, but it wasn't human. Harry had been killed by a monster. A monster Draco had faced over his dead body... because dead was the only way he'd leave Draco. 

Hermione put an arm around him. "Harry..." she whispered against his shoulder. 

Draco leaned against his other side. " _You did it for me_..." he said in rare acknowledgement.   

“ _Yeah_ ,” Harry agreed. “ _I did. Everyone else is damn lucky I wanted a better world for you_.” 

The next guy up fiddled with his empty glass. "Okay," he said awkwardly. "This is getting depressing, so... I guess... never have I ever had detention?" 

People laughed, effectively breaking the tension. About half the glasses around the room activated. Harry and Draco took their shots. They'd served too many detentions together to count. Dima and Misha had drinks. Sia, too. Harry glanced over at Hermione who, despite six years of proximity to Harry and Ron's mischief plus Draco's constant goading, had only ever landed herself in detention once or twice Harry could remember. Hermione was allergic to getting caught, even though she was human and made mistakes like everyone else. She was terrified of anyone seeing her fail. She felt that much more pressure being muggle-born, and being friends with the famous Harry Potter. 

The next witch said, "Never have I ever Splinched myself." 

Harry watched his glass fill for the umpteenth time. Nearly everyone had to drink for that one—except Draco, and Hermione of course. ‘Mione was practically sober. 

Next was a girl with a tattoo on her upper arm, visible through the lace sleeves of her party dress. She said, "Never have I ever had a threesome." 

Of course Draco's glass filled. Dima's and Nebojsa's too; Harry was surprised and yet not. Most of the room glanced around, looking to see who had engaged in that particular taboo. It seemed Draco and the other same-sex couple were the only ones. Harry was thankful for the respite, conjuring some water in his glass and shooting it. He'd thank himself in the morning. 

The guy next to her laughed, a bit drunk himself, his hand on her tattoo, stroking her skin through the holes in the lace—probably her boyfriend. "He explained to her, “No no, babe. See, you said it wrong. If you wanna get people to drink, you've gotta say it more open-ended. It should be, _Never have I ever had group sex_." The spell allowed him to say it, because he never had. He'd used his turn in correcting his girlfriend. 

Harry watched as his own glass filled with beer again. Because he'd kissed Nebojsa in an alley whilst their boyfriends sucked them off—and according to his own conscience, that counted as group-sex-adjacent. He'd gotten a blowjob from Draco while he kissed someone else, who was also getting head. Four people, four hard pricks, two orgasms; close enough to group sex that he had to drink. 

"Harry!" Hermione looked at him, aghast. The high, affronted pitch drew attention, making Harry blush even harder—from pink to a flushed, blood-whooshing-in-ears red. 

He picked up his beer, clinking glasses with Draco. "I was very, very drunk." 

"He was," Draco double-confirmed—that Harry had been well-lashed at the time, and that he'd been there to see it... and given his permission when it happened. Which, at least for Harry, made it okay. He never wanted to do anything to hurt or upset Draco. That was what mattered. 

Dima and Sia were drinking. Dima smiled when he took his shot; apparently it was a particularly good memory for him. Once again they were the only ones, the certified perverts in the room—fucking blokes, and apparently fucking more than one bloke at a time... or at least that was what the room suspected of them now. There were many ways to have group sex which didn't involve buggery. But to straight people sex meant penetration. For gay blokes there were a lot more options and combinations which sprang to mind ahead of anal, which wasn't always the most comfortable or convenient screw. Especially when you were getting it on in a public place, with the imminent risk of getting caught if you took too long. 

The next person up was a pretty girl with red hair. "Why is it all sex?" she asked, laughing. "How about some violence? Never have I ever punched someone." 

"There you go, Hermione," said Harry. Again their line of glasses filled—points for Team Europe. 

Draco had knocked his fair share of people—Harry knew his husband's right hook to be quite formidable. He had yet to see Draco’s left but presumed it to be even worse. The Ionescues were drinking, clearly, and Sia. Hermione primly lifted her wine, since she'd gotten Draco once in the face in third year. 

His husband raised his glass to her, winking, and she actually laughed. A lot had happened since then. They'd grown into very different people, and were ready to look past it. Draco wanted to be done with the arrogant spoiled twat he'd been, and Hermione was willing to forgive him enough to let him try again. 

The next girl piggy-backed, barely waiting for the foreigners to finish their shots before she said, "Okay, an obvious one. Never have I ever killed anyone." 

They just... kept their glasses up. Harry and Draco. Dima and Nebojsa and Misha, too. The few people who hadn't read about the war in the papers or tuned into the restored Wizarding Wireless Network gave them looks. Harry thought most people knew The Boy Who Lived had taken lives. Of course his friends who'd fought at his side had done the same. It wasn't as though they enjoyed it. Self defence, and defence of others. 

"Apparently," snarked Harry between gulps of beer, "tonight's gonna end with me blacking out. Keep 'em comin', then." 

He shouldn't have egged them on. Americans were notoriously competitive. It was a terrible idea, especially given how drunk he was. Which was precisely why he said it. 

"Uh," the next bloke in line looked at Harry sheepishly, wondering if the rumors were true. "Never have I ever shot someone?" 

Harry drank. So did Nebojsa. 

The next bloke had dark eyes and a deep, rich tan from living somewhere constantly sunny. His accent was Spanish. He brushed thick hair away from his face, looking worried and intrigued as he wondered out loud, "Never have I ever tried to kill a family member?" That one was probably for Dima and Misha, or Draco, considering who their fathers were. 

Harry drank again. Because he considered Draco to be his family long before they'd gotten married, and Lucius Malfoy was Draco's father; therefore Harry had tried to kill his father-in-law. Draco raised his glass because he'd finished the job Harry started... and then some. Draco hadn't just tried; he'd succeeded. Dima and Misha had tried, too. And Nebojsa, for the same reason as Harry; Sia had killed Tihomir, who was in all aspects save for legally, his father-in-law. 

The Spanish guy looked at the line of attempted kin-slayers before him, their glasses raised. "Shit," he murmured. 

The lads took their shots. 

Malaya was next. She looked at Harry. "Wanna get plastered?" she mouthed, rightly assuming he could read lips. 

Harry nodded vaguely. "Pretty much there already. Fire away." 

So she said, "Never have I ever... killed You-Know-Who." 

Harry set down his empty glass, his eyes falling closed. He heard his husband sigh beside him, followed by the sound of Draco swallowing down a shot. 

"We... uh, we keep tha' one quiet," Draco told the silent room with a hint of his Westie accent—because he was somewhere between jumpy and an alcohol-induced calm, which left him in an especially dry sort of humor. 

Draco had taken down Voldemort, and there was the proof. The spell wouldn't allow them to lie—or rather, their own magic reinforced what they each believed about themselves. Because a part of Harry had been with Draco, been one with his body when he'd run Tom Riddle through. But Harry believed it was Draco's hand, and Draco's will, which had ended Riddle's life that night. He'd been functionally dead; Harry lived on in Draco, through Draco, because his own heart had stopped beating, his own lungs devoid of breath. He'd left many parts of himself to die on the Common Room floor... parts he didn't need anymore. What he kept was his love for Draco, and his desire to live his best life, because that was all he really needed. What he woke up with was a new heart, and a second chance at doing things right. 

Getting plastered via playing stupid drinking games with a bunch of underage witches and wizards from The Salem Institute was probably not what he ought to be doing with his new lease on life. But it was apparently a normal sort of activity for an eighteen year-old bloke, and Harry was determined his new life would consist of normal-bloke-type occurrences. No more Harry Potter and Who's Gonna Try to Kill Me Today. No more grandiose mishaps, no more deadly adventures, no more murderous professors, no more corpses. Or at least, a hell of a lot fewer of those things, with more time in between for him to recover. He had therapy now, and a life... with Draco. Those mad things were going to fade into the past, leaving his real self to emerge. And his real self could use a drink now and then. He was making up for lost time by having many, many, _many_ drinks tonight. 

He draped his arm around Draco's shoulders. "I fucking love you," Harry told him, in English, not caring if everyone understood him. He was speaking the truth, and he didn't need a spell for that these days. He always wanted to tell Draco the truth. Draco deserved it. "Yer the reason I'm alive." 

When Draco looked up at him, there was barely any silver left to his eyes. He was taken over by black, his pupils blown. "Yer... drunk," the pureblood accused flatly.

" _You’re_ drunk, too," countered Harry. He wasn't brilliant, but at least he was still capable of cognizant speech. Two Salem guys had passed out on the sofas already. For them there was no time difference! For the foreigners' internal clocks it was something like ten in the God damned morning. According to their bodies they'd been up all night drinking. Harry much preferred the sensation compared to being up all night fighting for his life. 

"Mmmmmm," Draco hummed. "Yeah. I am." And—his heart and head sufficiently lubricated—Draco kissed his half-blood husband in front of a room full of gawping people.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

They successfully stuffed the Salem kids on a couple of Portkeys home. A few had passed out earlier in the evening, sprawled out on the sofas in the living area and Harry didn't quite have the heart or the bandwidth to bother waking them. Misha offered his hotel bed to Malaya, using a Sobering Spell before Apparating back to his bedroom at the London flat. He promised to come back to New York when he woke up, so they could all get a bite to eat somewhere and spend whatever was left of the day together… as they’d probably sleep until about noon. 

Malaya had passed out, too. Harry easily picked her up, carrying her to the extra bedroom which she'd be sharing with him and Draco. There were two identical queen-size beds with a sparkling en-suite loo. 

The Potters’ eyes met across the bed, Malaya sprawled on top of the sheets between them. They needed to get some of her clothes off but... where was the line between friends taking care of each other and something sexual? Harry's mind said the line was somewhere after removing shoes and wiping off makeup. Maybe, _maybe_ removing her dress provided she had more than just her underwear beneath it. Draco seemed unsure how to proceed, unaccustomed to taking care of anyone besides Harry. He’d never had female platonic friends before, only witches he occasionally fooled around with. 

There was a beautiful woman in their bedroom—a witch who fancied them, who'd made passes at both of them in the last year. Neither Potter had much instinct for how to behave in that situation. In Draco’s old world, it might’ve ended up as a threesome had Mal been less drunk. In Harry’s old life, it never would’ve happened; girls never showed up in his bed, and he wouldn’t have known what to do had a pretty witch climbed between the sheets with him. He might not have done anything at all—only if she took initiative, pressed, or got him drunk first. He was really only sexually comfortable with Draco. 

They ended up being gentlemen, taking off Malaya’s shoes to make her more comfortable for the night. Harry dampened a washcloth and used it to wipe away as much of her makeup as he could. Mal looked her age without it, sixteen and sleeping soundly. Draco lifted her the second time while Harry pulled the blankets back. For all he never worked out anymore Draco still had plenty more strength than was needed to move Malaya around. Half Asian, she was quite petite, and might not make it over five feet even as a grown woman. Her mum was small, too. Draco’s arms barely strained as he set her back down, sticking her feet under the covers before Harry pulled them up to her chin for the night. 

Harry and Draco stripped down to their pants, clothes distributed on the floor at either side of their mattress, and crawled into bed without ceremony. They'd been awake for more than twenty-four hours, and the sun would be up soon enough. They remembered to spell the curtains shut, blocking out the coming sunlight, before their heads hit their pillows.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry didn't know what time it was. He didn't care... because Draco’s hand was on his prick. 

Warm lips traced a tendon in his neck, working up to his ear. “Wanna fuck?” his husband slurred—still drunk. They couldn’t have been out very long. 

Harry groaned as a slender hand closed around him; inside his boxers, fingers cuddled up around the head of his cock with just the right amount of pressure, about to start tugging. Draco was… fucking hell, Draco was spooning _him_. Harry’s God damn heart melted. He was a puddle in Draco’s arms. “Merlin....” 

“No, not Merlin,” his husband teased, teeth against Harry’s shoulder along with a slow, hot-breath-infused lick. “Draco. Ya know who I am. Say my name. Say it.” 

“Draco... oh, fuck, _Draco_.” 

Harry’s eyes went to the back of his skull. His hips were moving and he couldn’t stop himself. Not when Draco’s hand was bumping a steady pace, dragging his skin like that, friction and _bloody fucking hell_ he wasn’t gonna last long. 

“We can’t!” Harry gasped, his eyes flicking open. It was still dark, with vague city sounds from the other side of the window. “Malaya’s here.” 

“Shite.” Draco’s torturous hand stilled. “I fergot.” 

Harry rolled, pulling Draco with him. Together they spilled off the side of the bed. Harry managed to get Draco to land on his feet while his own body went to a knee. All he said by way of explanation was a stilted, “Shower,” as he managed to point in the direction of the hotel room’s en-suite bath. Draco immediately agreed, showing Harry his arse in raucously printed boxer-briefs—Italian-made and surprisingly non-magical for how bloody tight they were—which he shed like a snake’s skin on his way to the loo. 

It was a good thing Harry was already on one knee. The sight of his husband shimmying out of his pants, wiggling his arse like that, would’ve tested the integrity of his knees. Harry still needed a hand to the ground, steadying himself, drool puddling in his mouth as he watched Draco take his clothes off. He was so stunning, so joyous. He only had to stop trying. Harry loved it when Draco played—with his own body, with Harry’s—when he let himself be silly even as his rock hard prick tapped against his navel. 

Pale cheeks suddenly glowed as Draco’s fingers flicked the muggle light switch, bathing his body in orange-gold light, surrounding him like a halo, reflecting off his skin. Harry chased that ass, a low growl in his throat as he was drawn after Draco like a bullet loosed at a target. 

Harry prayed that if Malaya woke up, she’d take the clothes on the floor and the closed WC door as a sign. He didn’t fancy getting walked in on one more time. The thought of discovery was enough to remind him to cast Locking and Silencing Charms on the door, as well as putting up a Privacy Ward which he hadn’t used since he shared Grimmauld with the Weasleys and needed to wank in peace. He didn’t know how loud this might get, and didn’t think Dima or Nebojsa would appreciate being woken up by the sounds of buggery any more than Malaya would. 

The Waldorf Astoria provided a stunning steamer shower, done entirely in silver-veined marble with a waterfall of hot water falling from the ceiling, and jets spraying out from the walls. Harry turned the dial to get the steam going, which made Draco moan. The blond wizard breathed in the hot clouds as they slowly surrounded him, muscles flexing, stretching in the heat. His body tipped a bit, and his hand slapped against the wet wall, steadying himself. The pureblood was definitely still drunk, his equilibrium off if the act of stretching his arms over his head made him unbalanced. Harry might take advantage of that if he felt devilish. 

Harry pumped half the tiny bottle of conditioner into his hand before realizing it wasn’t body-wash. He really couldn’t see for shit without his glasses. It would work well enough. He lathered his hands before pulling Draco out of the cascade of water dropping from the ceiling, getting him to lean his body back against Harry’s. The tiniest protest left his lips before Harry’s slick coated hands worked down his shaft. Then Draco melted against him, mewling. 

A blond head lolled against Harry’s chest—eyes closed, face slack, lost to the sensation of hands slipping over him, a relentless slide he could fuck his hips into. Draco rutted as Harry worked him with both hands. He could still fit both hands on Draco’s shaft with a little room to spare. No one needed a prick that long. There was no evolutionary purpose to it. Perhaps Draco’s family had such difficult personalities in part inherited from their ancestors—several hundred years of French Wizards running around with cocks bigger than their wands, doing as they pleased with both instruments.

Draco’s sadism and sexual violence might’ve been hereditary, just like his unwieldy prick. When he got close to coming he could hardly think; barely enough blood remained to power his brain, his heart beating a mad rhythm, desperate to keep him conscious. Coming made him light-headed—meaning Harry got to hold onto him tight, to be sure he didn’t faint. He was getting there now. 

“Ungh,” Draco groaned. He reached back and up above his head, fisting a hand in Harry’s hair—wanting that hold on him, that connection. “ _Yesssssss_ ,” he turned to a Parseltongue hiss, rutting, trying to get Harry’s hand to slip exclusively over the head of his prick. 

Harry brought his hand back, loosened his grip, making Draco work for it. Draco was being a hedonist—his spoiled brat side taking over, wanting everything immediately. Harry wanted to slow down, to enjoy it. He’d learned to slow down from Draco, from the times the pureblood had insisted they hold back. That was how he’d learned to make love, not just fuck. It was important to start off slow... it made the inevitable escalation that much more powerful, just like the dynamics Draco observed in his music. There was a place for softness, and for reflection, even in sex. 

Harry tucked his chin to his chest, breathing against the top of Draco’s head. With each desperate thrust, Draco would bounce back against his own cock. He missed the plush firmness of Draco’s cheeks slamming back against him, as their bodies fit so perfectly together when they’d been the same height; now he got the harsh line of Draco's spine smashing his cock, all bones and hard planes. He hissed through his teeth, the contact not what he was expecting. 

“ _Slow_ ,” Harry told him. “ _Slow down, Dragon_.” 

“ _Why_?” Draco hissed back, his hips trying to pick up the pace. Harry loosened his hand more, making Draco fight for friction. When his hips slowed, listening to the instruction he’d been given, Harry returned some skin-on-skin contact. 

“ _Because_ _I wanna make you scream my name when you come_.” Harry bit down on Draco’s hair, wet tendrils against his face. He wanted Draco’s skin under his teeth but hair would have to do for now. “ _I want you to forget who you are. Forget everything. Let go. Let me hear you_.” 

Draco’s hand tightened in his hair—pulling. His other fist slammed the tile, angry, sending a vibration through the wall which echoed in Harry’s body. Harry’s thumb grazed Draco’s red slit, catching at pre-come, slicking him with it as he pressed his way down a sensitive frenum. 

“Uuuuuh,” Draco’s head tossed against him. His eyes were glued shut, jaw ratcheted. 

“ _How bad do you wanna come?_ ” 

Bony hips jerked, looking for contact. Draco wanted to fuck. He bit his lip, his chest heaving, stomach extending as he breathed deep, trying to stave off. The hand in Harry’s hair was sparking—Draco’s magic was coming out. Harry heard crackling flickers of power around his head, his vision tinged coral-pink even as Draco knocked his head against the wall in frustration… which rather hurt, his head smacking the hard tiles. Draco was punishing Harry because he didn’t like being denied. 

“ _Make me come_ ,” Draco hissed. “ _Fu.... FUCK, lemme come!_ ” 

“ _Not yet_ ,” Harry told him. He gave a little squeeze, his palm against the sensitive nerves on the underside of Draco’s head. “ _Not quite yet_.” 

Draco’s hips were fighting now. The hand in Harry’s hair was pure leverage. He was trying to fuck his way out of this handjob. His head thrashed, biting his lip hard enough it turned as white as his teeth. 

“Please... please... _please_ ,” his voice broke. “HARRY.” 

Harry closed an arm around Draco’s chest—holding him tight, holding him down. 

“Ha... Harr-iiieeeee,” he pleaded. 

He let his own magic loose. Blue light flooded into Draco’s body, lighting up his skin.

“HARRY!” His name was the same, but not when Draco screamed it like that, followed with a guttural cry that was pure instinct, need, animalism as he came. 

Harry held him as his body went limp, legs unresponsive, blood returning to a brain which was effectively mush. Draco let Harry hold him, care for him, exclusively when he was like this. Harry got himself barked at if he did too much for Draco outside of sex. He could get away with pushing hair out of his face sometimes, or getting a door for him, or bringing him tea. But Mordred forbid he get it into his mind to pick Draco up outside the confines of fucking. God forbid he want to wash his husband in the shower or rub his body if their cocks weren’t hard. 

Draco still had difficulty accepting that he was loved, that Harry actually wanted to take care of him, and it had nothing to do with Draco’s questionable judgment or lack of agency or even his considerable sex appeal. Harry just wanted to do stuff for Draco because that was how he liked to show affection. No one had ever done nice things for him before he found the world of magic. Harry understood that kindness _was_ a kind of magic, as was love, and he wanted to share that with Draco. 

He lifted Draco up, one arm around his waist and the other hand cradling the back of his neck for support, getting Draco against the wall but without the typical body slam which so often permeated their sex life. He pressed Draco fully against the tiles before those long legs could even think to wrap around him. Harry loved that, but he didn’t need it right now. This was about Draco, not him. He wanted Draco to feel safe, to feel the wall at his back and Harry at his front, holding him, pale feet dangling several inches off the tile floor, their faces level at last. Draco wasn’t smashed but cradled, like being wrapped up in blankets. Draco loved Harry’s weight against him and this was one more way to provide that. Harry pressed against him until there was a tiny wheeze from Draco’s powerful lungs as his last thread of resistance gave out. Draco went completely limp, relaxed—because he knew he was safe, cared for, no mater what, and he could let go. 

Warm, sated lips mapped Harry’s face. 

His husband kissing up the side of his face reminded him of the moment Draco had agreed to their moving forward as a couple. It had only been to appease others at the time but... Harry suspected there was some security in that label for Draco. The pureblood had never been anyone’s boyfriend—not for real, in the emotional sense—and the appellation came with heavy baggage for both of them. Harry never had a boyfriend before, either. He quickly changed Draco’s designation to ‘husband,’ anyway. Boyfriend had never been the right word for how he felt about Draco. 

Draco laid a kiss beside his eye, following some path only he knew up to Harry’s temple, stretching himself up in Harry’s sturdy, steadfast arms in order to reach. He trusted Harry to hold his weight steady. 

Draco’s lips found his scar, their lighting bolts meeting, a storm between them.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Misha bailed on them come morning. Both Harry and Nebojsa tried calling him. When he eventually picked up, he was cranky and hung over, and didn’t want to Apparate half-way around the world when he had quidditch practice later in the afternoon. In reality, he was probably sick of hanging out with two couples when he hadn’t been able to see his own girlfriend since the summer. Harry couldn’t blame him—long-distance relationships were hard enough without having somebody else’s happiness rubbed in your face. 

So it was the Potters, Malaya, Dima, and Nebojsa walking to a Midtown Manhattan diner around eleven in the morning. Draco Vanished the sequins off of Malaya’s dress for her, lengthened the skirt, and put sleeves on it so she wouldn’t be looked at like she was wearing last night’s dress. She stuttered her thanks; a bit hung-over, it hadn’t occurred to her to change her clothes to day-wear with magic, whereas Draco and the guys were experts in walking home well-shagged the morning after a fantastic bender. A quick Pressing Charm got the wrinkles out of the blokes’ clothes making them look fresh enough to pass. 

Walking the streets, Mal caught Harry’s arm, winding her hand around his upper arm to walk with him. 

“I am so, so sorry about last night,” she mumbled, mortified by her conduct out on the balcony with Draco. “It was a mistake, and I should never have—” 

“Hey,” Harry interrupted warmly. “It’s okay. You were drunk—and we’ve all done a few things we regret on the piss. I know you feel awful about it, and you’re not gonna do it again, so apology accepted. No hard feelings, yeah?” 

Waiting for a street light to change, Mal rested her temple against Harry’s arm, giving him a squeeze accompanied—accidentally, he thought—by the press of her small breasts into his arm. “Thank you. I really hope there’s a good guy like you somewhere out there for me.” 

Harry got a lump in his throat he couldn’t shake. It made it hard to talk. “I’m… not a good guy, Mal. Not the way you think.” 

She didn’t hear the tremor in his voice, the guilt poking through, making his voice rough. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “You’re one of the good ones—the best there is. Most of us would be dead if it weren’t for you. If that’s not a sign of a good heart, then… I don’t know what is.” 

The last seven years of his life had been defined by one moment—his mother’s sacrifice, making him into The Boy Who Lived. It seemed the rest of his life might be defined by his and Draco’s own impossible choice—his death, and Draco’s victory over Voldemort. No one ever mentioned that Harry’s dad had been a trouble-maker and a bully out of respect for Lily’s memory. And now, no one might ever believe the truth about Harry, his mistakes, his failings, with Voldemort’s death hanging around his neck like an albatross disguised as a medal of honor. No one would ever see him without those events hanging around him. It was permanent, a kind of battle dress he could never take off.

 

 

 

 

New York diners served alcohol. Draco promptly ordered a Greyhound—vodka and grapefruit juice—and Malaya got a glass of Prosecco.

“Make that two,” Harry said. Something light sounded about right. 

Dima and Nebojsa were on one side of the booth, Dima’s shoulders taking up the space of two people. Harry and Draco mashed into the other side with tiny Mal between them. She and Draco started talking about music and they were off. 

Harry leaned back in the booth, his arm stretched up on the back of the booth over them, listening to their banter. Dima and Sia started smiling—seeing that Mal was a lot like Misha, bubbly and full of energy. She and Draco together were rather infectious; Mal knew how to pull out his enthusiasm and get him out of his shell, talking with his hands, humming little tunes and engaging in a lively debate about how to revive musical tradition in the magical world. Harry cast a quick _Muffliato_ to keep their discussion private. 

When their food arrived, the couple across from them began an unconscious routine. Sia started making their second round of coffees, knowing Dima took two little packets of sugar and a splash of cream, while the Romanian sacrificed his toast to his boyfriend. Nebojsa pushed his bacon onto Dima’s plate in return, a trade for the extra toast. They didn’t so much as look at each other or speak. Each knew what to do and went about it so casually, so naturally, that anyone would think they did this every day. 

They couldn’t be like this back home; only abroad, in the UK or America, where they wouldn’t get in trouble for being too ‘familiar’ and have it reported back to the Romanian authorities who would arrest them for indecency. They took care of each other behind closed doors, which was how their easy manners blossomed. Harry got a bit of a lump in his throat realizing how revolutionary of an act it was for someone like Dima to be open about his feelings in an act so simple as remembering that Sia liked jam on his toast, and handing the bread over prepared as he preferred it with a quick kiss to the Serbian’s clean-shaven cheek. 

Harry’s eyes widened—he hadn’t seen Dima kiss Sia in public since… after Ravenwood. Over a year ago, and only out of relief. They’d thought they were going to die that night in Spain. Ironic, because Spain was one of the few countries where they could legally get married, and yet they’d nearly gotten killed there for being together. 

“Wait!” said Malaya abruptly. Her dark eyes shot between Dima and Sia. “Shut the fuck up. You two are a _couple_?!” 

Harry could understand her confusion. By rule, the pair gave off zero indications that they were anything more than friends. Dima had learned to be careful over the years—he never got doors for Sia, or bought him drinks, or paid more attention to him than any other friend. Sometimes he could be a bit cold towards Nebojsa—or downright dickish if there was a camera around, pretending like Sia didn’t exist. That was for both of their safety. They obfuscated their relationship to the best of their considerable abilities because, only a few years ago, their lives had depended on it. Without any knowledge of that threat hanging over their heads, their habits certainly came off as platonic. 

It had to have been hard—emotionally suffocating—to treat the person you loved like a mere acquaintance in public. Harry imagined Durmstrang dances and parties where they’d have to sit apart, pretending they didn’t care when one of them flirted or danced with their respective Ledinski sister. They did so to save Dima’s life, of course. But those must have been miserable years. 

Dima needed time to unlearn all that training he gave himself. And he didn’t feel completely safe even now. The laws in Romania had loosened, his father was gone… and still he insisted on staying in the closet. Harry didn’t pretend to understand that. If he could be with Sia for real, openly, without any damage… why wouldn’t he? 

“Uh, they did kip in the same room last night,” Draco pointed out. 

Mal scoffed. “So? There could’ve been two beds just like our side. Shit. Wow.” She looked them over more critically. “No offense intended. But you guys _do not_ read as gay.” 

Harry was glad Malaya had adjusted her perception of what constituted “gayness” in a bloke. Last year she’d pressured him into identifying that way simply because he was with Draco. In last night’s drinking game, both Dima and Sia had admitted to having fooled around with members of their same gender. And this time Mal hadn’t filed them away as gay, understanding that a few same-sex hook-ups didn’t define someone’s sexual identity. Dima and Nebojsa got to say for themselves. Mal had learned from her mistake with Harry and was trying to be more open-minded this time around. 

“Well… think about it,” Harry offered, inviting her to engage in some critical thinking. At least they had food and liquor to do it over. 

Malaya lived an amazing life in America. Her father was a wealthy, self-made business man, her mother a beauty pageant winner who moved to the states to pursue modeling. Mal’s greatest hardship might be choosing where she wanted to go to college after she graduated from Salem, and even then her parents could afford any education she desired. She faced some serious racial tensions for being mixed—Colombian and Filipina—but as far as Harry could tell she’d never been legally discriminated against the way gay people were in Romania. Her road was uphill, but she had many advantages from her family’s wealth, notoriety, and social influence. 

Her reaction said it all—wide-eyed, turning to Harry, her brow furrowed under her bangs. “Wha’ddya mean?” 

Harry picked up his fork. “Being gay was completely illegal in Romania the whole time Dmitry was growing up. If the authorities accused you of being gay, you went to prison. Proof was irrelevant; the police would manufacture it if they had to. Their government only made homosexuality legal in private homes—still punishable in public—so they could get into the EU for economic reasons.” 

“Zhere iz new legislation,” Dima added. “In effect next month. Full decriminalization.” 

Harry’s face lifted. “Wow, that’s great news!” And possibly explained why Dima always seemed to go back to Romania on weekends, leaving Harry to wonder how many people he might’ve been leaning on to get this law moving. As the son of one of the wealthiest men in Romania, he could throw his weight around should he choose to. The whole time, Dima never said a word. He wasn’t the type to get hopes up before it was a sure thing. And he wasn’t the sort of man who would ever brag about his involvement, either. But Harry could tell by the proud look on Sia’s face that Dima had more than a little something to do with this victory. 

“Zhere iz a group trying to license a gay bar in Constanţa but…” Dima sighed over the coffee Sia had made him, breathing its heat, considering his words. “Many officials delay or push back. Negative press. A few protests. I do not know if it vill happen.” Harry could tell Dima was sucking his tongue against the backs of his teeth—something both he and Misha did when they were caught between rage and depression. Harry knew the feeling. 

Nebojsa added his own insight. “And zhe new laws do nozhing for zhe youth living in shelters or on zhe streets. Zheir families disown zhem and zhey have novhere to go but to hostels, or brothels, or underground circuits. Sex vork is still criminalized, zo zhey vill simply go to prison on a different charge—prostitution instead of homozexuality.” He sighed heavily. “It iz an advancement on paper, but it vill only help zhose who are vell off, who have stayed in zhe closet, or are not ozhervise at risk.” 

Meaning he and his boyfriend—with Dima’s palace and his titles and his big piles of money—would be okay. Nebojsa couldn’t stand by knowing the change in the law was ceremonial, not effective in improving the lives of those who needed help the most—kids like Sia whose conservative families would abandon them or kick them out on the street for being gay. That was possibly one of the reasons Sia started living in the monastery during summer holidays—the Orthodox church was fine with him being bisexual so long as he became a monk and never acted on his impulses. 

Sia explained over his egg white omlette, gesticulating with his toast in one hand. “Zhe church vill still excommunicate. Families vill continue disowning zheir children. Gay youth on zhe street vill have sex for money, to survive, and zhey still go to prison. Government gets EU trade, and still zhey get to lock up any queer unlucky to get caught, vhether zhey are sex vorkers or not; zhe accusation alone destroys credibility in an Orthodox country. Zhey lose zheir job, apartment, family… everyzhing, zame as before. It iz… band aid for a bullet vound vhile zhe _politzia_ keep shooting. It looks better from zhe outzide—but it solves nothzing.” 

“Wow…” Malaya repeated, more stunned than ever. This was a more serious, adult conversation than she’d been expecting after the lightheartedness of last night. 

But this was their real life—what Dima and Sia lived, and Harry and Draco with them to a certain extent. These were the problems they tackled at eighteen and nineteen years old. Mostly because they had no choice; like the war, it was fight or die. They never sought a fight—but when threatened, they’d defend themselves and others. 

Mal slumped back against the booth, processing how very different their lives were from hers. Mal’s biggest worries were getting a boyfriend, losing her virginity, and getting into a good university; at her age, Dima was plotting to murder his father before Tiho got him first for being gay, and Nebojsa was mentoring struggling or depressed kids at Durmstrang while studying to become a monk. Less than a year later Dima was on the run with Misha while Nebojsa was tortured in a Death Eater prison cell. Their experiences didn’t compare. 

Mal seemed to understand, at least, why the guys wouldn’t want to be seen as a couple… and what an honor and demonstration of trust it was on their part to do something like make each other’s coffee or put jam on toast in front of her. To other people, it was nothing. But for Dima and Sia… those seemingly inconsequential gestures were _everything_ they’d fought so hard for. 

“Getting British citizenzhip protects us,” Dima explained. “Zhe UK vill not extradite us even if zhere are charges filed.” 

“But our zafety doz little for ozhers,” Sia tacked on, thinking outside of themselves. 

“It does something,” countered Draco. “It frees the two of you to speak out. And we all know the value of a loud-mouthed hero at the head of a revolution,” he added, meaning Harry.   

Dmitry gave Sia a big-eyed, petulant look which clearly said _I don’t want to_. He didn’t want to come out, didn’t want to be the front-man pushing for this massive change in his home country. He wanted to stay in the shadows and keep pulling strings, living his own life away from the public eye as much as possible. And perhaps he wanted Nebojsa to back off, to try being happy for a while with their good fortune, and save his desire to help for a time when they were in a more stable position. But Sia couldn’t do that. He wanted to get back in the trenches and keep fighting until every gay person in Romania had the same safety and freedoms they did. 

Harry was reminded of something Dmitry said the night they met. “I don’t think Nebojsa likes all this running.” It was Dima who taught Sia to run, to hide away and save himself… because Dima wanted the only man he’d ever loved to be safe and out of harm’s way. 

In asking that, he was denying who Nebojsa was at his core—trying to get him to change his nature. Harry knew that never worked out. You had to embrace your partner for who they were, where they were at. You had to be okay with them never changing. They might improve, they might grow as a person, or they could regress. You had to love them through all of that… otherwise your love was for yourself and not for them.

Nebojsa was gonna run into this fight, wand raised and fists clenched, his white light blazing in defence of others… whether Dima was with him or not. Dmitry had some time to marshal himself and get used to the idea. But eventually, Sia would lead the charge. With or without him, some day Nebojsa was going to come out. And maybe he’d be leaving Dima behind, still hiding his true self away in the closet, when he did. 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry and Malaya split off from the diner—Harry promised Arturo he’d have Mal and the car back safely after breakfast. Dima played along, saying there was an art gallery he’d been meaning to visit and inviting Draco along. Quietly, Harry handed Sia his credit card: they were actually taking Draco ahead on a surprise trip to Prada, but Harry didn’t want Mal to know and feel left-out. This one needed to be just the four of them. 

Harry Apparated back. The Americans maintained a wide network of Public Apparition Points, especially in densely populated areas. It was possible for a wizard to Apparate into nearly every metro station, train station, or airport in the US, most of South America, and the Central American countries weren’t far behind. 

Harry zipped up his jacket, going from Arlington, Texas to Greenwich Village, New York City in one stomach-roiling blink. He emerged into the Canal Street underground station which smelled strongly of fish… because, as he saw after jogging up the rubbish-strewn concrete stairs, it was beneath a major Chinese open-air fish market. 

A brush against his pocket and the whispered words, “ _Point Me_ ” let him know his direction. He should only be a few blocks away. 

Outside the posh shop front, Harry spotted a familiar red coat with gold buttons and plush rabbit fur around the collar. Draco was standing outside twiddling a black-papered cigarette between his fingers. He wasn’t actually interested in smoking it. Harry watched, stranded across the busy street waiting for the light to change. He’d always watched Draco—the activity had a new intensity since getting married. Harry’s drive to observe turned decidedly sexual. He knew its name now: voyeurism. He took pleasure in watching Draco; watching Draco cook; watching Draco drink; watching Draco write letters; watching Draco feed Hedwig; watching Draco shave; watching Draco toss off; or today, watching Draco pretend, poorly, to smoke a cigarette whilst he was actually waiting, keeping a look-out for Harry. 

The guys wouldn’t have given him a smoke without a lighter to use; therefore Draco was pacing over the pavement, twisting the dark cigarette between his slender fingers… waiting for Harry. Draco refused to enjoy the surprise without him, knowing his reactions were what Harry looked forward to most. 

Draco’s back was to him as Harry started walking, closing the distance. Last year, the Gaunt ring had warned Draco from far greater divides when Harry was coming back to him. Something to do with the Blood Bond passed down from his mother. Harry suspected it had worked in conjunction with what was happening between them—the magic they exchanged, apparently as the horcrux inside him guided him through the process of preparing Draco as a vessel in the event Harry’s own soul might need to jump ship. Voldemort’s horcrux couldn’t come with, though. Harry made sure it was destroyed, sacrificing a part of himself in the process, and destroying the magic his mother left, his last remnant of her, to spare Draco’s life when the Killing Curse struck him, too. 

With Lily’s Blood Bond destroyed, Draco was left with his own senses. 

Harry opened his mouth—“Oi, git-face!” on his lips, but he never got the words out. With Harry in the middle of the crosswalk, Draco whipped around. There was some magic left, then; _something_ , because there was no way Draco could’ve seen a reflection in the shop window or been tipped off to Harry’s presence some other way. Draco turned, already committed, as if he knew Harry was there and didn’t need his eyes to confirm what his entire being knew. He tucked the cigarette behind his ear for later, and bolted right for Harry. 

He launched himself, jumping into Harry’s arms. Skinny arms wound around his neck, hanging on as Harry gave in to the urge to swing him around. Draco weighed nothing. 

They had a moment—a rare spark of Draco giving in to himself, being emotional and real with no thought given to how he might look or what anyone might think. He laughed, that burbling squirrel laugh as Harry gave him a twirl. Draco hung on… gave himself permission to enjoy it. 

Still in his arms, Draco kissed him. A quick peck which, at the feel of their lips together, clearly became more than intended. Harry came out a bit breathless. 

Draco didn’t want to get down. Not yet. He held on, preferring to be eye-to-eye. 

“Ya sneaky son-of-a—” 

Harry cut that off with another kiss.

Draco could protest all he wanted… it was in his nature to whine and not accept when Harry did nice things for him. That didn’t mean Harry would ever stop. He’d take the complaining because it came with moments like these, where Draco was himself, where he felt loved and looked after. And Harry only ever aimed to please.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **UPDATE NOTE:** Next chapter is ~25,000 words and violet AF


	17. Think

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Draco have a proper family holiday with the Harpers. Alternate plans may have been made for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** can I just say the entire film _John Wick_ and have that be sufficient? Oh, and there’s some amomaxia, rather squishy adorable buggery, muggle baiting, use of the word faggot in a reclaiming fashion, and Harry Potter having a distinctly unsettling encounter with law enforcement. So… queer _John Wick_.
> 
>  **AUTHOR’S NOTE:** This is one of the oldest portions of Raffica, planned and portions penned dating back to 2009. I am a madman. This is 25,000 words of Action-Adventure-Porno. Gorge yourselves.
> 
>  **TECHNICAL NOTE:** So the Dodge Charger wasn’t in production in 2001. It came back in 2006. But it fit well for what I needed, and I didn’t want to go traipsing around the internet looking for a historically-correct vehicle which would undoubtedly be obscure and detract from the point when the Charger has become iconic to American policing, and I’m only off by five years. I like to be as accurate as possible, but this is one instance where it wasn’t worth the distraction to stick in some other vehicle and have everyone plopping open a Google tab in the middle of a chapter, trying to construct a mental image. I still remember having to conduct this kind of research out of a card catalogue so… technology, ain’t it grand? I own that I am off by five years and that’s okay because I wrote this while drunk, you should be drunk, and this is free fiction on the internets. I suggest you swallow the historical inaccuracy with the lubricating dose of action and dicks provided.

 

 

 

_Think of me, I'll never break your heart._

_Think of me, you're always in the dark._

_I am your light, your light, your light._

_Think of me, you're never in the dark._

“[Think](https://youtu.be/1CurN2Fg-2E)”

Kaleida

 

 

 

 

_Scrape._

Like weighty metal dragged over stone. The untenable noise woke Draco from a dead sleep.

_Scrape. Scrape._

He rolled out of bed, stuffed his arms into the nearest jumper he could find, and parted the heavy, insulated suede drapes to find the source of the strange sound.

Blinding white snow, as far as his eyes could see. A great dumping of it, piled up at least to his shins… possibly his knees. It had all come overnight, an onslaught. Americans talked about the Wild West, and surely this was it: mad weather.

“You muggle…” he murmured, confused. “What the fuck…?” Watching his husband, he was able to decipher the activity. He’d heard of it, but never seen it. _S_ _now s_ _hoveling_. At Hogwarts or the Manor they simply used magic to melt the snow and create walking paths.

His husband was shoveling snow off of the walkway like a muggle. And if Draco wasn’t mistaken, Harry was whistling to himself.

 

 

 

 

After a hot shower, Draco went downstairs. The very annoying scraping sound had abated, replaced by the low drone of a machine. Armed with a mug of hot coffee, Draco went to the front windows to stare out into the whiteness. His husband was operating a metal contraption roughly the size and shape of a fully-grown Blast-Ended Skrewt, pushing it through the snow. His machine spit a plume of powder three meters in the air—muggle fashion for clearing the drive so that their vehicles could get through.

Draco understood the day was some American colonial holiday, and they were expected to leave the house to go eat elsewhere with a load of other ex-pats and Yankees.

“That’s not normal…” he whispered, observing his husband’s limitless energy.

“ _Non_ ,” echoed Charlene, who’d come to stand beside him. She watched Harry, too. “’Ee ‘as so much energy. Even for a ‘It Wizard.”

“Harry’s always been athletic….” But even Draco couldn’t justify Harry’s activity. He looked like he’d gone for a run before shoveling the walk and clearing the drive. He’d probably only slept four hours, perhaps five. That wasn’t nearly a proper rest.

“Hyper-reactivity,” said Charlene, identifying the psychological drive behind Harry’s behavior. He was clearing the snow, trying to make the lives of the people he loved easier… focusing outward to ignore himself. “We expect it after… zee accident, zee ozher day.” She didn’t want to mention it, that they’d nearly died in a random wreck, but there was no way around it.

“Will he… be alright?”

Charlene was the expert in watching your husband come back from the battlefield, keeping him held together with Spell-o-tape and hope.

She nodded firmly. “ _Oui_. ‘Ee will. No caffeine today. Not too much alcohol either. And make sure he iz not too stressed—to regulate zee adrenaline,” she explained. “Plenty of sleep tonight should do zee trick.” Sly, she winked at him, implying the chaps ought to have a drink or two and fool around before bed. Orgasm was the surest way to get a bloke to fall asleep on you. Little did Charlene know that Harry was the exception to the rule—he just kept going. Draco had never met another man quite like Harry.

“Cheers,” said Draco. “You’re a pro, _mon cherie_.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Due to the sudden snow, several major roads were closed. There was even a bridge which partially collapsed. Their plot to attend the holiday festivities elsewhere was foiled—the out of service bridge was the only road in-or-out of the Harpers’ neighborhood. A road crew had been dispatched but, given the conditions, there was no guarantee it would be back up and running until that evening or the next morning.

They were stuck—no flying out on brooms, and no Apparating in the event a muggle came to the door and found the house empty, with all vehicles inside it. There was a contraption Harry called a four-wheeler in the garage which might make it through the snow if they attempted to go cross-country, but there was still a creek to cross—the little neighborhood tucked in a bend in the water and surrounded by thick woods. In an effort to conceal their magical status from the muggles, they ought not to leave unless there was an emergency.

Trying to make the most of a bad break, the neighbors in the cul-de-sac knocked on their door, offering to combine their holiday celebrations; to pool together their food, keep one another company, and make the most of it. An annoyingly chipper brunette muggle who lived next door suggested everyone meet at her home in a few hours.

Draco and Harry exchanged looks—Harry wanting to be sure Draco could muddle his way through a few hours of mundane muggle conversation without killing anyone, and Draco to ask how much he was allowed to drink before it became socially unacceptable. Magical people had a higher tolerance for alcohol, and Draco more than most wizards, making it a legitimate question on his part.

“One bottle of wine,” Harry told him.

“Per hour?”

Draco could make him laugh, even in the most uncomfortable situations. The fact that his husband made him smile….  

“I don’t really know what American drinking standards are,” admitted Harry. “Just keep pace with Charlene and Leo, and you should be fine.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

A long candle-lit table draped with food reminded Harry of a scene at Hogwarts. But the bodies gathered around the feast were mostly muggles—Leon and Charlene’s neighbors and a few of their extended family members visiting from out of town and trapped by the inclement weather. Rather than a castle, they were in a modern muggle home, the wood painted white and a glint of chrome appliances in the kitchen.

Harry realized too late that he and Draco had fallen back on a kind of hardcore Legilimency; talking to each other in their heads, Draco checking he was doing things right with the occasional pre-emptive pointer from Harry steering him in the right direction. To everyone else, it had to look like they were reading each other's minds, passing plates of food, refilling each other's drinks, just knowing exactly what the other wanted or needed without having to speak or even catch eyes. It might’ve been creepy, or just incredibly familiar.

If Harry had his way, they would’ve remained silent through the entire meal. Formal meals only agreed with him marginally better than ceremonies. The flickering candlelight, and the fancy glass water-goblets… he was probably waiting for their names names to appear in a burst of fire, demanding he and Draco fight some graphorns in the backyard before dessert. Fancy meals made Harry feel more like the entertainment than an honored guest: Draco’s history had taught him to feel much the same.

Draco was confused when they all said Grace—not familiar with any muggle religious customs outside of Nebojsa’s occasional Eastern Orthodox Catholicism poking through. It was strange to watch Draco bow his head like everyone else and pretend to pray.

Charlene suggested they give Draco a nickname. It wasn’t the first time someone brought it up. Because muggles—especially this well-to-do, new-money variety—would think ‘Draco’ was a weird name, especially in America. So they decided on calling him ‘Drake,’ instead. He wasn’t wild about the moniker but agreed to it… whatever pulled attention away from himself was probably a good thing.

Draco peered at a serving dish on the table nearby. _Is that... melted marshmallow? On top of a potato?_ he asked of Harry through their mental link.

_Yes._

_...Why?_

_Dunno_ , Harry shoveled food into his mouth, able to articulate himself perfectly as he chewed. _Tastes fine, tho._

He was used to American food. Draco wasn’t. This trip was in fact the furthest he’d ever been from home. Harry wanted Draco to think of this as an adventure they went on together.

_Is it a muggle thing?_

_Must be American_. Harry physically shrugged.

Draco pushed food around his plate with his fork. _And this... crunchy stuff?_

 _I believe that’s deep fried onion_ , Harry informed him.

Draco’s mouth worked, silent, open and closed, confused. He stared at his plate. _But... why is it deep fried?_

_I have no idea, luv._

More than once, Harry glanced into the adjoining room to what had been dubbed The Kids Table; there sat a pair of twin girls looking to be eleven or twelve, and several younger kids ranging from four to eight. A part of Harry felt he might’ve had a better time over there with the kids—especially if he could bring his beer along. He might look like the other men sitting around the grown up table, might share their kinds of problems about money management and the workplace, but… at the end of the day he still felt he had more in common with those kids than their parents. And numerically, he was closer to the kids in age, anyway. The twin girls were nearly as tall as Draco. The Potters would fit right in.

After a few minutes their muggle hostess became determined to strike up conversation with Draco, who’d been nearly silent after expressing his preference when asked whether he fancied ‘red or white’ wine with dinner. He’d hoped—in vain—that he might make it through the meal without being called upon to utter another word.

Mrs. Brewber set down her wine, aiming for Draco’s attention. "Drake. You're Leon's cousin from England, is that right?"

Draco nodded, the perfect image of a polite and deferential Malfoy. "Yes, ma'am."

"And how do you know Harry?"

They looked to each other. Harry was chewing a mouthful of green beans and fried onions. Draco was holding his wine glass, looking as though he’d rather down the entire bottle instead.

 _And now_ we're _about to be deep fried_ , Harry announced through their link, assuming they’d tell the truth.

 _Let me do the honors?_ Draco offered. He set down his glass, turning to the woman with an even, pleasant expression pouring over his features which Harry knew to be entirely fake—the wind-up for the gay bomb Draco had tasked himself to deploy.

Harry recognized that mask. It was Draco's protection against the explosions about to go down. There was a good chance these well-off, politically conservative muggles would _not_ be happy to have a pair of magical faggots at their dinner table.

Oh well. He and Draco had faced far worse. Harry had lectured the former Minister of Magic with Draco’s come in his hair, for Merlin’s sake. Upsetting the occasional uptight muggle was their _status quo_.

Draco's head tilted. His hair cascaded over his forehead, catching the candlelight. He glowed. Harry couldn't help but see the magic in his spouse, falling in love with him all over again.

"We're married." He said it simply, sounding… happy, without an ounce of apology to his voice.

The table went totally silent. Everyone turned—Mr. Brewber, his brother-in-law the state senator, and all their rich, nosy neighbors—not believing what they'd heard. Only Harry and Leon were still shoveling food into their mouths like nothing had happened. Charlene's nose disappeared into her wine glass as she tipped it back, draining it in one go—their ally, gearing up for battle. The alcohol was her armor.

Draco had this tiny, shit-eating grin on his face. Because Saint Potter had allowed him to indulge in muggle-baiting.

Not for the first time, Saint Potter agreed their surrounding muggles needed to have their cozy little suburban worlds upended. For some reason this scene had a habit of repeating itself around the holidays, a time when uptight distant relations came out of the woodwork to turn their noses up at anyone who lived their lives differently or made uncommon personal choices. At least it got easier, as the people they came out to were further and further removed—coming out to people they’d known their entire lives and getting judged, rejected, or preached to was the worst. Dirty looks from people they only had to see once a year weren’t nearly so hard on the heart.

"You're... awfully young..." The senator’s wife scolded them. Her expression said she wanted to go after them for being gay but couldn't quite do it to their faces in front of a big group of people. Beside her, her husband seemed to have been hit with a Full Body Bind—he couldn’t move a muscle, staring at the Kid’s Table like he might pick up his plate and join them if his wife wouldn’t scold him for it.

"We’re eighteen," Draco shrugged. He knew that was the legal age for muggles to marry, though he didn’t understand how uncommon it was to marry young unless there was an accidental pregnancy. Being blokes, that wasn’t on the menu.

Harry put down his fork, wrapping his hand around his beer instead. His other hand found Draco's leg beneath the table, squeezing his thigh. _I got this_ , that squeeze said.

"We were getting death threats," The Chosen One said in a low, sober voice. He could read a dictionary with that deep calm and people would pay to listen. Harry’s voice had a quality which made your spine melt down to the consistency of hot buttered porridge. It didn’t even matter he was talking about frightening shite; when Harry spoke, you just knew he would make everything okay. "Because of my work. My parents died very young—not much older than us really—and we had good reason to believe that history may repeat itself." Harry’s dark head shifted, catching Draco’s gaze from the corner of his own. Green flashed. "I knew, very early on, that Drake was the one. I didn't see any reason to wait. I just had to bring him ‘round on the idea."

Draco's nose scrunched, the corners of his eyes forming fine little lines as his cheekbones rose. It was the ghost of a smile. He was unsettled, being with all these muggles, but having Harry there somewhat made it okay. He looked like his skin was crawling and he was doing his best to ignore it, focusing instead on Harry.

"It's rather hard," he said slowly, the faintly-visible freckle in his right eyebrow curling upward, "to turn down a marriage proposal at two in the morning, from a man on both knees, with bullet holes in his jacket." His hand wormed its way to sit on top of Harry's. "I'm glad I said yes."

Not caring what the muggles thought—indeed, forgetting they were even there—Harry slipped forward in his seat and kissed Draco. A soft meeting of lips, Harry's fingers brushing through his husband's hair, this pure and familiar gesture formed out of feeling, passion, tenderness. It never occurred to him what those around him might do, say, or think. He didn't do it for them. He kissed his husband because he loved him. He really was the one—the only one. That was all that mattered. Everyone else could make like the turkey and stuff themselves. 

Pulling away, Harry's face was level—a soldier's expression. He silently dared anyone to fucking say something about their being together: young, queer, married, in love. Anyone dumb enough to voice a problem with any one of those characteristics was about to find out what a Hit Wizard was, International Statute of Secrecy be damned.

"More wine, luv?" Harry offered to fill the mounting, gob-smacked silence.

Draco nodded. "Please."

 

\- - -

 

 

Back at the Harpers, Charlene offered Draco a glass of the good wine from the cellar. Draco took one look at the bottle and nodded adamantly. He recognized it.

Harry canted his head, asking for details while Charlene opened the bottle. Harry had been a gentleman and offered to help her but she turned him down, telling the boys to relax.

Draco informed that his great-grandfather Abraxus Malfoy had purchased the vineyard. It was considered one of the best magic-owned vineyards in France. Lucius sold it after Voldemort was presumed dead—liquidating assets in case he wasn't able to escape the Ministry himself. Convicted criminals in the magical world weren’t allowed to own businesses for a period of ten years after their release, so Lucius was freeing up gold for Narcissa and Draco to survive if he went down. As a result, Draco had been been drinking that wine since he was old enough to break into the cellar at Malfoy Manor and pilfer it. If there was any left, it was his now. Theirs.

Charlene overheard the tail end of Draco’s explanation, Levitating them each a glass, plus one for herself.

Harry only needed one sip for his eyes to flutter shut. It was one of the best white wines he’d ever tasted—it was like sharp, slightly grassy butter, and the same rich golden color, leaving a thin film of anise and vinegar on his tongue. No wonder Draco liked the stuff. He'd get a case of it for Grimmauld, then.

With Leon out of earshot in the loo, Charlene asked to know more about about Lucius Malfoy. She was asking for a story of Draco’s childhood, perhaps wanting to see how similar Draco’s upbringing was to her husband’s.

“Hmmm,” Draco swirled his golden wine, watching the layer it left behind against the glass like liquid sugar sliding back down the crystal bowl. “So many stories….” Most of them were terrible. It was hard to tell a story about Lucius Malfoy which put him in a good light. The man’s life mission had been to out-evil-bastard anyone in his vicinity. It was a good thing he never became mates with Tihomir Ionescue.

“What about the story of when you were born?” Harry suggested. He knew a few of the details from Draco’s head but had never heard him recount the events out loud.

After a large mouthful, Draco told Charlene: “My mother, Narcissa, had rather awful joint pain when she carried me. All the rain in England was bothering her, so they went to see relatives in France. Father kept a flat in Paris. She ended up extending her trip because the rain never let up. Father went back to Wiltshire, business to attend to. Mother thought everything was fine—after all, I wasn't due until July."

Harry had learned something new. “I never knew you were premature.”  

It actually explained a lot about Draco now—his shorter build compared to his tall father and willowy mother, his difficulty putting on or keeping muscle, his temper and picky eating… even the way he used to blow it out of proportion any time he got injured at school. Draco was a relentless complainer, even exaggerating his condition until someone paid attention to him. When he was little, his immune system would’ve been very delicate. A common cold could’ve killed him! Likely Narcissa and the army of nannies she employed had been overprotective with a cause, teaching Draco that he ought to get help the moment he felt ill and not stop kicking up a fuss until someone noticed.

Draco might not have lived to see Hogwarts if he weren’t such a fantastic whiner. He’d been taught to complain, to notice every little change in his body or the environment, in order to keep him alive through his sickly youth.

"Month and a half early, actually," Draco corrected. "I was supposed to be born the week before you."

"No shit!" Harry raised his eyebrows. “You were really lucky.” 

Draco turned back to Charlene. “Lucius wasn't even there when I was born. Mother was alone in the flat with her house elf, Kit.” And _that_ explained Narcissa’s impassioned attachment to her freed house elf. She might not remember Draco, but a part of her recalled Kit helping her give birth. It would have been a terrifying ordeal, a young witch alone in a foreign country, ill in her husband’s family flat, unexpectedly going into labor. She probably feared Draco might die. And as the wife of a prominent pureblood, she understood it was her greatest duty to produce an heir.

As if losing a child weren’t devastating enough, Narcissa would’ve had to fear criticism from her family and the Malfoys. They might’ve even blamed infant Draco’s death on her for being ill. Narcissa did the best she could in a terrible situation. It was even possible that Draco’s premature delivery combined with her poor health contributed to some health factor which prevented her getting pregnant again. Because Harry knew—Lucius demanded an heir and a spare, and when Narcissa was unable to provide a second little boy, it broke their relationship. His parents had kept separate quarters in Malfoy Manor for as long as Draco could remember.

Charlene only looked more horrified when Draco admitted, “My father arrived at the end of the month to collect us. I have a French certificate of birth, but my first and middle names were left blank—father wouldn’t let her name me without his approval. He decided once we were back in England and it was clear I would live.”

Poor Charlene had a hand over her mouth in disbelief. Her entire life, she’d never met someone so heartless. 

Reading her expression, Draco shrugged, bringing his glass to his lips. "My father was... a rather cold man."

Harry groaned, countering that, "Lucius Malfoy was a fucking sentient ice bucket with no soul."

Draco burst out laughing—his tittering, squeaky, squirrel-like laugh. He had to put his wine down because he couldn't sit upright for laughing so hard. He puffed, howling, an absent hand pawing at Harry, smacking him slightly and then grabbing a fist full of his navy jumper as though Draco were trying to right himself, or drag Harry closer.

"That is the most apt description I have ever heard!" he cackled. "Bravo! Ten points!" Because Slytherins used to assign point values to the quality of a burn back in their common room. And, because Harry died in that room, Draco considered his husband to have come out of Hogwarts a Slytherin in the end.

 _And these points are interchangeable for…?_ Harry inquired.

 _Bottom a’ the bottle_ , his husband told him. _Then get me upstairs and find out._

 

 

 

 

They kept drinking and chatting as the sun set. At one point Draco got up to use the loo, and when he came back instead of the armchair he'd been sitting in, he unceremoniously plopped himself down in Harry's lap.

It was... new, and different, and woke a sleeping animal in Harry's chest. The romantic animal he kept at bay for the sake of Draco’s distaste for all things banally emotive.

He’d experienced Draco in his lap all of twice—in Romania, when the pureblood turned himself into a girl to go clubbing, and after a huge fight; when Draco was crying, feeling betrayed and abandoned, he consented to Harry pulling him in. Now he was doing it all of his own volition, in his own body, without tears or tits or anything motivating him but his own heart and desires. Yeah, he was a little drunk. Not sloppy, not like he wasn’t in control of his actions or wouldn’t remember in the morning. He was just… happy. He was enjoying himself. And he wanted to sit on Harry, so he did.

Harry really liked it. Draco’s weight across his thighs. Draco’s bum nestled against his forearm. Draco leaning against him, tucking his head against Harry’s chin—God damn, Draco was cuddling him, listening to the story Charlene was telling about chasing a wild turkey out of the back yard with one of Leon’s hunting rifles. Draco was laughing, his breath hot across Harry’s neck, his body vibrating against Harry’s, familiar heat, comforting weight, the smell of his skin taking over every breath of air Harry took into his lungs.

He loved this closeness. This openness. He wrapped his arm around Draco—not wanting to break the magic, but needing him to be even closer, to acknowledge what was happening. It made his heart soar, that Draco wanted this. Finally, Draco wasn’t concerned with what people might think. He knew they were with family. They were safe. Draco wasn’t worried about seeming small or weak, feminine or childish. He was doing what he wanted. He was being true to his emotions in that moment.

Harry felt the lightest kiss against his jaw.

 

\- - -

 

 

Leon had a record player, and as the stars came out he put on an old Bruce Springsteen album. Drunk and contented, in slightly rowdy spirits, Harry and Draco started slow dancing to the song "No Surrender."

The muggle sang upbeat, " _There's a war outside still raging, you say it ain't ours anymore to win. I want to sleep beneath peaceful skies in my lover's bed. With a wide open country in my eyes, and these romantic dreams in my head_."

Draco started singing the chorus, his voice reverberating against Harry's chest. " _We made a promise we'd always remember. No retreat, baby, no surrender_."

Harry joined him. " _Blood brothers in a stormy night, with a vow to defend_." Their wedding vow. And they were joined by so much more than blood. Draco wasn’t fond of it when Harry called him ‘baby’ but the song let him sing it this once without getting himself a look. " _No retreat, baby, no surrender_." He bear-hugged Draco into his chest, rocking with him.

Leon ran into the room, his fingers flicking, the wand-component leather glove he habitually wore on one hand knocking the needle off the record with a flash of magic and an unpleasant scratch.

Mirth drained from Harry like accidentally walking through one of Hogwarts’ ghosts. He felt immediately sober by the look on Leon's face.

"Death Eaters!" the old man puffed.

His words hit Harry like a sledge hammer to the chest. His heart stopped. His ribs creaked. He couldn’t think. For a single shaky breath, a split second, he allowed himself to be terrified.

Then it was old-hand, practically work, and his heart stuttered back to life. “Here?”

“No. Spotted at a Public Apparition Point near Erie but movin’ our way. Fast.”

“How many?”

“Fifteen ‘r twenty. Maybe more.”

“Objective?”

Leon snorted. “Who the fuck knows?”

Draco was staring up at him, holding a handful of his jumper at his back like an anchor in a storm—probably wondering how his drunk husband could stay so calm, lobbing questions at Leon without an ounce of detectable emotion.

Harry made his decision. If the Death Eaters were in the vicinity, he knew what he needed to do. “Draco and I ought to move. Somewhere secure.”

Leon agreed. Silently, he Summoned a pair of car keys, caught them in the air, then tossed them at Harry’s head. He caught them in front of his face. There was only one key on the ring, embossed with a ram’s head in black plastic.

“Take the Charger,” the old man instructed. It was his newest addition to the fleet, his baby. “She’s registered outta SOCOM. If ya hit at least one barrier every five minutes, they won’t be able ta track ya.”

Leon was suggesting they take a rather fast car licensed by a branch of the American military and drive through the hemisphere-wide Trans-Location Barrier System—because the barriers shifted their output destination on a rotating schedule which the Death Eaters likely didn’t have, or would take them time to acquire at this time of night, and on a holiday no-less. Harry and Draco could evade pursuit while Leon and the other Field Captains mustered their defences to drive the Death Eaters off.

Following a speeding car through a series of jumps would be like trying to predict the flight path of an insect. So long as he and Draco kept moving, they’d essentially be hidden from the Death Eaters. It was a good plan.

“Got it,” Harry nodded. “My Beretta?”

Leon went to fetch Harry’s old side-arm from the secure gun cabinet while Harry stuck out his hand, calling for his and Draco’s shoes, coats, gloves, and wands just in case. Leo’s bushy eyebrows definitely twitched when he realized Harry was operating without a wand as well as not needing incantations. The old Irishman retrieved and opened the case which contained the gun Harry hadn’t fired since the night he died at Hogwarts.

“Like the wind, lads,” Leon wished them luck as Harry accepted his semi-automatic, pulling it from the molded black foam inside the carrying case. “Sorry I dunna have any nine-mils in the house. Get ‘em from the armory on yer way.”

Harry tucked the pistol under his belt at his hip, stuffing his feet into his winter boots. His errant magic tied the laces tight around his ankles without his having to think.

Draco wasn’t moving. He stood there; drunk and full of pumpkin pie, holding his red jacket with the fur collar, staring at Leon as though he’d spoken Gaelic instead of English.

To Draco, this wasn’t real. It was a sick nightmare, a psychotic episode he couldn’t believe or give credence to or it might become reality. This wasn’t his life. He didn’t live this way. The last time he’d seen Harry with that gun had been the Battle of Hogwarts: the gun had been on Harry’s hip and it hadn’t done either of them any good in the end. The last time their lives were in danger, their hastily constructed plan had fallen apart—people had died, including Harry, lying dead at Draco’s feet. This wasn’t something Draco accepted as a part of his life. The war was over, Voldemort was dead, and there was no reason for them to start running for their lives all over again.

Draco was waiting to wake up.

“Dragon, c’mon,” Harry urged with a tap of his elbow to the smaller sorcerer’s ribs. “Shoes and coat on. We need to go!”

“…Where?” he murmured, seeming out of it.

Crap. His husband was disassociating. It was a kind of shock, when the brain for its own reasons couldn’t keep up with what was happening and sort-of shut down except for basic processes like breathing and blinking. Harry remembered what shock felt like: he’d experienced it when Peter Pettigrew killed Cedric Diggory right in front of him, and again when Alastor Moody died in the street in front of their house. He knew that freezing, paralyzing feeling; how your brain could turn off, leaving you physically helpless, a spectator to your own life. Right now, Draco felt like a camera on top of a tripod—an observer, inanimate, unrelated to anything going on around him. He was simply recording for later analysis.

That wouldn’t work. They had to go. Harry jammed his arms into his leather jacket, shrugged it on, then knelt in front of Draco to pick up his foot, getting it into his boot. He knew Draco was out of it when he didn’t immediately start protesting Harry dressing him like he was a little kid.

“Death Eaters have been spotted not far east of here,” Harry repeated, keeping his voice even as he explained the situation again—trying to make it sink in past the numbness in Draco’s head. He could hear Leon running through the house to gather what he needed, shouting to Charlene about which wards she ought to increase or reinforce in order to be safe alone in the house. “In case they come looking for us here, you and I are gonna take Leon’s fastest car and go for a drive. As long as we stay on the road, they can’t trace us.”

“Us?” Draco repeated as Harry tied his boots for him. It was an old muggle habit and it came out because he was stressed. Harry reverted to manual methods because doing something mindless with his hands gave him the time he needed to think. Now, taking care of Draco was helping to keep his anger and fear under control. He tied the laces tight, a double-knot, not wanting Draco’s shoes to come loose if they had to run.

“Yes,” he said in what he hoped was a comforting voice, standing. He didn’t want to but, with the light behind him, he sort of towered over his husband. He kept his voice informational, kind. “You’re coming with me.”

Draco stared up at Harry, holding his coat across his stomach. His eyebrows pinched together as he compared what Harry was saying to the snarly, jumbled mess in his inebriated brain. “You’re not fighting?”

“No, luv. I need to know you’re safe. And you’re safest with me.” Gently, he took Draco’s coat out of his hands and held it up so his husband could slip his arms in. Harry pulled it up, snugging the soft fur up to Draco’s ears before resting hands on his shoulders, speaking to the top of his head. He smelled merry—like pumpkins, candle wicks and wine. “My place is with you. I’m not going anywhere without you. I promise.” And he tucked Draco’s hawthorn wand into his coat pocket, just in case; his own wand inside the breast pocket of his coat.

Lastly, he stuck out a hand for his credentials—both the real thing and the CIA consulting badge Leon had reprinted for him with an updated picture. Harry put both in his back pocket, opposite his wallet.

“Leon! We’re going!” he called out. The old man was banging around, as was Charlene. Harry heard the distinct sound of a few shot gun shells tumbling down the wooden stair case, meaning that Charlene was upstairs loading up with shaking hands. Harry wanted to go to her, to steady her hands and let her know they’d all be okay—but he knew he had to get Draco away in case the Death Eaters were already watching them. There was no way of knowing for sure. The Death Eaters were too good at covering their tracks. It was a miracle they were spotted at all.

In what was likely mind-boggling to both Draco and Charlene, Harry and Leon began singing the Ireland National Quidditch Team’s fight song. Quite loudly. And boisterously for two men who believed they were about to be descended upon by an army of Death Eaters. In fact, the muggles next door could probably hear them. They’d likely think the two paramilitary contractors were lit based on the holiday and the late hour of the evening. They’d keep thinking that unless Death Eaters showed up in the driveway. If that happened, the neighbors they’d suffered through dinner with might not live to see morning. Harry didn’t like the neighbors but he didn’t want them dead, either—even if they were homophobic.

Draco leaned very slowly away from his singing husband—as though The Boy Who Lived had lost his final marble, and if Draco stayed too close he too might lose his mind. At least Harry knew it wasn’t because he was a bad singer… not anymore, as he’d gotten the ability to carry a tune from Draco.

Still singing, Harry took Draco’s hand and started walking him towards the garage—where they’d take the rear door into Charlene’s snow-covered butterfly garden, then to the woods and beyond the wards around the property in order to Apparate to the gun range, pick up some ammo, and get to the very fast car Harry had the keys to.

Draco didn’t want to move. His smaller boots seemed stuck to the carpet, heels digging in, resisting.

 _This is how_ _the_ _team coordinates_ _a timed offensive_ _,_ Harry explained, still singing a tad madly. When he tugged on Draco’s hand again, he started moving. _On the last note, Leo’s gonna make a distraction in case anybody’s watching the house, so you and I are sure to Apparate away without being_ _seen or_ _followed._

Draco nodded numbly. Through their clasped hands, Harry could only sense one clear thought amongst the jumble. _I am not nearly drunk enough for this shite._

 

 

 

 

Leon appeared to have some fireworks left over from Fred and George’s experiments during the war. From the ankle-deep snowy woods behind the house, Harry recognized three red screamers corkscrewing up into the black night sky. Leon lived in a fancy suburb outside the city of Cleveland, so the stars above their heads were nearly as plentiful as back at Hogwarts, though the visible constellations were slightly different for being in another hemisphere.

As the fireworks burst above the house in a blaze of red and gold sparks, Harry pulled Draco in tight, the last note of the fight song leaving his lips to the _pop_ and screams of fireworks overhead, their sparks raining down a temporary defencive shield around the north side of the property, covering the garage, driveway, and the woods where Harry and Draco stood.

“You haven’t told me where we’re g—” Draco began. The remainder of his sentence got cut off as Harry Apparated to the car park of Leon’s shooting range. He would’ve landed them inside the main building if Leon didn’t cycle the Blood Wards every time someone was hired, let go, or left his team. After Harry went to Romania for the summer and Johnny left to work on a team in California, Leon updated the wards, removing former employees. So they had to appear in the car park, then walk to the large warehouse where equipment was stored.

The car park was plain, utilitarian, nothing special. For Draco, it would be grossly muggle.

“Where are—?” Draco began a complaint.

Harry cut him off with a sharp, wordless hiss. He felt like an asshole but he needed Draco to be quiet so he could concentrate.

Something was wrong—specifically, something was missing. The car park was completely silent. No clicks or ticks from tiny critters in the woods. No bird calls or flapping feathers against the cold night air. No splats of snow or rustle of tree branches in the breeze which swept over his skin, pushing his loose hair over his face. Not even the distant sound of cars on the 322 Highway nearby. Harry could see the occasional headlight beyond the trees, yet there were no horns, no _whirr_ of tires against the concrete, not even the occasional deeper _thump-thump-thump_ from a tired semi-truck driver veering to the side of the road and hitting the scoring in the pavement meant to wake them up before they fell asleep and drove themselves into the ditch. There ought to have been some sort of sound, something other than the subtle squeal of his own nervous system in his ears and the cortisol-laced blood pounding through his veins.

An overzealous Muffling Spell?

Harry reached for his gun—realized he didn’t have a single bullet—then went for his wand instead. He kept his hand in Draco’s.

_I think they’re here already. Wand out and stick close._

Draco did as he was told, his eyes scanning the skinny pine trees beyond the car park. The lights on high poles illuminating the area were powerful. Nothing could move without casting a shadow. If anyone was watching them, it was from the cover of the trees beyond the light. There was a large plowed field of dead brown grass they’d have to cross to get to the Potters.

Harry moved them towards the warehouse, scanning the silent area as they moved. The air was so cold that their breath made clouds; Harry kept an eye out for other people breathing, watching Death Eaters releasing vapor into the air. He couldn’t spot anyone. Close to the door, he turned, getting Draco behind him and then walking backwards himself, covering their flank while getting Draco to safety first.

He didn’t hear the warehouse door open, but he could see the spill of orange-yellow interior light brightening the pavement, reaching his feet. He chanced a glance back to see Maddie, the team’s Quartermaster, her hair still cropped to a chin-length bob but now dyed a deep purple rather than green. She recognized Harry, removing her hand from the trigger of an AR15 locked to her shoulder in order to wave him and Draco inside. She kept the barrel of her semi-automatic rifle pointed out the door, shifting her body side-ways so the two Brits could fit by her through the doorway.

As soon as Harry stepped inside behind Draco, he could hear again—Draco’s heavy breathing, his own, and Maddie’s sigh as she slammed the door shut and locked it with a wave of her hand. She wore a modified glove like Leon had, the leather having once been wand components Transfigured into a wearable wand impervious to _Expelliarmus_. The loaded AR15 hanging from the strap on her shoulder made her impervious to damn near anything else.

Harry knew many of the faces inside the warehouse, gearing up. Tall, whip-thin former Hit Witch Rikka from Iceland. Shy Southern gentleman Jedidiah handing out phials of defencive potions. Sharpshooter and retired Green Beret Major Alejandro Moreno—Malaya’s burly uncle—calmly cleaning his rifle, wearing an easy fifteen kilos of body armor. Their commanding officer was Harry’s war-time martial arts sensei Hitori Kitarou, strapping an extra knife to each boot because the katana across his back wasn’t scary enough.

Harry felt out of place in his civilian khakis and jumper. A part of him wanted to suit up and fight. But that wasn’t his place—not today.

There were at least a dozen others whose faces Harry recognized as having worked at The Sanctuary, but whose names he couldn’t place. Leon had recruited over the summer, filling his ranks. There were close to thirty people in the warehouse, mostly Obliviatiors, Sharpshooters and Melee Combat Specialists.

Like Harry, the Field Officers could sense something was coming. They hadn’t had Death Eaters sighted in North America since the war. There hadn’t been a worthwhile target this side of the Atlantic. Something about tonight made Harry and Draco look particularly appetizing—perhaps because it was a holiday, the combination of proximity to muggles and the likelihood they’d have a few drinks, as the Potters were publically known to throw back a bit of alcohol when celebrating. The Death Eaters liked to crash you when you were having a good time: it destroyed moral as well as catching you unprepared.

Draco looked about at the huge metal-walled warehouse full of strangers, supplies, and muggle weaponry. He would recognize the all black SWAT-style American field uniform from the summer when Harry had worked for Leon.

“Wot the fuck?” he drawled loudly. “Where are we?”

Harry unzipped his jacket, gesturing over Draco by way of introduction to the team. “Everybody, my husband Draco.”

Knowing smiles swept the room. The Field Officers liked that Harry’s partner was the sort of wizard who kept him on his toes, kept him accountable, and wasn’t afraid to swear at him. Also, even drunk and frazzled, Draco was insanely handsome… and still wearing his Sunday best after Thanksgiving dinner. He’d always looked sharp in a dinner jacket—especially that fitted, navy paisley Gucci number.

“Sorry to call everyone out on a holiday,” Harry added sincerely.

“We’ll clear them out before Black Friday,” Hitori offered brashly, bravado increasing his volume. “Right?”

The team gave a whoop, agreeing with their second in command. It wasn’t that they weren’t taking the Death Eater spotting seriously. The Americans didn’t see much trouble from the Death Eaters during the last war, partly because the fighting lasted less than a year thanks to Draco and Harry. They were keeping the mood light in case they had to get serious later. Some of them could die tonight and camaraderie was how they chose to work through that fear.

“Wha’ddya need, Shorty?” Maddie asked of Harry. At nearly six feet he definitely wasn’t small anymore, but the nickname was already a thing.

“Couple of 9mm mags, standards are fine,” he told her. “And a garage bay open. We’re taking the Charger. Gonna jump Barriers at 70 miles an hour until Leon sends the all-clear.”

“Joy riding in the boss’s new car, huh?” Involuntarily, her gaze moved to Draco, and Harry could guess what she was thinking. That Harry’d been Leo’s favorite for a while, like a second son, and Draco looked eerily like Gideon Harper. She figured Leon was being extra careful since the Death Eaters’ sudden appearance on this side of the Atlantic could reasonably be about Draco as much as Harry, and Leon would be ferociously overprotective of Harry’s husband who was a ringer for his dead kid. “If you scratch the Charger,” she warned, “I’ll kill ya myself.”

Harry let out a puff of air which could be construed as a laugh given the tension in the air. “Duly noted. Dent her at my own peril.”

It was good to be doing something normal—bantering about the consequences of banging up Leon’s new car—when there were at least a dozen Death Eaters somewhere in the American heartland. Harry tried not to imagine the Harpers’ cul-de-sac on fire, the Dark Mark set over the Brewber house where they’d eaten dinner.

Maddie wasn’t much older than him; no more than twenty-eight if he had to guess, but probably closer to twenty-five. She would be old enough to remember her parents hiding in their cellar or the bathtub like muggles were told to protect themselves from tornadoes… except that her parents were a witch and wizard with wands raised, doing their best to protect their family from an invasion by a foreign fanatical militia. Field Ops Teams existed because so many Americans had died in the last war, their population spread out over a vast amount of land, virtually unprotected.

Maddie went off to find him the magazines he needed and inform the teams they’d be opening a garage bay; they ought to have officers positioned both inside and outside the facility to make sure Harry and Draco got away clean. Maddie would be the one to program the team’s private barrier, which Harry planned to drive through to make their get-away. When she came back with his ammo they’d discuss best locations to send the Potters for maximum diffusion of their trail.

Harry turned to Draco, who’d waited with his arms folded over his chest, his ashy eyebrows so far down they cast surly shadows over his eyes. The industrial overhead lights put a glint in his silver gaze which leant a playfulness not echoed in the hardness of his features. Now acclimated to his surroundings, he was mad, and he wanted an explanation.

Harry provided. “We’re at Leon’s base of operations, which he’s disguised as a muggle gun range. A place muggles come to learn how to handle guns safely, take lessons, and practice shooting. These people are his Field Ops Teams, who I worked with until I started at the Ministry. The witch with the purple hair is Maddie. She’s in charge of equipment, supplies, and the fleet; basically, everything in this warehouse. She’s gonna help us get on the road so the Death Eaters can’t find us.”

Draco accepted Harry’s words. He took a few tempered blinks of his eyes before asking, “How’s Leon supposed to signal us when the threat’s passed?”

“He’ll… call my mobile,” Harry shrugged, thinking that would be obvious.

Draco asked bluntly, “Where _is_ your mobile?”

Harry patted his trouser pockets. Then his jacket pockets. Then his khakis again, front and back, and checked inside his coat.

“Banshee-buggering troll-wanker,” he swore. “I left it at the Harpers’.”

“Good job, Wonder Boy.” Draco announced in a true deadpan. He was mocking. Inside, he was probably wondering how a dunce like Harry had survived the war with all his limbs attached. Pure dumb luck—and a lot of very powerful, very smart people in his corner, people who had his back. They had his back even now, which was why they’d be okay.

“Hey,” countered Harry. “I got us here in one piece. Credit where credit is due.”

He saw Maddie coming back with his magazines. He took a few long strides to meet her half-way, accepting the ammo. He loaded one into his Beretta, safety engaged, slipping the spare magazine in his coat pocket. Then, in a low voice, he confessed: “Maddie, I’m an idiot. Draco has graciously brought to my attention that, in the heat of the moment, I’ve forgotten my mobile.”

Maddie snort-laughed at him before going back into professional mode. “I’ll grab you one of our burners and send Boss-Man the digits.”

“You’re a life-saver,” Harry told her as she turned to get him a cell phone.

“And your husband’s right,” she called over her shoulder for the entire warehouse to hear. “You _are_ an idiot, Potter!”

Harry couldn’t be mad. He’d walked right into that one. At least she got Draco to laugh, too.

 

 

 

 

Maddie returned with a standard Nokia model. Two numbers were pre-programmed into the speed dial, each identified by a single letter. “M rings the boss. Q is the warehouse—me.”

“Just like James Bond…” Harry grumbled, sick of the comparison always popping up.

Her smile was thin but she managed one. “We try for something easy to remember.”

Draco shifted closer, putting the toe of his boot over Harry’s and applying a bit of pressure to get his attention without being obvious about it. When Maddie walked away, he asked from the side of his mouth, “James Bond?”

Harry sighed. “We’ve got some more movies to watch… a proper marathon. I think there’s a dozen of ‘em now.” He couldn’t help the sliver of a smile which tipped the side of his mouth, looking down at Draco. “I think you might like the Bond movies, actually. The villains are rather interesting characters.”

Ashy blond brows twitched. Draco wasn’t ready to smile—not with the stress of the situation heavy on his shoulders—but he did enjoy movie nights with Harry, a bottle of wine and take-away on the coffee table, lying on top of each other on the couch with the screen lighting their faces like a crystal ball. “What sort of movies are they?”

“Bond is a British spy. He gets into scrapes with other spies and fucks anything with tits.”

Draco’s teeth snuck out. That sounded like the makings of a decent film in his eyes. Sex on screen particularly interested Draco—he liked to think about how other people did it.

Whatever he was about to say was cut off by what sounded like a bomb going off in the parking lot. Harry had half a second to react, seeing through the window a gigantic fireball blooming outside in the darkness, hurtling for the warehouse. He got one arm around Draco, pulled him in to shield his head, and dove to the ground.

The force of impact knocked everyone off their feet. The warehouse took the blast, heavily insulated by magic. The windows, walls, and roof held. But magic rattled every surface, carefully organized supplies and equipment tumbling to the floor which shook like an earthquake. Glass objects shattered, gear bounced against the vibrating ground, and a siren scream pierced the air—a rather obnoxious all-hands alert patterned after a muggle fire alarm. It blared, endless, ringing in their ears.

Hitori was first to his feet, finding his balance on shaky ground. He’d hit his face when he fell, splitting his lip. He split blood against the concrete, M12 knocked and ready at his shoulder, then shouted to his team, arranging them in a fanning pattern so that their fire would cover the center garage bay.

“Potters!” he barked. “On my signal! We’ll cover you!”

They couldn’t risk staying here. Not if the Death Eaters got inside. It would be a bloodbath with everyone pinned inside the building, dueling between the shelves, falling back but with no point of escape. They all had to get out, fast. Hitroi, Rikka, Alejandro, Jed and the rest of them were ready to lay down their lives for Harry and Draco to get away first.

Harry got to one knee, drew his Beretta, and found his bearings. He’d knocked his head when he fell, too, but it wasn’t bad. He’d have a lump the next day, nothing more. He looked at Draco pushing up to his hands and knees.

“You okay? Can you run?”

Draco nodded. “Not very fast,” he added. The ground was still questionable. Volley after volley of fireballs struck the building. It seemed the Death Eaters were coming at them from every angle, trying to breach their wards. It was only a matter of time.

Harry stood, transferring his gun to his other hand so that he could offer it to Draco. The pureblood didn’t complain at being given a hand up—he grabbed onto Harry’s sleeve for balance; after all, he had the better part of three bottles of wine in his stomach.

“With me,” Harry instructed, setting as quick a pace as he thought Draco could manage drunk on a shaking floor.

They darted between shelves—most of which were bolted to the floor otherwise they’d have tipped over—forced to jump over or move around large fallen objects. The cars were parked on the opposite side of the building along with several large petrol tanks for re-fueling. Maddie was right behind them, hanging onto shelves for balance, a scrape on her chin leaking a thin line of blood down the front of her neck. Harry guessed she had a plan to weaponize the fuel tanks and use them against the enemy if she had a clear shot.

He and Draco slid into the side of the sleek, black, supercharged Dodge Charger. It was a popular choice for American law enforcement and various bureaus who might expect to find themselves in a car chase. Leon had upgraded every option from the tires and rims to bullet-proof windows and steel paneling throughout the body. Harry could feel the difference when his bruised hip hit the side of the car. Where a normal vehicle had some slight give, the supped-up military Charger had none. It was like leaning against concrete.

Harry unlocked the front door with Leon's key. It was American, so he was opening the door to the driver’s side. He stuffed Draco in anyway. The pureblood scrambled over the center console to sit in the passenger’s seat, making room for Harry to follow him.

“Seat belt,” he reminded his husband. He hadn’t had many opportunities to say it but… he liked the way the words felt. He just hated the current circumstances.

Draco found the belt as Harry started the engine. It roared under his feet, spitting and deep. Draco jumped. He’d been fumbling to get the buckle locked in. Harry reached across, snatched it before the belt could rebound back, and slammed it into the holster.

“Hecate’s cunt!” Draco shouted at him, incensed. He hadn’t wanted help. “I nearly had it! Overbearing bastard!”

Draco was stressed and scared out of his mind, the same as Harry. So he chose to ignore the way his husband’s raised voice jolted right through his heart in this tiny space. Sitting in a car was something surprisingly intimate, something Harry wanted to do a lot more in years to come. This horrible night was ruining that. Draco might never buckle his seat belt again without thinking of this moment. That made Harry’s eyes prickle.

He blinked away the hot sensation of tears, pressing his hands to the leather steering wheel as a kind of grounding. Because it needed to be done, he busied himself with adjusting the seat until his arms were straight and he didn’t have his knees up in the dashboard. Someone shorter had driven it last and not adjusted the seat after. With a _click_ , he locked in his own seat belt.

The Charger was parked in a row with several SUV’s and other vehicles used by Leon’s team. There was an Escalade in front of them, blocking most of Harry’s view, and a Mobile Command Unit the size of a family caravan parked behind. Not trusting the rear-view mirror, Harry rolled the windows down and stuck his head out, judging how much room he had to work with to pull the Charger out without smashing into the other vehicles in the process.

With the windows down, they heard their first screams. There were shouts of pain and panic along with spells cast. Another Field Ops crew might’ve arrived in the car park only to be caught in the Death Eater attack. He had to ignore it—the sounds of people fighting, dying. It wasn’t his job to help them… not right now. They were out there dying, sacrificing themselves, so that he and Draco could get away.

Maddie waved Harry forward, coordinating with Hitori beyond Harry’s line of sight. Frustrated, his heart pounding in his ears, he had to play back-and-forth with the powerful car, feathering his foot against the gas pedal so they wouldn’t smash into the SUV or the armored caravan. Draco gripped the window ledge, nervous, peeking out at Harry’s progress—because now Draco knew what it looked like when cars smashed into each other and had no desire to see that again.

“If you’re gonna stick your head out the window,” Harry suggested dryly. “Can you tell me how much clearance I’ve got?”

With Draco’s help, he got the Charger out of its tight park job and started up the narrow aisle toward the garage bays. In a small space they might worry about filling the air with fumes and poisoning everyone else but in a warehouse this size they were fine. When they stopped, the smell of exhaust blew around them, coming in through the open windows and Draco coughed, his face wrinkling, not accustomed to the smell.

“You’ll get used to it,” Harry reminded him. “Riding the Bonnie ‘round London.”

Draco wasn’t sure whether to be angry that Harry was trying to make him feel better, or annoyed that his husband was babbling to soothe himself. He settled for giving Harry a long, unmoving look, and saying nothing at all.

Harry’s attention returned over the steering wheel. At least the Charger was an automatic transmission: he wouldn’t have to worry about shifting gears.

Maddie signaled Harry again, cluing him in. As he suspected, the building was surrounded. Using her hands and arms, she suggested he cut diagonally through the car park, breaking through the Death Eater ranks, then turn around in the empty field in order to get to the dirt road behind the warehouse leading to the old brick barn which was their Trans-Location Barrier. She’d it set to take them… somewhere. They hadn’t had time to discuss. He’d have to drive blind, improvising a route from the road.

He nodded—realized the windows were too tinted for Maddie to see him properly—and stuck his hand out the window, slapping the roof of the car and then giving her a thumbs up.

He didn’t know how to tell Draco.

“Looks like we’re driving into a battlefield,” he pointed at the ample leg room Draco had, sitting in a car designed for men a foot taller than he was. “I’d rather you got down on the floor for cover. But we’ve got a better chance if you can act as a gunner out your window and curse anyone you get a clean shot on.”

A long, sour expression sucked Draco’s cheeks in. “Human turret,” he whispered. He was a fair duelist, but out of practice; on top of which he was presently drunk, drained, and—though he wouldn’t admit it—rightly petrified. Draco couldn’t do the work of a machine.

“The Charger isn’t spell-proof,” said Harry, trying to be reasonable. “It’s for dealing with muggles, or magical kids who stole their parents’ car, not battling Death Eaters. Speed is all it offers. We have to use our own magic to defend ourselves.”

A fraught breath pushed past Draco’s nose until his chest deflated beneath the seat belt. His movement was made that much more obvious by the saturated ruby color of his coat and the glint of gold buttons in the light. With a twitch of Harry’s fingers, Draco’s coat went from scarlet to jet black. He turned Draco’s hair brunette, too, so he’d be that much harder to see. A blink, and Harry’s own clothes went all black down to his boots—Draco getting him back, a reminder that they had the same magic. Draco wanted Harry, the more experienced fighter, to do the work.

“I have to drive,” Harry reminded him. “And I don’t know what’s out there. I need you to have my back, okay? I need you to protect me so I can get us out of here in one piece.”

At that, Draco nodded.

The warehouse had an emergency hatch in the ceiling. Lex Moreno and a few others armed with rifles and long-distance night scopes had climbed the ladder up to the hatch. Like Harry they spelled each other’s gear black; those who were Caucasian darkened their skin or conjured grease paint to cover their necks, faces, and hands, making themselves near-invisible in the dark. A second group had prepared a remote-controlled wagon, ready to burst through the front door of the warehouse, drawing attention and enemy fire. Loaded onto the back of the unit, Harry could make out three small blue tanks, probably containing gas or propellant, with the wires of a remote detonator. They planned to blow a hole in the ranks for the Potters to push through.

Harry sincerely hoped Leon had elected to get a fire-retardant paint package along with the upgraded leather seats.

If he panicked, Draco would panic too. The thought of Draco losing it, raising his voice again or… or crying—that kept his shit on straight. It was a cobbled-together plan, last-minute, and a lot could go wrong. But it was also the best they had on limited time. He could do it because he didn’t have a choice.

He glanced at Draco—especially pale, an optical illusion with his darkened hair and black clothes. His jaw was hard. A blue vein which Harry liked to kiss was thumping in his neck, showing the rapid beat of his heart. Draco was feeling the adrenaline. He was scared, but maybe not terrified.

Draco didn’t train like Harry did. He hadn’t practiced dueling or combat since Hogwarts. For Draco, this was the first time he’d felt threatened since the battle.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Harry told Draco. “We’ve got this. I know you can do it.”

Maddie raised her arm, a rag in her hand like she was signaling the start of a race. Harry held the brake with his left foot like it was a clutch, shifted the Charger back into drive, and hovered his right foot over the gas pedal, ready to go on her mark.

He didn’t know the whole plan, only his part in it. The remote-controlled unit went first. Someone spelled open the door and they drove it out. Harry could see flames, the rainbow sparks of curses, hexes and spells, and the blackness of a country night beyond. The pavement glistened, wet with melted snow.

Out of his sight, the robot blew. It sounded like they’d made a crater in the car park—heavy chunks of dislodged pavement hitting the metal walls, slamming against the windows enchanted and warded against breaking. Harry heard the soft _pop_ of a sniper rifle several stories above. More gunfire followed, the team in the warehouse shooting through the open door, trying to take down as many Death Eaters as they could, attempting to clear a path. Maddie hit the switch on the garage door. It shuddered, creeping its way up.

“Son-of-a fucking—” Draco mashed his lips shut before he could finish his curse. He wanted the door to move faster, for this whole thing to be over, and swearing at the thing wasn’t going to make it move any faster; swearing would only increase his own agitation and he knew it. Draco twisted his wand in his palm, gripping the door handle in his right hand, his back pressed to the leather seat, hanging on for the moment Harry hit the gas. Speeding in a car was only a bit like a broomstick; they’d driven Dima and Misha’s old Ferrari pretty fast in Romania, but nothing like this. Draco only had an inking of what a two-hundred-ninety horse-power engine was capable of.

As the door rose, they got a full view of the carnage. People’s robes were on fire—Death Eaters, because American Field Officers didn’t wear robes but enchanted muggle-style combat uniforms for that very reason. The Death Eaters never patterned themselves to fight armed combatants. They were always meant to frighten civilians, to attack the unarmed and unaware, then disappear before the authorities arrived.

It wasn’t like them to attack a fortified base. They’d never done that before Ravenwood. The last war had pureblood generals, wizards like Augustus Rookwood, Antonin Dolohov and Lucius Malfoy—wizards who knew nothing but the magical world. Now they had new leadership. At the helm were younger men—like Philippe Didier. These new rising commanders knew about the muggle world, understood modern military tactics, and were committed to crushing their enemy no matter the cost. It was that determination which had resulted in the largest casualty count of any magical war in the last eight hundred years.

Voldemort always targeted individual people: Dumbledore, Lily and James Potter, Harry. The new Death Eaters went after strategic targets like safe-houses, hospitals, supply depots, warehouses, and military facilities. Their focus and strategy made them all the more dangerous.

Outside, men and women burned. Harry remembered that smell: a charcoal-laden, slightly sweet roasted meat, something between pork and chicken, with the faintest sulfur whiff which was burnt hair. Burning Inferi smelled like death. Burning people smelled disturbingly like a holiday barbeque in the garden.

With the garage door half-way open, Maddie dropped her rag. The Charger’s low profile could sneak under the door and then she could reverse it, hoping to get the door shut again before any Death Eaters got close enough to slip inside.

Harry released the brake and dropped his foot. The engine roared, tires squealed against the sealed-concrete floor until the acrid stink of burning rubber stung their eyes. And then they were off, racing out into the fire.

The acceleration put Draco back in his seat. Quidditch instinct kicked in, and though the clearance on the garage door looked awfully low, both knew they’d make it.

Harry had driven in torrential rain, in downpours of snow or slicks of black ice across country roads. He’d never before driven through fire.

He and Draco had the same idea—each conjuring a bathtub-worth of water in an attempt to douse the flames before their car shot through. They burst through a gap in the wall of flames accompanied by a _splat_ of water against the hood. The engine hissed, steaming.

Behind the barrier of flames were more Death Eaters than Harry had seen since Hogwarts. They were spread out, some still Apparating in, others running to the street beyond Leon’s wards to get out and relay information to a central command which was _not_ on site. The pattern of runners stood out to him in the chaos of bodies dueling. Harry had to swerve to avoid hitting people. At least the fighting Field Officers knew what a car was and had the sense to jump out of the way as he came barreling through. Those who stayed still wore white masks, glowing in the dark—providing Draco a clear target.

His husband didn’t need to speak his spells anymore. Harry recognized the concussive blast of air which was a Dread Hex fired from Draco’s wand, dropping Death Eaters to their knees. He spotted a group of Death Eaters conjuring an advanced shield for themselves; a carefully-aimed _Eptir Eldr_ lit them all in a bubble of blue flames.

Draco believed the best defence was an aggressive offense.

The car park was slick with melted snow, the puddles black as ink in places, reflecting orange flames in others. Their reflections made it harder to tell what was burning and what was a mirror image.

It was hard for Harry to believe this was the same car park where he’d confessed to Hagrid about marrying Draco. The flames of shame and disbelief he’d felt coming off of his friend that night were manifest now. Nearly a year later and he was still fighting the same ideological battle, still dodging the spells of people who wanted him dead because of what he believed and who he loved. For the first time, Draco was right beside him as the spells flew.

The fact that Draco was in the passenger’s seat, his face lit by flames, wand in hand, made this moment more frightening than any other battle. Draco knew what it felt like to lose him: Draco had seen his dead body once before. Never again.

A flash of light darted in through the open window—a Slicing Spell which Harry took across the cheek. It slit him from under his cheekbone up across his nostril, nicking the bridge of his nose before flying off, terminating in a nice rip to the fabric on the Charger’s roof which he’d surely hear about later from Leon.

With blood dripping down his face, Harry complained loudly, “Shielding, Draco? I’m getting’ hit over here!” He licked his lips and tasted copper. Blood under the nose-pads of his glasses had them slipping down his nose, jammed into his wound. Lenses balanced on the end of his nose, he had to tilt his head back to see where he was going. Without his glasses, the battlefield would be a runny wash of orange, yellow, and black. If he couldn’t see, they’d surely crash.

“ _Putain de bordel de merde!_ ” Draco scrambled—his wand into his right hand, conjuring up a massive Light Shield to encompass them both—his left hand reaching across the cabin, finding Harry’s jaw only for his fingers to slip on the wash of blood pouring down his face. Head wounds bled the most, and the face quite a bit. A lot of blood didn’t mean it was that deep. He was too high on adrenaline to feel much of anything past the initial sting of his skin being cut open.

Draco’s fingers lit up, a sheen of coral-pink light which, though it would heal him, simultaneously made it harder for Harry to see. He already had his head back to keep his glasses from falling off. Now Draco’s light shone around his face, paralyzing his vision with proximity to that brightness.

He shook Draco’s hand away—healed enough and needing to push his glasses up using his shoulder. The movement caused the car to veer and in that second he lost control, hydroplaning on the melted snow. The Charger’s tires lost contact with the pavement and they slid in a sweeping motion like a fish flapping its tail—starting to spin from the boot, and the Charger had a heavy arse. Draco, who’d been in a car only a handful of times, had no idea what was going on and assumed magic had taken control of the vehicle. He screamed, scrambling for the door handle, needing something to hang onto like a broomstick’s handle.

“I got this!” Harry shouted back. He couldn’t stand the sound of Draco afraid.

He held the wheel steady, riding their momentum, feathering the brake to slow their slide and regain traction. Mid-slide, he saw an opportunity and took it.

There was a Death Eater nearby, facing away from them, aiming spells at an American on the ground. Harry maintained his drift. “Hang on,” he told Draco.

Finally obedient, his husband grabbed hold of the handle above the window, bracing his body against the door. He aimed his wand out the window again, ready to protect them.

Harry released the regular brakes, yanking up on the emergency hand brake instead, and the Charger swung abruptly. The back end of the car whipped around, centripetal force gathering to hit the Death Eater squarely from behind. There was a thick _crunch_ on top of a metallic _smash_ —likely their rear fender dented, and a few of the person’s bones breaking. The black-cloaked body was thrown, flying several meters. As though he were skeet shooting, Draco tagged the Death Eater with a Full Body Bind before they hit the ground.

Draco was… laughing. His tittering, chipmunk-that-stole-your-food-at-a-picnic giggle he wouldn’t let loose in front of other people. He bounced back into his seat as Harry took off again. Draco waved his long, pale fingers and most of the blood disappeared from Harry’s face.

“Oi! Ten points if you can hit another one!”

After spinning around, Harry was still trying to get his bearings in the dark, finally remembering to turn his bloody headlights on. He wasn’t even sure if they were headed the right way. The Death Eaters had put out all the overhead lights in the car park, and now his headlights and the flames were his only guides. Bodies seemed to materialize out of thin air, dashing out of the way before he hit them.

He spotted the warehouse in his side mirror. A second later they hit a bump, jerking them back against their seats as the car went from the pavement to the frozen grass and dirt area Leon kept clear for running drills or as overflow parking for the range. They were very lucky it’d been plowed that afternoon.

“We’re nearly outta here,” said Harry, raising his voice over the cross-wind from having both windows open. “Forgive me if I don’t wanna head back into danger for your random point system.”

“Fair!” Draco chortled, a hyper laugh born of nerves and battle shaking his shoulders. He was getting beyond the idea they might die and had moved on, his confidence growing as no further spells came their way. The Light Shield he maintained around them certainly helped. “Not gonna argue with you, Chosen One.”

Harry took the turn around the rear of the warehouse as fast as he could without losing control. Kicking up a bit of frost and dirt, they blew by three Field Officers with handcuffed, subdued Death Eaters at their feet. Harry barely had time to acknowledge them, smacking his fist against the horn in an improvised salute. The three of them waved him off, signaling they’d cleared off the Death Eaters back here and his way to the Trans-Location Barrier ought to be clear. The occasional _pop_ of a sniper rifle from the roof wouldn’t let Harry rest easy. His shoulders were still rocks against the seat, his foot on the gas, arms locked, driving off towards the woods.

“We have to drive through a Trans-Location Barrier,” Harry advised. “Like the one between Platform 9 & ¾ and Kings Cross Station. It’s gonna seem like I’m driving us into a brick wall. So… do you trust me?”

Surprising him, Draco reached across the console, his hand finding the inside of Harry’s thigh. “I’ve seen you do a surprising number of asinine things and live. Appreciate the warning,” he squeezed tighter. “I hate this. I love you. Let’s just fucking go.”

 

 

 

 

Whether by luck-of-the-draw or by Maddie’s quick thinking, the barrier was set to dump them out along a stretch of highway Harry knew. He didn’t need the signs along the road to recognize Interstate 35W outside of Fort Worth, Texas. They were near Malaya’s house. He’d driven this stretch of highway on another dark night which seemed a very long time ago, thinking about himself and Draco, the kind of future they might have together. Tonight he was on that road again, a bit bloodied and fleeing a literal battle, with Draco at his side and wedding rings on both their fingers.

He held still as Draco leaned, twisting in his seat to see Harry’s face and Vanish the last of the blood before healing the cut on his face the rest of the way. Draco was quite good at removing blood stains after nearly a year, scrubbing the spots out of Harry’s clothes with an absent twitch of his pale fingers.  

“Now what?” Draco shouted over the wind, settling back. He stretched his legs, crossing his ankles. The breeze moved his hair across his forehead. He didn’t seem to know it, but some of Harry’s blood had sprayed over his face—little drops of it misted against his forehead. When they spelled his hair back to blond, they might find more blood. At least it wasn’t Draco who’d been bleeding.

Harry looked down at the speedometer. He was pulling eighty-seven miles per hour, which was well above the legal limit. Easing his iron foot, he pressed the button to close the windows.

“We drive,” he was able to say at a normal volume, the cabin re-sealed. Buttons and levers on the dashboard glowed. Harry took a second to familiarize himself, then flipped on the air conditioning since they still wore their coats. “I know the area. We need to hit a barrier every five minutes or so. Leon will ring us when it’s safe to go back.”

Draco nodded his understanding. “What happens if we end up somewhere you don’t know? Bolivia or something? How would we get back?”

That made Harry chuckle. He certainly wouldn’t know any back-roads in South America. He pointed to the dash above Draco’s legs, “Check the glove box. Maddie puts a map and the most recent rotation schedule in every vehicle in the fleet. All the barriers are numbered. If we get lost, we’ve got five minutes to pull over, get our bearings, and find ourselves another wall to drive into.”

Searching through the glove box, Draco spoke to Harry. “I feel like there’s a metaphor there,” he mused. “Somethin’ ‘bout our heads bein’ too thick, beatin’ down the wall we’re knockin’ against. But I’m too fuckin’ gone ta be clever.”

That was honest. Draco had that startling ability to drop his walls and say exactly what he felt in moments like this. That was how Harry first saw him; when Draco was miserable, when he couldn’t see a way out, he managed to open up the doors to his heart and let Harry in.

The highway before them was nearly deserted. Every car they passed reminded Harry of how very different their lives were—those cars were filled with people who’d gone to see their families, who’d celebrated and feasted and stayed up a bit late. They were on their way home now. Meanwhile he and Draco were running, couldn’t go home until the threat was over.

Harry settled for an exhausted admission of his own. “Same. I don’t care where we end up—as long as you’re with me.”

 

 

 

 

Three jumps later and Harry could tell Draco was getting bored.

“Wanna find something on the radio?”

Draco shook his head. “Why? We’d lose the station in five minutes anyway, right?”

That was true. Even the Wizarding Wireless Network didn’t broadcast on the same frequency nationally. Every time they hit a barrier which took them to a new area, the music would turn to static. That seemed too depressing.

When Draco rejected one idea, it was Harry’s job not to get frustrated or down, or to take it personally. He needed to suggest something else instead.

“Learn any new songs?” he asked.

Draco smacked his arm for being silly. Whenever the guys taught Draco lyrics, they always sent the guitar chords, too, for both of them to learn. It had been a while since Draco learned a new song without Harry knowing.

Draco studied the map by the light of his wand. “Exit 4,” he announced. “Northbound. There’ll be something called a Kwik Trip, a petrol station? The barrier’s in the back, between the bins, marked with graffiti of a griffin biting the head off a penguin.” He sighed grandly. “Merlin! Yankees are so odd.”

Harry pulled into the Kwik Trip. They had a few minutes to spare and he suggested going in for a slash and a snack. Two blokes in all black, one of them armed, was rather a sinister look—so they spelled their clothes back to normal, checked for evidence of magic and, finding none, stepped out of the car.

When the bright lights hit them, Draco must’ve seen a bit of blood he missed. In case any muggles were watching, he tugged the sleeve of his returned-to-red jacket to cover his hand and swiped roughly at Harry’s face. He managed to make the gesture look like two blokes roughhousing, while in actuality he was wiping the last evidence of battle off of his husband’s face. Harry shoved him back, muttering, “Thanks.”

“Zip your jacket, bell-end,” Draco shot back; smirking, teasing. “I can see you’re carrying.”

 

 

 

 

Armed with a bottle of sparkling water, a large coffee, and a fresh pack of Djarum Blacks—having pulled ‘round the rear of the building, found the spray-painted griffin eating a penguin, and driven their car through it with a minute to spare—Draco had a question.

“What was tha’ song? In the shop?”

Draco always had his ears open when muggles had the radio on; he learned something new most of the time. The petrol station’s night staff were playing ska—Jamaican, calypso, and jazz-influenced punk rock full of horns and off-beat guitar riffs—a genre Draco never would’ve heard before. Of course he’d noticed the new sound.

“Do you know it?” Draco pressed.

“Uh… yeah.”

“Santeria” had been a popular song a few summers ago and was still on the radio. Harry remembered it because the lyrics were so unusual, and they mentioned three things he knew very well now: love, magic, and wanting to kill someone.

Draco leaned back in his seat, lighting up a black-papered cigarette. They could spell the smell of smoke out of Leon’s car later, but Draco still cracked the window to be polite. He’d learned how, operating the window button on his own.

It surprised Harry when his husband asked, “Sing it for me?”

That was such a rare request that Harry didn’t question it. After the stress, the fear, everything—Draco probably just wanted to hear his voice no matter what he was saying. Singing in the car seemed like a normal thing to do, passing the time and keeping awake. So Harry opened his mouth and sang:

 

                        “ _I don't practice Santeria, I ain't got no crystal ball,_  
                        _Well_ _I had a million dollars_ _but I'd_ _spend it all_  
                        If I could find that Heina and that Sancho that she's found  
                        I'd pop a cap in Sancho and I'd slap her down…”

 

Draco wouldn’t have understood half of that a year ago. He probably knew Santeria because of its relation to Voodoo, and crystal balls were normal everyday objects to him. But Draco knew American dollars now because of the paperwork he poured over for their project in Iceland. He even knew that “popping a cap” in someone meant shooting them with a gun thanks to a few rounds of mobster movies, kicked off by their first date watching _Mean Streets_. The concept of the mafia made sense to Draco because it so closely paralleled the environment he’d grown up in, fully expecting to be a part of—otherwise he’d have been bumped off. The Death Eater world was kill-or-be-killed.

Draco started humming along when he didn’t have his cigarette between his lips. His boot tapped against the floor mat, mimicking the catchy, syncopated timing of the song. Harry found his fingers drumming against the wheel, keeping the beat.

He got to the scary part of the song. As he sang the words, a surprising anger burned at his core, coming up from his heart to put a smolder in his throat, roughening his voice.

There were really only two men on Earth he’d fantasized about killing in cold blood. He wanted to blow their brains out, and would do it without a second’s hesitation: Ciaran Mulciber and Philippe Didier, the men who’d raped his husband. Draco got Mulciber, which left Philippe for Harry to hunt down. When he thought about it, having a socially-acceptable reason to shoot Philippe Didier in the head was probably a part of why he became a Hit Wizard in the first place.

 

                        “ _Tell Sanchito that if he knows what is good for him_ _, he_ _’d_ _best go run and hide._  
                        Daddy's got a new .45  
                        And I won't think twice to stick that barrel straight down Sancho's throat.  
                        Believe me when I say that I got somethin' for his punk ass…”

 

“What’s a .45?” Draco interrupted. Back in England, a forty was cheap malt liquor that kids their age sometimes drank on the street corner—punks and miscreants who started trouble for no reason. Draco was probably thinking of something like that.

“It means .45 caliber ammunition. A pistol.”

Draco could handle a gun, but he’d never shot anyone before. Harry had. That had to be in his mind as much as it was on Harry’s. The Boy Who Lived shot people because he was as much muggle as wizard: Draco used magic, or ran his enemies through with a blade because he was old-fashioned wizarding stock. That was what he perceived as most deadly. Harry was slowly changing his perspective.

Draco blew his clove-infused smoke to the side, aiming for the open window so it wouldn’t get in Harry’s face or interfere with his driving. 

“Is that considered… normal for muggles? To wanna kill some berk because your girlfriend’s fucking him?”

Harry tipped his head. “The part about wanting to kill the guy is… posturing, I guess, but he might be serious. He’s mad that his girlfriend prefers the other guy, right? He misguidedly thinks if he kills Sancho that she’ll come back to him—which is fucked up. Muggle culture does run on jealousy, tho. It’s all over their music. Movies, too. They think it’s normal to be jealous of your ex’s new partner, or be jealous if the person you’re dating fancies someone else. Jealousy is romantic to muggles.”

Another cloud-like spray of smoke left Draco’s impressive lungs. “Guess I’m a freak, then,” he admitted, leaning back in his seat, his legs stretched out. “I don’t reckon I’ve ever been jealous—not romantically. Spittin’ angry, sure, if I got fucked over. But—”

Draco jumped to attention as the Charger’s cabin was suddenly flooded with red light. He accidentally dropped his cigarette in his lap—instinctively slapping at it to put it out before it burned him, then Vanishing it with a flip of his fingers a second later because remembered he could. After coffee and a smoke—and the shock of seeing Death Eaters again for the first time since March—his husband was significantly less drunk, but not precisely sober.

“Tha’ fuck is tha’!?” he slurred at the bright lights cutting through their tinted rear windshield.

Harry was already slowing down, knowing exactly what it was before the lights had a chance to switch from red to blue.

He warned Draco as the lights from a police car lit their faces. “Don’t say anything. Not a word, luv. Don’t move, and let me do the talking, alright? American constables are nothing like back home.”

Draco looked more feisty than worried. “How so?”

“They carry guns. That ought’a tell you.”

Harry pulled over onto the shoulder, parking the Charger before rolling his window down. He’d never done this before, but he knew the procedure from movies and lectures from Leon. Everything got an awful lot quieter without the rumble of the massive engine in their ears. Careful eyes watched via his side mirror as the officer climbed out of his car, the oscillating red and blue lights still going.

“At least turn the fuckin’ lights off,” Draco grumbled. “Salazar’s scrotum, I’m seein’ stars, here.”

“No. Talking.” Harry growled between his teeth. The leather seats were making it hard to reach his badges in his back pocket. His jacket’s leather stuck to the seat’s leather. The fact that his hands were kinda sweaty didn’t exactly help. Rather than have the cop find him with his hand jammed behind his back, Harry returned both hands to the wheel as the uniformed muggle approached the Charger.

The officer leaned down, a long flashlight in his hand like a baton, and shone the light directly into Harry’s eyes. It refracted off the edge of his glasses. If the red and blue lights hadn’t blinded him, that flashlight did the trick. He blinked as black and white dots chased each other across his vision. He couldn’t see anything beyond the tip of the flashlight—which was practically inside the car, and pointed at Draco. His husband held up his hand, shielding his tender wine-drunk eyes against the brightness. Mercifully, the pureblood chose to listen to Harry and kept his mouth shut. He picked a good time to remember the “try my very damndest to obey” portion of their wedding vows.

“License and registration,” the officer demanded.

Perturbed, Harry had to work to make his voice sound bored when he was anything but. “Officer. If you run my plates, you’ll see I’m not required to carry registration.” Some of those words made an English accent stand out like mad.

The flashlight bobbed right back into Harry’s face. “License and registration,” he repeated, harder.

Harry’s eyes were adjusting to the flashlight—enough that he could make out the officer’s other hand as it moved toward the pistol on his hip. The holster was already open. He could draw and shoot Harry in a matter of a second.

Harry flexed his fingers against the wheel, searching for a calm he didn’t feel. After a night of Death Eaters and gun shots and with no word yet from Leon, this was the last thing he wanted. They had about two minutes to make it to their next barrier before their location was potentially exposed.

“I’m complying,” he announced, slow and clear. “My identification is in my back pocket.” He had to turn his shoulders in such a way that they would block the officer’s view of the loaded Beretta tucked at his hip. It was an easily concealed handgun—less so when he had it tucked under his belt with a bright flashlight pointed at his chest. If this brusk officer saw he was armed and reacted… neither of them would like the way it went from there.

He managed to turn his shoulder, casting enough of a shadow that his hip couldn’t be seen. For a second, Harry locked eyes with Draco. He knew what his husband was thinking.

_Infinite points if you hit this one, too._

_Can’t_ , Harry thought back. _Sorry. He’s annoying but hasn’t done anything to us._

Draco just raised his eyebrows, sucking his cheeks in a sour expression. _Yet._ He was remembering the constable who’d harassed them in a London park last year. It was dark like that night. They’d been talking, driving, not doing anything wrong, just like their walk in the park. Above all, Draco valued his liberty and privacy. Muggle law enforcement struck him as all too keen to impede both.

Harry fished out his work badge and CIA credentials from Leon, handing them over carefully. He performed a delicate little dance, only his arm moving, keeping his torso forward and shoulders ever-so-slightly slanted Draco’s way, so that no part of his gun was ever visible.

The cop made a grumpy sound, flapping Harry’s shields about like he didn’t care much for what they represented—the might of a foreign nation which had once _owned_ his. “I’m gonna run these.” The officer wanted that to sound like a threat.

Harry bit back a snappy retort. Something like _Yeah, you do that._ Or _Y_ _ou’d better run_.

Beside him, Draco snorted. The smaller man needed both hands over his mouth to keep his notably high-pitched laughter in check as the cop walked back to his squad car with both of Harry’s badges.

“What the fuck is he?” asked Draco once he was confident he wouldn’t be overheard. He dropped his natural speaking voice down—knowing that the lower a pitch was, the shorter distance its wavelengths traveled before becoming indistinct. Draco could get low, easily imitating Dima or Yuri if he wanted to.  

Harry adjusted his glasses before examining the squad car in the rear view mirror. “Not regular police. The colors are wrong, and the uniform. State Trooper, I reckon. What state are we in? Do you remember without looking at the map? We can’t move around or we’ll spook him,” he explained before Draco even asked.

“North-something.”

“Carolina?” Harry suggested. “Dakota?”

“Yeah, the second one.”

Harry groaned, his head falling back against the head rest, hair sweaty against the back of his neck—he sweat when he was nervous, and he sweat more when he was angry, which left him practically drenched. He wanted to rip his hair out. And he really wished he wouldn’t have vocalized his displeasure because that got Draco feeling nervous, too.

Draco kept his voice low, but his speed picked up considerably. “Is that bad? Why? Why’s North Dakota bad?”

Harry made a pressing gesture, suggesting that Draco keep his voice down and pretend to be calm. It took his high-alert brain a moment to formulate a succinct answer. “Just… don’t put your prick up my arse in front of him and we should be fine.”

“Ohhhh,” said Draco, comprehension washing over him. His voice went even lower with that long sound—much lower than Harry expected, even lower than his own normal speaking range. Draco was purposefully butching himself up, hyper-exaggerating his masculinity as a way to demonstrate that he knew what Harry was getting at. This was not a good place to be married to another bloke. One look at Draco’s ID would confirm it. It was hard to explain-away having the same last name, and not many people would believe that the pair of them were family… the sort of family who fucked each other, sure, but not the variety which were welcome in North Dakota.

The State Trooper returned, something of a stomp to his gait making Harry simultaneously wince and want to spit fire. He held the steering wheel tightly because his hand itched to go for his gun; even having a finger on the safety would’ve made him feel better, less at-risk. He didn’t understand why, but constables always put him on edge. Not Aurors or Hit Wizards of Field Officers. It was only muggle law enforcement who gave him this sensation like he ought to be ready to defend himself at any moment. He didn’t trust them.

His badges were returned through the open window, and the light returned to his face. He was used to it now, but that didn’t make him chuffed about it.

“Potter,” barked the officer.

“Yup. That’s me.” Harry offered the tightest, most fake smile he could muster.

“What’s SOCOM doing out here?”

Harry made up a lie on the spot. “I’m escorting a protected person.”

The light went back to Draco who was ready this time, his hand already shielding his eyes. With his hair still brown, it was a bit harder to see his scars. The darker hair color distracted the eye, allowing the milky whiteness of his skin to blend, obscuring the scar at his hairline and the burn marks on his neck easily mistaken for freckles or perhaps redness from shaving with a crap razor. Everything else was covered by clothes. His twisted finger bones and slightly inflated knuckles could be attributed to sports or manual labor. It wasn’t that uncommon for muggles to have breaks in their hands given how much more they had to use them.

“Your ID,” the trooper insisted.

Harry butted in. “You don’t have jurisdiction, officer. He’s in my custody. If you’ll kindly inform me why I’ve been pulled over? I need to ring my supervisor if we’re delayed in transport.” And he made a show of looking at his watch. Fuck, it was nearly midnight. Leon would be the epitome of delighted to get a phone call that Harry and Draco had been pulled over by the fucking cops. He wasn’t even speeding!

The trooper glared at him a long time, debating in his head. Harry started to wonder whether or not he could pull off a wandless, non-verbal Memory Modification Charm; and how much trouble he might be in if he tried it and failed; or the potential shitstorm if he was successful only to get caught later.

 _Do it_ , Draco chanted at him, egging him on in their minds. _Do it. Do it. Please do it. I’ll blow you forever if you do it._

He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. But it was a good rage fantasy all the same—kept his face stern, his eyes unmoving, staring the muggle officer down, daring him to press the matter and see what Harry was made of.

After what felt like eons of him and Draco imagining for each other’s amusement different ways to dispose of a body in the middle of nowhere, the officer at last relented. “Your taillight’s out.”

Probably from when they smacked a Death Eater while hydroplaning.

“Thank you, officer,” Harry couldn’t keep _all_ of the sarcasm out of his voice, but he managed to sound stuffy and posh rather than downright condescending. “We’ll have that seen to. Good evening.” With that, he lowered his chin and raised his window, cutting off anything else the officer might’ve had to say.

Draco’s eyes lit in blue, then red, then blue again. As he looked at Harry, blinking slowly, never wanting to look away… a thought began to take shape. It was the sort of thought which still made Harry blush after a year of marriage to that sadistic little perv.

“Draco…” Harry said his husband’s name in rising caution. “In thirty seconds he’ll be gone. Be patient. Thirty fucking seconds.”

“Thirty seconds,” Draco agreed—using that dark, deep voice he’d found a minute ago. He sounded like a man twice his size. “But you have to spend those thirty seconds imagining every filthy perverted thing I could do to you in this car. Otherwise I start immediately, and I do whatever I want.” And a hand with Seeker’s reflexes shot across the console, finding Harry’s prick and latching on. He had some kind of sexual magic because he’d managed to land his thumb right on the head of Harry’s cock, where he rubbed a circular, teasing pattern that made Harry’s inhibitions crumble.

 _That muggle will storm back here and empty an entire magazine through our rear windshield if he sees us kissing_ , Harry thought. If he started with something, anything to get his imagination going again, then Draco might not act. After the night they’d had, he was rather giddy on danger and not thinking clearly. They both were. _Too bad there_ _isn’t_ _space to do much in the front seat. He’d barely see your head bobbing up and down in my lap if you sucked me off right now. And it might tip him off to see us pulling our clothes off_ _—_ _let alone the trouble we’d be in if he s_ _p_ _otted us Apparating to fuck in the back seat._

Headlights. Whiteness replaced the colors reflecting in Draco’s eyes. He was washed in light as the North Dakota State Trooper prepared to pull away.

 _I wonder if I even fit in the back seat of a car anymore?_ Harry mused, knowing they were nearly safe. _Guess you’ll have to fold me up and find out if I’m as flexible as you are._

Draco gave a cheeky wave at the cop as he drove past them, getting back on the road. Draco was kind to Harry’s jumpy heart, waiting until the squad car wasn’t much more than two red pin-pricks of tail lights in the distance before snagging Harry round the back of his neck and kissing him senseless.

Sharp teeth bit down on his lip. That was the only indication Harry got before he was Side-Along’ed to the back seat of the Charger. Completely naked.

Draco was on top of him, naked too. All that power, and _this_ was what Draco decided to use it for.

“We need to get going,” Harry protested.

“We _need_ to fuck,” Draco corrected. Harry got his bum scrubbed, stretched, and lubed all in one go. Draco hadn’t even needed a wave of his hands to do it. He still had one hand around Harry’s neck, fingers wound through his wavy hair and holding him steady while his other hand gathered their pricks together and started tugging.

It was a bit fast but… Harry _was_ getting hard. The more Draco kissed him, the more it seemed like this might not be such a bad idea. Draco’s hand on his cock certainly had a lot to do with that decision.

The angle wasn’t going to work. The rear seat wasn’t wide enough for Draco to plant his knees when they lay together the long-way. Draco ended up being creative, getting his hands under Harry’s knees, bobbing down a second to tease at sucking his prick—about four seconds of tongue and teeth and suction which made Harry shout because Draco’s mouth was incredible—before he found himself upright and folded in half. Draco positioned him sitting at the edge of the seat, Harry’s back where it ought to be, as Draco knelt on the car floor with his calves under the driver’s seat. From that angle he could sort of lean forward to lay over Harry, who had his knees up around his ears to the point he couldn’t catch a full breath. But that stopped making any difference once Draco pressed in.

He hissed, not Parseltongue but the sucking of air through his clenched teeth. “Oh fuck _…_ God damn it, why are you so absurdly hung?” he whined—the words were a compliment Draco would appreciate while the act of making sounds come out of his mouth distracted him from the discomfort he knew too well but hadn’t learned how to ignore. “Your prick is insane. No one needs a prick that big!”

“Come on,” Draco murmured, testing how much Harry could take. The answer was not very much but he didn’t seem to mind. “You love a challenge.”

“Yeah…” Harry answered, short of breath. He got himself a fist of Draco’s hair, the other holding his hip, fingers stroking his arse—holding him back a second. “Challenging what people think. Challenging rules that don’t make sense. Not challenging the laws of fucking physics!”

Draco’s forehead smacked against Harry’s. His shoulders started hitching, and then the laughter burst out of him. Draco couldn’t fuck for a full ten seconds because Harry made him laugh so hard. He physically shook in Harry’s arms, falling on top of him, dissolving into peals of hilarity.  

Harry had to try not to laugh—if he did, Draco’s enormous dick would only hurt more, and maybe that was the point?

Draco didn’t try to stop laughing, but rather decided he ought to try fucking and laughing at the same time. Holding Harry by the back of his neck, he pressed again, laughing breath on Harry’s face, angling his cheek so he didn’t knock Harry’s glasses off.

The way Draco’s body kept jerking, a kind of hiccup as he chortled, was turning Harry on. The same with those puffs of Draco’s breath over his sweaty neck, and the happy, giddy sounds he made as he tried to laugh and moan at the same time.

Their mouths connected, and Draco’s tongue forgot about laughing in favor of other pursuits. He mapped the backs of Harry’s front teeth—as though they’d changed?—before calling out his tongue. He had a way of sucking Harry’s tongue into his mouth that was like falling off your broomstick into an endless black hole. Harry got woozy, forgetting to breathe as Draco pulled at him, pushed into him, gave him exactly what he didn’t know he wanted until Draco made it up on the spot.

“How did it go again?” Draco muttered. “Tha’ song…” He’d heard the end of it in the convenience store, which had caught his attention in the first place… picking up their conversation as though the trooper had never interrupted. Draco could sing or play anything if he heard it once. He had an excellent memory—when he decided to apply himself, anyway. Maybe his memory was best with music, storing information based on a melody in his head.

Thrusting into his husband, eyes closed, Draco started to sing. “ _What I really wanna know… my baby_.” He bonked his head against Harry’s; nose to nose, glasses fogging, serenading him to his face as they fucked. Harry held his breath, so happy he didn’t know how to show it, and he didn’t want to distract Draco from his spell-casting. “ _What I really wanna say is… there’s… just…_ ” he punctuated with his hips, thrusting hard, “ _one… way back!_ ” He leaned back, hand holding Harry fast by the neck to keep his balance. It was an athletic performance he was putting on. Draco’s stomach crunched, showing his muscles as he worked. “ _And I’ll ma-ee-yea-aa-ke it!_ ” He bounced on that note, his body on display, running his hand down his abs as he moved, his hand guiding where he wanted Harry’s attention.

He certainly was making it… making Harry melt. Draco was something beyond beautiful—his hair a mess, a bit of blood in his darkened hair when Harry looked close enough, singing as he hammered his way home, eyes shut and feeling himself, feeling them together.

“ _Yeah_ _… m_ _y soul will have ‘ta wait!_ ”

Harry surged forward, caught his singing idiot, and kissed him. He was so damn close—especially like this, chest-to-chest again, Draco holding him so hard he was probably ripping Harry’s hair out. He groaned into Draco’s mouth. They didn’t need the words. Draco would know he was about to come.

An unfamiliar chime. Some tune Harry didn’t know and didn’t care for compared to the rusty angelic ring of his husband’s voice. It _ding_ ed again, insistent. It was… the generic ringer on a mobile phone, coming from somewhere in the abandoned front seat.

“Draco… hon, I’ve gotta get that.”

Draco drove their foreheads together in what would’ve been a headbutt had he not stayed, rubbing his nose against Harry’s as he shook his head, panting as he worked himself up to the edge. “No. Come first.” And he managed to find the leverage, slamming Harry so hard he saw stars.

“Jesus!” he screamed from that vicious thrust, hands on Draco’s arse to get him to stop. “Hecate’s bloody minge! Hang on.” Draco slowed down enough that Harry was able to get an actual spell past the additional screams his lips wanted to make. “ _Accio mobile!_ ”

The ringing phone zoomed into his hand from the crumpled heap that was his clothes left behind on the driver’s seat. There was no time to catch his breath. He had to answer the phone now or lose the call. If he didn’t answer, Charlene would cry, Leon would be beside himself, and a search party of American Field Operatives would find them fucking in the back of Leon’s new car. So he picked up; with an erection, with Draco inside him—Draco licking the sweat off his collar bones like this was perfectly normal, his head tucked under Harry’s chin as he tried to make himself sound normal through a near-orgasm strangle.

“H-hello?”

“Harry? Yeh alright?”

“Yup!” he answered—too loudly, nearly a shout. Draco had bitten his nipple. He nearly came.

“’S all clear. Come right back ter the house, I’ll fill ya in.” And Draco shoved himself in again, balls deep. Harry’s eyes shut tight, his face ridiculously screwed up, biting down hard on his lip as he tried not to scream. His lungs burned but he managed to hold in every desperate sound as Draco wrecked him.

When he didn’t say anything, Leon pressed. “Sure everythin’s alright, lads?”

“Y-y-yeah,” Harry’s voice only trembled a little. He had nine and three-quarter inches of pureblood going at him express, in him to the hilt, his knees in the vicinity of his ears as Draco folded him in half, having his way. Harry could barely breathe. “Busted tail light. Got pulled over. Still kinda spooked.” Short, clipped sentences were all he could get out without giving himself away.

“Gotcha. Find yer way back, we’ll be waitin’. Glad yer okay.” And, not one for small-talk, the line went dead.

Harry threw the phone into the front seat, his eyes fixed on Draco. His husband was the devil, proud of himself for finding an angle where all of his stupid prick fit. He thought it was cute to fuck Harry senseless while he was on the phone with a member of the family.

“You are not cute,” Harry told him flatly.

“Of course not. I’m terrible,” Draco nipped at him. “Everybody knows that.”

He cupped Draco’s cheek, using his thumb to push a few sweaty strands of brunet out of the way. “Nah. If everybody thinks you’re terrible then… everybody’s wrong.”

The earnest compliment completely threw Draco. His eyes fluttered shut, hips slowing down to a grind, and his face pressed into Harry’s hand as though he wanted to hide rather than hear Harry say anything else nice abut him. His front teeth even snuck out to bite his bottom lip. Harry used his thumb to pull Draco’s lip out from that pressure, running the pad of his finger against the tender inside of his mouth, wet and pink, all of him pale in the moonlight.

He couldn’t take it—not kissing Draco was unacceptable, touching his mouth too much of a tease compared to what they both wanted. He leaned forward despite the pain, taking that lip with his own. Against Draco’s mouth, he growled, “How fast do you think you can come?”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry lay in bed perhaps an hour later, Draco beside him having stolen most of the blankets.

Harry couldn't quite sleep.

His mind wouldn’t stop rehashing details, picking apart the night—the Death Eaters coming to America, scattering not long after the fight with Leon's team got interesting... why? It didn't make sense. What was their strategy, their goal? Were they after Draco or after him? Why focus their attack on a well-fortified, staffed armory? And why would they disband? Were they coming back? Intelligence from the Aurors, Hits, and multiple Field Ops Teams said no—that this was one of the smaller factions making a move. Harry couldn't help but suspect otherwise. It tasted too much like a volley, a shot across the bow. This hadn’t been a true attack—it was a warning. The Death Eaters weren’t done, merely biding their time until conditions suited them.

Deep breathing. Like he did in training, clearing his mind; separating emotions and reactions from facts. Another deep breath—breathing in until the count of ten, then out to the count of twelve. Deciding whether it was intuition or paranoia he was experiencing.

Draco muttered in his sleep—in French, something about quidditch.

Harry turned his head on the pillow, looking at Draco asleep next to him. His husband was exhausted, sprawled over his side of the bed with a foot sneaking over Harry’s shin, wanting that contact in his sleep. The lightest sheen of sweat had a few returned-to-blond hairs sticking to his forehead and temples, rendered a darker shade of white-blond for being damp. His breath was fluttery, short; Draco wasn’t much for snoring, but Harry could hear the occasional breath rattle his soft palette when his lips parted.

On Draco's night stand was a tall, rectangular, blue glass bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin. Unlike his previous life, Draco hadn't been sipping from it to get to sleep but rather adding to it. The sea-colored gin bottle was his Pensieve, to which he'd added his memories of that night while they were still fresh in his mind. Harry knew Draco had included their fucking in the back of the Charger the same as he'd added the Death Eater attack—a kind of balance, evening out the violence which chased them. Sex was a far healthier response than the screaming and curse-throwing they’d resorted to before getting together. He wondered if Draco had preserved their singing about Santeria and crystal balls, or their conversation about the jealousy and violence which other people accepted as romance. If Draco remembered the strange street art of the griffin eating a penguin. If he’d recorded for posterity how Harry’s eyes had rolled to the back of his head as he came, and the hell of a time they’d had charming fresh spunk and the smell of sweat off of the leather interior.

The Charger’s engine had rumbled as Harry pulled to a stop before the previously damaged bridge into the cul-de-sac. Leon was out there, wand in hand, waiting for them to come home. “Fuck it,” the old man said, repairing the bridge with magic so the Potters could pull into the neighborhood and get some much-needed sleep. “Fuck it” was the theme of the night.

Draco had another glass of wine when they got back, then passed out on the couch as Harry explained to Charlene all that had happened with the attack, and filled Leon in as well, giving a parent-appropriate synopsis of events there-after.

Harry couldn't blame Draco for drinking, or for passing out. The night had been truly nerve-destroying. He’d tried to carry Draco up to bed but being a light sleeper, Draco woke up and protested being carried—turning to his Pensieve while Harry brushed his teeth and had a quick, bone-weary sort of shower. He didn’t mind Draco’s sweat all over him, but the thought of going to bed smelling like a battle held zero appeal.

Being on-edge like that was draining on every level. Harry had built up a tolerance for it over the last seven years. Draco was getting his first glimpse at what Harry's life’s work entailed.

He didn't want that for Draco. He wanted Draco to have fun, to get drunk, to make music, to be a free-spirit doing whatever he pleased. He wanted to see Draco crawl out of his dark shell and discover himself.

Draco pushed him. Always had. Harry might not have kept his cool when confronted by that State Trooper had Draco not played A Hundred And One Ways To Hide A Dead Body with him. And he certainly wouldn’t be smiling after the night they had—not without the memory of Draco so desperate to fuck him he couldn’t wait for the cop to bugger off. Life with Draco was better, different… beyond anything he might’ve known to want for himself. Despite everything… he was happy.

Harry reached over, brushing Draco's white hair away from his face. His husband was a light sleeper. Harry had to be gentle, to move slowly. He didn't want to wake Draco up; he just wanted to be close, to feel his clammy skin, to run fingers through his satin hair, moving it from the warmth of his forehead.

Draco shifted closer—moving into the heat of his hand, recognizing Harry even in his sleep.

Harry closed his eyes, breathing in Draco's scent surrounding him, overpowering the wine and cigarettes on his breath until Draco was all he could smell. Everything about Draco’s body was intensified because they’d had sex—his features, the sharp scent of his sweat, even the cadence of air passing through his nose. Harry was that much more aware of every part of him. He pressed their foreheads, breathing in time with his husband, syncing up to that steady, sleepy rhythm. With his eyes closed, he allowed his other senses to focus.

That was when he heard it. Footsteps in the snow—the faint crunch of a layer of ice over the snowpack, cracking as concentrated weight was applied.

He hadn't heard any other sound. Was it a wizard sneaking up to the house using a Silencing Charm, but forgetting to include his feet because he wasn't from around here and didn't account for the way a layer of ice formed on top of the snow?

Harry sat up in bed. His eyes were still closed, listening. The darkness helped him concentrate.

 _Crunch_. Again. _Crunch, crunch, crunch_.

Too heavy to be a deer wandering through the yard. Too late at night to be the neighbors going for a jog or taking out their garbage. Harry remembered that American muggles liked to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving, a social holiday called Black Friday which Hitori had joked about. Harry gave it another second, waiting for the sound of doors opening or a car engine or any other mundane sound to prove it was muggles and not his imagination.

 _Crunch. Crunch_.

Then nothing.

Harry’s eyes flicked open, knowing they were in danger for the second time that night. He relented—two fingers over Draco's mouth to keep him quiet, shaking him by his bare shoulder to wake him.

The pureblood groaned, trying to roll over. He was probably still rather buzzed and bloody knackered. Harry fit his palm over Draco's mouth. Then he sent a zing of power through the Dark Mark. Nothing painful, simply urgent.

Silver eyes flicked open, meeting his. Draco was immediately awake and alert—though glaring at him. His eyes spoke for him. _Really, Potter? You wanna fuck again in the Harper's house? We both know that hand over my mouth isn't gonna be nearly enough._

Harry said nothing. He figured his own eyes as wide as a house elf's would do the talking for him. Sadly, this was not a sex thing. Draco realized, his pupils retracting even in the darkness. With half his face covered, Harry could still read every thought from Draco's eyes alone. He hated seeing that realization course through Draco’s mind. They weren’t safe.

He pressed his palm to Draco's mouth one last time in warning before pulling away, swinging his legs silently off the side of the bed.

His hand landed on his Beretta at the bedside table. He loaded it, handing the semi-automatic to Draco with the safety on. "Point," he mouthed without a sound, miming with a gun made from his fingers. "Shoot." He held up two fingers, then tapped his forehead—telling Draco to double-tap to the head, no fucking about. He’d taught Draco to shoot for center mass, but his aim was superior; provided he had cover and time to line up his shot, Draco should be going for the sure kill.

As Draco scrambled out of bed and slipped into a pair of joggers, Harry grabbed his wand, stuffed his glasses back on his face, and searched out a pair of pajama bottoms to cover himself up. Every fiber of him—body, mind, soul—could only wish he was being overly cautious. He wanted so much to tell this story to Leon over breakfast while Draco laughed at him. His hyper-vigilance ought to have been something to laugh at.

 

 

 

 

They met Leon at the top of the stairs. The old Irishman stood in his dressing gown, boxer shorts, and a white tshirt that shone bright in the starlight. A steel reinforced slide-action Benelli shotgun was knocked against his shoulder, steady as a bowsprit jutting out from the nose of a ship.

Leon and Harry exchanged a silent nod. Both felt it. There absolutely _was_ something wrong. They might still laugh over this, but it wouldn't be tomorrow morning over coffee. It might be years from now, but they'd find a way to laugh. Just the other day Leon had cracked a joke about the time Harry Apparated into his office having Splinched one of his lungs. With enough time and resiliency, almost anything could become funny.

For not being related, they were awfully similar—an intellectual grandfather and grandson. Their shared instinct brought them both into the hall with weapons raised.

Leon put a finger in the air, circling—his wards around the property were breached. That was what woke him. Charlene stood in the doorway to their master bedroom, a chenille blanket wrapped around her shoulders, in her nightgown, one of the cordless house phones pressed to her ear as she rang for a Field Ops Team. After the previous fight, there would only be reserve teams available.

She looked terrified. Aside from a few guns in the house—for hunting, or picking off critters in the wilderness of their back yard—Leon never brought his work home. Not once in forty years. Not even in the first war against Voldemort. The most Charlene ever saw of the war was the night Leo came home with the orphan boy Harry Potter in his pickup.

Leon and Harry coordinated silently. The old man moved with caution, careful that the shot gun shells in his pockets wouldn't rattle, giving away their position.

Harry looked at Draco, tapping his low back— _stay close to me_ , the gesture said, backed up by their mental connection. _Watch my back_.

With Draco one step behind Harry, Leon scouting ahead, the three men crept down the stairs in their underwear. Draco remembered to point the gun down at his feet. "Never raise your weapon to something or someone you're not willing to lose," Harry taught him.

They crept through the house. Draco was just starting to become familiar with the sound of the wind chimes, the local bird calls, the _tick-tick-tick_ of an old grandfather clock in the hallway. There was a floorboard that squeaked and Harry deftly avoided it, pointing down to remind Draco so that he would step over it, too.

They were at the sitting room which faced out into the backyard. A pair of sliding glass doors looked out to the patio and the woods beyond. If Draco were a wizard trying to break in, that was where he would try; the dense trees would provide good cover, and the rear of the house wasn’t as strongly lit or exposed. Apparently Harry and Leon thought so, too, and were mounting their defence there.

Pressed against the wall, wand drawn, Harry glanced back at him. Draco could read the world in those deep eyes—like they were back at Hogwarts and the Death Eaters were coming for them again. _I'm not leaving you_ , Harry's green eyes said. _Not ever_.

Draco nodded his agreement. Harry's fingertips connected not with his chin to buck up his courage, but at the tip of the Beretta, lifting it up to the height of his shoulder. Harry disengaged the safety, making sure Draco was ready to defend himself if it came to that.

Knowing Draco was armed and ready for whatever came, Harry turned, peeking around the corner. Leon was creeping around to the kitchen where he could also get a covered vantage-point into the sitting area. A large circular window over the kitchen table spilled moonlight into the room.

Without warning, Harry sprung.

All Draco saw was the swaying shadows of trees against the carpet. Or what he thought were tree branches. It had been the shadow of a wizard's arm, a wand in his hand.

Harry leapt out, catching the man by the back. His long arms wrapped around the intruder, a powerful hand over his mouth to stop him from shouting a spell. Harry's other hand held the intruder’s opposite shoulder, braced across his chest, holding him fast.

Beneath Harry’s hands, a Death Eater’s black robe, a white mask covering his face. That was all Harry needed to know.

Harry twisted, a practiced jerk of motion, breaking the man's neck. Draco heard the sickening _pop_ of bone. It was the only sound aside from a rustling cloak against Harry's bare skin.

As the man fell to the carpet, Harry rode his body down, a knee to the dead man's back, using the fresh corpse to break his fall. He’d thought to cast a wandless and non-verbal Cushioning Charm so there was no sound of a body hitting the ground to alert other attackers. Harry glanced over, catching Leon in the kitchen, making sure that room was clear—his fingers on the neck of the freshly dead body beneath him, checking for a pulse. He wanted to be sure. Looking over his other shoulder, his eyes locked on Draco.

Green met silver. "You okay?" Harry mouthed.

Draco didn't know what he was. He'd just seen his husband kill a man with his bare hands. It was one thing to know Harry had taken lives. Draco was okay with that. He accepted it. But he'd never seen it happen right in front of his face like that… so casual, a quick tackle, a knowing placement of familiar strong arms, and _pop_ , a wizard was dead.

Harry was looking at him, needing to know he was alright.

Draco wouldn't lie. He shook his head—no, he wasn't okay.

Harry stepped back into the hall, into the shadows, using his body to press Draco against the wall. The pureblood lowered his gun, his arms at his sides, his heart racing.

"Deep breath, _mon ange_ ," Harry said below a whisper, his bare chest against Draco's cheek, giving pressure. Draco was jammed against the wall, trapped—but also concealed, safe, protected; Harry's body acting as his shield. He immediately regretted every wisecrack he’d ever made about Harry being a protective, overbearing meathead. Harry was all of those things and they were fucking glorious qualities he’d never take for granted again so long as they lived. Which was hopefully long enough to see the sun rise.

Draco found his voice. "What if there are more?"

"You have my gun," Harry replied. "And you have me."

From the kitchen, Leon racked his shotgun. Draco had only heard that sound in movies. In person, it was bone-chilling—like the shriek of a monster before it dove on its prey.

The look on Harry’s face… that terrible sound was his cue. It was time to go to work.

Draco nodded. He couldn’t make another sound come out, but his lips moved, giving Harry the permission he needed. “Go. Kill them all.”

Harry ducked away, coming around the corner low, using a nearby sofa for cover. Two figures came through the doors, wands raised. Harry waved Leon off, silently telling the old man not to reveal his position if he didn’t have to.

A ripping sound of fabric. Harry’s magic took over the wooden frame of the sofa, splitting the boards into several large pieces which flew through the air—closing like a vice around an invading wizard’s hand, crushing the bones with an audible _snap_. Bones shattered, wand dropping to the floor, unexpectedly and violently disarmed. Like a Death Eater torture artist, Harry understood the demoralizing effect of breaking a man’s hands. It rendered him unable to defend himself, physically or with magic. It wasn’t the most painful injury—it was inflicted because it was first and foremost psychologically devastating.

His comrade’s head turned at the unholy scream. That was when Harry re-lit the fire in the hearth, pelting the second man with lumps of burning log and hot coals from the fire. Harry aimed not for his robes but for the hands and face. The screaming man with the broken hand, who was crumpled in half, received splinters shot at his eyes—the wood used to destroy his hand turned to sharp bits directed at his face. With one hand to defend himself with and no magic, a splinter quickly got him in the eye, dropping him to the ground with a blood-curdling scream. Harry guided that deadly magic without having to look. He used everything he had—his training, the environment, and his devastating sorcery—to slow his enemies down, thwarting them at every step.

Harry rolled out from behind the sofa, grabbing the man with burns on his face and hands, and broke his neck, too. Harry held onto the body, using it as a shield as a volley of spells came through the open door. He backed up, protected by the fresh corpse in his arms, conjuring a Light Shield as he went.

Leon’s first shot ricocheted off the metal door frame, aiming for an attacker out on the patio. Draco flinched—shotguns were much louder in real life than in films. He aimed his gun around the corner, wanting to do whatever he could to help, but couldn’t get a shot past Harry.

Leon’s second shot shot shattered a window in the kitchen. As the first few attackers came through the doors, Harry dropped his dead shield in order to start slinging spells.

Draco recognized his husband’s instinctual magic—he and Harry used to practice at Grimmauld Place when they first started dating, and even on their honeymoon. Draco would charm pillows to fly around the room and Harry would silently hex them, his wand snapping to each threat, light on his feet as he worked. This was what his husband advanced himself to since then. Harry drilled almost daily, to be able to do this should the moment arise.

Harry and Leon made shockingly short work, Draco peeking around the corner, watching them, his feet glued to the ground, a watcher from the hallway.

He heard something, his head turning to squint down the hall. It was dark, the moving shadows and moonlight filling the living room not penetrating to the hallway. Draco thought he saw the hint of a white mask in the air, floating towards him on top of a long black robe.

He saw his father behind the mask. His aunt. His mother. Himself.

The mask came down—the Death Eater sneaking up on him wanted him to know exactly who had their wand raised, intending him dead. It was Theo Nott Sr, his schoolmate's father.

Draco lifted the gun. 

From the corner of his eye, he saw a Death Eater dueling with Harry. His husband threw _Sectumsempra_ —the same spell Harry had cast on him two years ago. A spray of blood painted lines on the sunny yellow wallpaper, splashing out as the Death Eater fell.

"Draco!" Harry shouted to him, forgetting his fight, fixed on Draco. From across the room, Harry sensed something was wrong, somehow knowing Draco was in danger, like he could hear the slam of his husband’s heart in his own ears. "Shoot!"

He wasn't in his own body. He had no earthly idea how he pulled the trigger. Three times in rapid succession. One to the chest, slowing Nott down. Two between the eyes. And down he fell.

Draco turned, looking for Harry. He was fighting three men at the same time.

The way Harry moved—dodging spells with superhuman reflexes, casting nonverbally even as he physically got the drop on his enemies. A Blinding Spell, then he punched his opponent in the face, breaking his nose. As the man stumbled back, Leon finished him with a shot gun blast through the back. Blood and organ tissue spattered the wall behind him as he stumbled, clutching at the gaping exit wound running through his chest.

Harry head-butted his next attacker, knocking him back, following with a concussive force of air, smacking his head against the stone fireplace mantle with a sound like a melon cracking. The last man sacked Harry round the middle, carrying him through the sliding door with a great crash of glass. They landed together in a jumble of limbs, outside, rolling through the deep snow.

"Harry!" Draco screamed, running out after them. He didn't feel the cold wind on his face, or the glass under his feet as he sprinted. He did hear the boom of Leon's shot gun as it went off, shooting a man Draco hadn’t noticed pursuing him from the hall. He felt a spray of hot blood on his back even as he sprinted, trying to get to Harry.

Something bright and sharp whizzed by his head—a blade of some kind. He swerved, slipping in either melted snow or blood; falling, landing hard in a snow bank. The gun in his hand went off, shooting into the frozen dirt.

The object he’d dodged zoomed into Harry's hand—it was a large knife from the kitchen. Harry had Summoned it wandlessly as he fell through the door. He and the Death Eater who'd tackled him were in the knee-height snow of the yard, having rolled through the powder with the momentum gained crashing through the window. Wrestling, Harry took a hit to the face in order to gain the advantage of top position. When the knife landed in Harry's hand, his eyes were on Draco—assessing him, having heard his voice and needing to know that he was still alright.

Harry wouldn't look away from him. Not for anything. Not even as he inserted the blade of his knife into the neck of the Death Eater beneath him. Harry's blade slid into his throat as though the man were made of water. Staring at Draco, Harry yanked up on his knife, slicing open the man's windpipe—red blood spurting over Harry's hand to stain the snow.

Harry held that body down until it stopped jerking. His hands were covered in blood. It dripped from cuts on his back and arm. He was looking right at Draco. He'd said he wasn't going anywhere, wasn't leaving Draco’s side. And he meant it.

This Harry… this was the man everyone else saw when they looked at his husband. The wizard who killed for them. A force of nature.

All Draco saw was his partner, bleeding, fighting for their lives in a war that wouldn’t end.

The blue of the moonlight intensified, shot through with red. It took Draco a few blinks of his eyes to remember those were the colors of muggle emergency vehicles. The neighbors must have heard gunfire and logically rang the constables.

Harry got to his feet, bloody knife still in hand.

"All clear?" Leon called from inside the house. The old man had come to peer through the shattered glass door, checking on Harry and Draco. The barrel of his shotgun stuck out first, his salt-and-pepper head following a moment later. He shivered from the cold, only wearing his underthings and dressing gown.

Harry forced himself to look away from Draco—green eyes scanning the yard, examining every tree and bush large enough to hide behind. The flashing lights made it harder to see, casting strange oscillating shadows. Harry was reaching out with Dark magic, scanning for human life. He didn’t seem to sense anything out there in the snowy woods.

"I think so," Harry murmured.

" _A mu'hurin!_ " Seeing the boys were alright, Leon shouted for his wife, tromping back into the house, his shotgun at last lowering. He called something about his team but Draco wasn't listening.

Harry dropped his knife, picking his way through bloodied snow and sparkling glass to get to Draco. He bent, grabbing a hand full of snow to rub between his palms—getting some of the blood off his hands as the snow melted against the heat of him.

"Draco..." that deep sound was Harry, standing over him, offering his arms.

Draco kept both hands on his heavy gun pointed at their feet, letting Harry pull him up. He kept his eyes open, watching the snow as it lit up in alternating shades. He pressed his side against Harry—not wanting to be caged by those powerful arms, but needing to be near. Harry understood, cupping the back of Draco’s head rather than hamper his arms with a hug. He wanted to touch, to be touched, to have that contact as much as Draco needed it. He rubbed softly at Draco’s scalp with wet,  still-bloody fingers. Harry leaned down to kiss his forehead.

"This might get weird," The Chosen One advised him. "With the cops. We need to keep still and quiet until a Field Ops Team comes for us."

Draco nodded his understanding.

Inside the house, backlit by blue and red light, he watched as Leon passed off his shotgun to Charlene. The chubby Creole witch took its weight, kissing her husband on the cheek—a comfort to reward her own protector. Leon stepped away, wrapping his robe tightly around his belly before going to the front door to deal with the muggle authorities. Charlene looked briefly into her sitting room before she averted her eyes, her skin so pale Draco thought she might faint. There was blood spattered all over the walls. Broken furniture. Precious photos and souvenirs smashed, littering the floor. Shards of glass glittered in the moonlight, like stars in the carpet flecked with blood. In minutes, her sweetly tranquil home had been destroyed, a storm ripping through what was once the heart of her family. She couldn’t bring herself to look, her hands holding the gun trembling.

Draco counted eleven bodies in the living room, a twelfth in red snow, plus Nott Sr, the thirteenth man he'd shot in the hall.

Like Charlene, Draco felt less than steady on his feet. His teeth began to chatter against Harry's chest. When had he rested his head? Or had Harry's hand at the nape of his neck drawn him in? He tasted Harry on his lips—the tang of his magic in the air, lingering in his sweat, caught up in the spray of thick black hair over his upper body, so close to Draco's mouth he could taste it. Harry was sweaty and bloodied. Draco knew both smells.

"Let's get you inside," Harry offered. He cast a quick wandless Warming Charm over their bodies. His wand was tucked in the waistband of his pajamas, unused in the course of the fight. There was nothing else beneath those flannel, blood-spattered trousers. They hung low, exposing the cleft of his hip bones and the hair below his navel leading to his cock—the outline of which hung limp but visible through the thin fabric.

Harry Potter had killed at least seven men whilst not wearing any pants. They probably wouldn’t put that particular fact in the history books.

Draco looked down at his own hands. He watched as white fingers he recognized flipped the pistol’s safety back on. His hands had killed a man tonight, too.

"Boy-ees," Charlene hissed at them, waving her arm. "Inside! Yoo'll catch your death out zhere."

" _Jesus_ ," Harry hissed under his breath, not sure if she was being ironic, funny, or just flustered and speaking the first swear-words to come to her head. There was clearly a strong case of ‘death’ to be caught _in_ the house, what with all those bodies. Charlene was waving them into a house littered with corpses. There was barely a path to pick through the sitting room. Thankfully the way to the kitchen was relatively clear of corpses, with just a few blood puddles.

 

 

 

 

Harry could hear Leon's voice at the front of the house, talking to muggle police officers who’d responded to reports of gunfire. That was their fault in some way, for repairing the bridge; otherwise the officers would be trapped on the other side of the stream which ringed their neighborhood.

It was only a matter of time before a Field Ops Team came to sort this—probably posing as CIA or FBI, claiming jurisdiction. Once they rounded up the responding officers and any neighboring witnesses, it was easy enough to Obliviate them all in one convenient place. Leon's crew had just bought a Mobile Command Unit—an armored caravan which they could drive to the site of emergencies, pull any witnesses inside for Obliviation, and then pop them back out without anyone being the wiser. Harry hoped whatever team responded had as good of equipment as Leon's crew. They might not be getting the best responders so soon after another major attack. The Death Eaters might’ve been counting on that diminished responsivity, wearing them down over time with a series of closely-timed attacks. Harry gave the woods behind them one last hyper-suspicious sweep.

Nothing. They were alone; he and Draco standing shirtless, bloodied, wild-eyed and shivering in the cold.

" _Careful of the glass, sweetheart_ ," he warned Draco before starting them back inside the house. A second later his big hands wrapped around Draco's ribs, lifting him over the worst of the broken shards, until his feet touched the wooden floor boards inside the house. Harry levitated himself over the broken glass, following behind. Not because Harry thought Draco was a shell-shocked idiot who would hurt himself walking over glass, but because he couldn't stand to see Draco hurt. Even after he'd taken lives. Those same blood-stained hands were helping his husband, not wanting a hair on his head nor the soles of his feet to come to harm.

 

 

 

 

Draco hadn't realized how close he'd been to freezing until the warm air hit him. His body began to unthaw. That was when he gasped, then wailed, vomit rising up in his throat. He was in pain, and not the good kind.

"Fuck!"

Harry grabbed him—lifted him off his feet, a forearm tattooed with his name on it taking Draco's calves; picking him up like a bride, caught up in Harry's arms.

"Fuck, baby, I didn't see," Harry whispered against his forehead, carrying him swiftly into the kitchen through puddles of other people's blood. Draco was in too much pain to give a flying fuck what rubbish names his husband called him.

Blood on the bottoms of Harry's feet almost took him down. He slipped on the slick tile floor, not willing to let go of Draco even if that meant his falling. The stubborn wizard crashed into the cabinets, cracking his head on one of the upper shelves but managing to save Draco, setting him down to sit on the countertop. Green eyes went woozy, failing to focus behind his glasses. This of all things was how Harry got a concussion.

He leaned, hands on either side of Draco’s bum, using the counter for balance as he breathed hard in Draco’s face, righting himself by focusing his vision on Draco’s knees, traveling up his bare torso to meet his gaze. Harry’s eyes weren’t completely focused. Determined to protect Draco from further harm, Harry had hurt himself.

Bits of glass were embedded into the bottoms of Draco's feet. He hadn't felt it at first, numbed by standing outside in the snow. Numb from panic and fear. Now, warming, he felt the sting of it. He felt thick gobs of blood leaking between his toes, dripping off of him now he was sitting on the counter, a red puddle quickly forming on the floor between Harry’s spread feet.

Harry pulled his wand. "You're gonna be okay," he told Draco before turning his head, bellowing over his shoulder. "Charlene! Leo! Draco's hurt!" Then he was back, his forehead pressed to Draco's, holding his jaw in a firm grip, keeping them connected. "I need to have a look. I won't do anything. Just look."

Green eyes closed. The sound of his own voice was hurting his head injury but he wouldn’t stop for anything. Harry gripped both sides of his jaw, bloody fingers splayed out in his hair, wand handle pressing hard against his jaw. Harry waited—for permission, consent to observe Draco’s wounds.

Draco nodded. He didn't trust his voice for the pain—it might escape as a sob, or a scream. He bit his tongue instead.

Wobbly, Harry took a knee, holding on to the handles of the cabinet to get himself down without losing his balance. That blow to the head had really effected him, or perhaps he’d gotten hit during the fight and was only feeling it now. The Boy Who Lived cradled one red-slicked foot in his hand, lifting it to look. The overhead lights were busted, taken out as a strategic advantage over the course of the fight, the kitchen now filled with shadows. Harry cast a wandless _Lumos_ , a ball of light appearing in the air and hovering, allowing him to see the damage to Draco’s feet.

Not quite a year ago Harry had taken a knee in front of him, begging Draco to marry him. Draco's eyes went to the silver ring shining on his husband's blood-stained finger as he looked at the fucking mess four inches from his face. Harry didn’t flinch, didn’t let on how bad it was. Draco could see light refracting off the lenses of Harry's glasses, light from the slivers of glass embedded in his skin. He didn’t need Harry to tell him: the bottoms of his feet were more glass than flesh.

“I…” Harry’s voice came stilted. “I don’t know how to heal this on my own,” he admitted. “I’m gonna need you to help me.”

“Doesn’t work on myself,” Draco reminded him tersely. His stupid power only worked on those he loved.

“Sure it does. Remember that quidditch match? You broke your hand, and we healed you. Together. Just try to use your power on me,” Harry suggested. “I’ll amplify it and reflect it back, same as we did then.”

That much he could do. Harry had a good number of small cuts and scratches on his arm and upper back from going through the glass. Either his pain threshold was so high that he didn't feel himself cut open and bleeding a little, or there was so much adrenaline in his system that the stinging surface wounds had yet to register in his brain.

Draco hadn’t seen his own blood since the battle at Hogwarts—hadn’t seen so much of it since the Manor’s cellar, repeatedly fainting in a pool of it, thinking he would die there. He felt himself about to throw up. He slammed a hand over his mouth to keep it in, leaning down to lock his other hand over Harry’s shoulder, supporting himself so he wouldn’t slip off the counter. More than anything, he wanted nothing to do with his blood.

Harry’s hands around his ankles began to glow, tendrils of pale blue magic like slow lightning crackling before he pressed it into Draco’s skin. His own power responded like a magnet, pulled to the surface. He couldn’t resist, had no reason to fight it as Harry drew his own ability out of him. Draco’s hand against Harry’s shoulder sprung up with a rose-colored haze.

He hated that it was pink. Why a girlish color? He’d never understand. So he gave it over to Harry, pushing that light out of himself and into his husband for Harry to hand back.

Shards of glass fell to the floor, landing in his blood. Only the powerful healing magic racing through him prevented him from throwing up. He still closed his eyes, not wanting to see it.

Harry understood. As soon as he saw Draco’s feet properly healed, he spared a hand to Vanish the blood—knowing it bothered Draco, knowing without a word to get rid of it before the sight made him sick.

The cuts on Harry’s arm closed up, too. Draco squeezed his steady shoulder when it was done.

“Draco… you realize, you ran across broken glass to save me,” Harry pointed out, a note of astonishment to his voice. It was true. He didn’t have to say it out loud like that—rubbing in the fact that Draco had been so stupid.

“Yeah, I’m a fuckin’ idiot,” Draco muttered. “I could’a Levitated myself.”

“It’s okay. You weren’t thinking.” Harry’s hands tightened, not uncomfortably, just an increase in pressure to mark his point, fingers pressing against the soles of Draco’s feet, a reassurance that he was whole again. “I happen to know a lot about not thinking.” It was the excuse he offered whenever the subject of his death came up. He’d thrown himself in front of Draco, died at the Dark Lord’s hand, because he ‘wasn’t thinking.’

Draco got it now… because it wasn’t ‘thinking’ in the conventional sense, but _feeling_. It was an emotional drive, a gut instinct, to throw your own body between danger and the man you loved. He’d done it too. There was no logic to it, no sense. The action was all heart, guts, sacrifice. There was no glory, no self. Only love.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **UPDATE NOTE:** The next 2 chapters have already been written. Scheduled post dates are the 10th and 13th of August because they are all massively wordy, thinky cluster-fucks, and I understand not everyone has five hours at a time to sit staring at wank on the internet attempting to process this withering, vaguely didactic mess couched in dick. Cheers, scream at me in the comments.


	18. Down In Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath, when your armor falls apart and you’re left with what you are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** PTSD, mental health, marriage problems, psychosis, gun violence, shock, mention of a sexual predator assaulting a minor, mention of suicide

 

 

 

_Slippin off the edge_

_Out of phase_

_Watching you pretend_

_We're okay_

_Every weekend we hitchhike to hell_

_And you only think of yourself_

_If we're going down, we're going down in flames_

_Flying round the highway, tryna get away_

_Don't speak, I'll try to save us from ourselves_

_If we’re going down, we're going down in flames_

 

 

“[Down In Flames](https://youtu.be/XkFjLrPzvys)”

Ella Vos

 

 

 

 

Harry drove Leon’s dirty blue pickup to his therapist’s office. It was a relief to drive through a few barriers and suddenly be in the warmer weather of the south compared to piles of snow in Ohio. His post-horcrux body seemed to prefer a hot climate, feeling his muscles unwind as the air around him got warmer. 

He sat in Dr. Beasley’s waiting room, not knowing what he was going to say, how it might come out... what he might need to get off his chest. Not knowing scared him a little bit. Not knowing himself used to start fights with Draco. It used to get him taken advantage of. It used to get him scared and violent, reacting with a fight-or-flight mentality divorced from reason. He didn't want to be any of those things. He just wanted to know himself. 

"Mr. Black?" The receptionist called him. Harry used a pseudonym, of course. All of his records were stored under the alias James Black. It would be an epic shirstorm if the media found out Harry Potter had a therapist. Dr. Beasley's office would be broken into by fans or unscrupulous reporters like Rita Skeeter. The confidentiality of every patient in the office would be put at risk. 

Only Dr. Beasley _knew_ he was Harry Potter. The muggle bloke behind the front desk had no idea whose black hair, green eyes, and famous lightning bolt scar he was looking at. And he called Harry ‘Mr. Black,’ unknowingly feeding into that lie, for everyone's safety. 

Harry had trouble sometimes, keeping track of who knew what. Sometimes it felt like his life depended on perpetuating certain lies and half-truths. 

"Dr. Beasley's ready for you, sir." 

Harry slipped into the office. It didn't matter how heavy his boots were. He could still walk without a sound. He managed to sneak up on his psychologist, who was writing a prescription from a pad on her desk. 

Harry cleared his throat. "Hey, doc." 

She looked at him and she knew. Her face fell, softened like melting ice cream. He almost thought he saw pity in her eyes. 

Harry kicked his boots off and actually laid down on the couch. He stuffed a pillow behind his head. He'd never laid down for a session before. He'd never had something this fresh to tell. Harry was too tall for the sofa, his feet up on the arm rest. He crossed his ankles, looking at his socks, and then up at the white ceiling. He'd never noticed the canister lights on dimmers before, aiding in the room’s gentle ambiance. 

"Last night, I..." he didn't know how to start. "I raised my body count by a few." 

"We're talking about combat?" she clarified. "You killed someone?" 

"Yeah." 

Dr. Beasley's eyebrows danced. "Forgive my confusion, Harry. Usually when someone says 'body count' they're referring to the number of people they've had sex with." 

Harry's head rolled on the throw pillow, looking at his therapist instead of the ceiling. He folded his hands and put them behind his head. "Oh. Whoops." For a second she'd wondered whether he'd cheated on Draco: and she decided it was more likely that he'd killed someone. Which was true. 

"We were attacked at Leon's house. It was late. We were all in bed but I couldn't sleep. I heard something. Leon heard it too. His wards around the property got jimmied with. We went downstairs with Draco while Charlene called in a team. 

"They were Death Eaters—one of the larger British factions commanded by a man called Augustus Rookwood, an old friend of Draco’s dad.” That was the morning’s intel fresh from Leon. Late last night, Lex Moreno arrested and interrogated a Death Eater whose Animagus form was a crow—he’d been spying on the Harper house for days, hiding his bird-self in the trees, observing the Potters to determine the best time to strike, when their guard might be lowest. After Thanksgiving dinner—when the Potters were likely to be drunk—was prime. Draco’s reputation as a lush provided their opportunity. “Rookwood’s main force attacked Leon’s business to draw us out and wear us thin. Later that night, a smaller second team hit us again at the house. Leo and I fended 'em off. I gave Draco my gun—not my Ministry-issue. He shot my Beretta." 

"The weapon you used during the Battle of Hogwarts?" 

Harry nodded. "Yeah. Draco got charged and he froze—because it was Theodore Nott Sr. His mate’s dad. Draco had to look down the sight and shoot his friend's father, someone he'd known his whole life, someone he’d been taught to respect. He couldn't pull the trigger until I yelled at him. Then he remembered what he needed to do." 

Akilah hummed. "Disassociation and locking up are common responses to a PTSD trigger. Especially when an event so closely resembles the past." 

She didn't need to say it. What happened last night was similar enough to when Draco's father tried to kill him back in March. Once again, someone's dad in a Death Eater robe was trying to murder him—a parent, an authority, someone Draco had known his whole life and probably looked up to in some way, or at least grudgingly acknowledged as seated above him in the pureblood world’s hierarchy. 

"Is hesitating a good thing?" Harry asked. Because he hadn't hesitated for a second. He'd taken fifty eight lives in the span of half an hour during the greatest battle of his life—using the very same gun Draco had in his hands—and last night he'd taken eight more, a few bare-handed as the fight went. 

The first time he killed, Harry hadn’t been sure if he could do it. Then again, he was eleven years old at the time. No eleven-year-old thought themselves capable of killing. Now... taking a life was just something Harry did. If he had to. If there wasn't another way around it. He didn't have that second of holding back, of wondering. He knew he was capable, and he did it. Because deep down, he’d always believed his own safety was worth the destruction of anyone who threatened him. 

He wondered if Draco valued his own life. If Draco had considered letting Theo Nott Sr kill him rather than shoot. Draco was far more impacted by the weight of the lives he took... probably because it was the blood of his own family on his hands. Harry figured he'd have a hard time shooting Uncle Vernon or Dudley, even if they charged him. He might not freeze up, but he’d be looking for an alternate way to stop them without having to end their lives. 

Akilah was thinking, too. "Would it be alright if I told you a story, Harry?"   

The corner of Harry's lip turned up. He used to love stories when he was a kid and his school teachers would read to them. Fairy tales had been his favorite, ironically—stories about magic, princesses, and dragons. Now he lived in one. It wasn’t what he’d expected, either; he’d befriended a couple of fairy princes who looked like knights, and married a fire-breather. 

Like those fantastic tales, his life was difficult to believe. It felt like a fantasy sometimes, a story he lived in rather than a real life. 

"Sure. Go ahead." 

Akilah leaned back in her chair, hands folded over her stomach, and told her own story. "When I was studying for my bachelor’s degree, my university shared some of our facilities with the local high school. We often had high-schoolers walking around the campus. Most of the time it was easy to tell who was underage—but there's always a few like yourself who can blur the line. 

"One day I was walking on campus and I saw a high school girl. I could tell her age by her developmental stage, and the stickers on the notebooks in her arms. She couldn't have been more than sixteen. There was a man with her. He had an arm out, caging her against a wall. He was talking to her, but she was silent. She looked… terrified. That didn't stop this man, who was at least in his forties. I’ll never forget: he reached out and stroked the top of her breast, and then… dipped his hand inside her shirt. Her eyes went wide; she didn’t want to be touched—which her expression and body language made clear—but she never made a sound." 

Akilah paused, looking at Harry. "Why didn't she scream?"

"Because she was scared," Harry could extrapolate easily. The situation was cut and dry, though deplorable. "She froze up. She was young and had never been in that kind of situation before, so she hadn't developed the instinct to throw him off or fight back. Her brain was still catching up to what was happening. She probably couldn’t believe anyone would do something like that." 

Sad, Akilah's head bobbed. Almost mournful, she asked. "Why else?" 

Harry had to think about it—putting himself back to a younger age and a smaller body, thinking about what it had been like being that young, naïve and innocent, not knowing how to defend yourself. Life without the instinct to fight back… because you’d never been hurt. Harry didn’t know what that was like. He’d been hurt his entire life, since the day his parents died. 

He blew out a hard breath. "The girl knew he had power, physically but also socially. She didn't fight back because he was a grown man and she was a young girl. No one would believe her. And if she drew too much attention he might just... well, he could kill her, and she knew that. So she didn't fight, because it meant staying alive. Like an animal gnawing off its own limb to escape a trap. She stood still while he groped her because by appeasing him, not fighting his assault, he was less likely to escalate to worse violence." 

"That's why Draco didn't shoot," Akilah explained softly. "In his mind, he's still the little boy whose father choked him. In his mind he's still in that cell in Wiltshire. In his mind _you_ are his only protector, and you’re dead on the ground beside him and there's nothing he can do to defend himself. He couldn't remember the gun in his hand. He probably couldn’t remember his own magic. He has been ruthlessly trained, conditioned his whole life, not to fight back, to accept what is done to him as inevitable." 

Harry added, "Draco hasn't built the instinct to fight. He's still the victim in his own head, even with a gun or a wand in his hand." Draco didn't need a weapon—he _was_ the weapon. Harry had seen Draco kill Ciaran Mulciber with his bare hands. Justice still wasn't enough to make Draco believe in himself, to see himself as Harry did. Draco didn’t understand half of how powerful he was. 

"That's right. Draco needed to be brought back to the present—reminded of his ability to act, to defend himself. I suspect hearing your voice reminded him what he wants to fight for." 

Draco needed to hear Harry's voice; he needed to know he was safe, to be told what to do in that instant by someone he truly trusted. Draco trusted Harry's judgment more than his own, and there was the proof of it. 

Harry put his glasses on top of his head, rubbing at his eyes. "What happened to the girl?" he asked. 

Akilah’s expression was far-away, tinged with sadness and anger as she remembered. "I marched over and pretended to be a teacher. I apologized for being late and asked her if she was ready for her tutoring session. The man took one look at me and let her go." 

"She went with you? She let you help her?" 

Akilah nodded. "Yes. I walked with her back to the high school and we filed a report with the police. The man was a registered sex offender with multiple convictions. I identified him in a line-up, gave testimony in court, and he went back to prison." 

"Holy shit," Harry breathed. "Wow. That could've gone a lot worse." He thought about what he might've done in the same situation—probably just punched the creep, fighting him so the girl could get away. But Akilah had the better idea, to give the young girl a choice whether or not she wanted to get away, to give her that agency of choosing an action for herself. It restored some small sense of control over her situation. That was more empowering than seeing some well-trained chap like Harry punch a pedophile. The punch would've soothed Harry's mind, but the way Akilah handled it was better for the girl. That was the difference between a soldier and a healer. 

Harry frowned, his logical side interjecting, "What would you have done if the pedo didn't back down?" 

Akilah shrugged. "I'm a military widow. I kept a Ruger LCR .38 Special in my school bag and my husband's Desert Eagle in the glove box. He'd have let her go, one way or the other." 

If he wasn't lying down, Harry would've offered Akilah a high-five. That was bad-ass. 

Harry punched the pillow under his head. He couldn't get comfortable, and it had nothing to do with the sofa or the pillow. His memories were bubbling up. 

"Most of my life… I've been that girl," Harry said after a minute’s reflection. "Abusers passed through and groped me—got what they wanted and taught me not to say a word about it. The Dursleys. And then... Dumbledore. I killed Professor Quirrell when I was eleven and Dumbledore didn't tell anyone, didn't get me help or anything. He encouraged me not to talk, and I never spoke up about it ever again. Literally for seven years, I never thought about or mentioned the fact that I made my first kill in self-defence as an eleven year old. 

"Dumbledore let me run off half-cocked into the Chamber of Secrets the next year to save Ginny. He let me risk my life to save Sirius, and compete in the TriWizard and... and... every time, every _fucking_ time, there was somebody touching my God damn tit when I didn't want it, and I never spoke up. I never went to anyone for help. Because I accepted that was just how my life was gonna be. I figured anything was better than the Dursleys, right? I was always ready to sacrifice myself, because I was supposed to act like I didn’t matter, to put everyone else ahead of myself. Because that false belief made me easier to control.” 

Once Harry let himself think about it, the examples wouldn’t stop. “Rita Skeeter spread lies about me and my friends; I did nothing. I let Hermione handle that. Dolores Umbridge fucking tortured me and I tried to hide it instead of screaming the truth from the Astronomy Tower. Cho and Ginny kissed me when I didn't wanna be kissed; I didn't do anything, didn’t say anything, never stood up for myself because I thought I was supposed to want it. My friends congratulated me; I didn't tell them how I really felt—used, objectified. Because I’d already been convinced a long time ago that how I felt didn’t fucking matter, wouldn’t change anything, and I needed to keep my mouth shut or die, just like that girl. Staying silent while people hurt me was the only way I knew how to survive. If I’d have spoken up for myself, I bet they’d have stopped—my friends, at least, because they never meant to hurt me in the first place. I let that happen. I wouldn’t speak up. I was terrified of losing the people I loved—so I let them hurt me. 

"When Draco came along I was so scared—to have found someone like me, someone knocked around and still not giving up. Someone swallowing every lump, taking every punch, and not dying because of it.... Draco is so much like me. So I hid how I felt about him. My brain decided that falling in love with Draco was just as bad of a secret as killing my professor, so I tucked it all down in the same dark hole and let everyone else plow over it—and me—to distract me, to tell me how I ought to feel, to cover all the bones of my own wants and feelings that I'd buried. 

"I was only able to start standing up to people when I was doing it on Draco's behalf and not my own. I couldn't stop them from coming after me, but I'd be damned if they laid a finger on him ever again." He looked at Dr. Beasley. "What does that mean?" 

"It means you have a good heart, Harry. That you've been through a lot. That you _can_ set healthy boundaries with others. And you haven't let your experiences strip you of your empathy. Now might be a good time to turn some of that deep compassion onto yourself."

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry returned to the Harpers house with a paper sack in his hands—the good muffins from the bakery in Kirtland, an excuse for his early-morning absence. The drive had done nearly as much as therapy to clear his head. 

He found Draco and Charlene in their pajamas, much as he’d sat with her on some lazy mornings last year, curled on the oversized leather sofas in the family room—separate from the cleaned-up kitchen and less formal living room, giving themselves some space from the areas which got wrecked last night even if they’d been repaired by magic. Both had big mugs of coffee in their hands, watching television, something to fix their attention to. 

Charlene was subtly teaching Draco about muggle politics, watching re-runs of her favorite show _The West Wing_. 

Draco stared wide-eyed at the tele screen, as though no one had told him muggles could be so complex, so fascinating, so intelligent. He was struggling to understand their jargon as well as their convoluted political system. But he refused to admit defeat to muggle entertainment, determined to make some sense of it. His questions flew at Charlene, head cocked and eyes engaged, wanting to understand. Draco was getting his giant brain around these concepts of muggle laws and social structure which Harry worked in proximity to every day—which Harry insisted wizardkind bring themselves closer to. The way Draco listened, his focus almost a fixation, said he was trying desperately to understand more of Harry’s world. 

Harry came up behind him, wiping platinum hair from his forehead to kiss his skin. 

There were great grey moons under Draco’s eyes. 

“ _Tu as assez dormi?_ ” Practicing his French, Harry asked if his husband had slept much. 

“ _Pas vraiment_.” Not really. 

He kissed Draco’s forehead again, as though a second kiss might do something to ease his sleeplessness. All it really did was gratify Harry’s insatiable desire to feel Draco’s skin against his lips. 

“ _Où étais-tu?_ ” Draco asked where he’d been. 

Harry wanted to discuss therapy with Draco—the fact that he was going, and why, and that it was helping a great deal. But now wasn’t the time… not with Draco hungry and tired, looking miserable huddled up in a blanket, trying so hard to learn something new. 

 _Later_ _today_ , Harry promised himself. _After Draco’s had a nap_ _and_ _something_ _to eat_ _. We’ll sit down and I’ll tell him everything_. 

In temporary reply, Harry surrendered the sack of baked goods, having been certain to get at least one double-chocolate for his husband’s sweet tooth. Especially after a sleepless night, his dragon would appreciate the sugar. Harry went to the kitchen to get himself a coffee, bringing Draco’s mug with him for a top-off.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Leon asked Harry and Draco if they might take his truck to run an errand. The propane tank for the grill needed to be refilled, and Charlene needed some light bulbs for the house after half their lamps had been smashed; the lamp bases and shades had been repaired but the filaments inside the bulbs were resistant to magic, including Time Syphons, so they’d need fresh bulbs before the evening. 

Harry thought taking Draco to the home improvement store might be a good way to expose the pureblood to more of muggle culture and technology. And an excuse to get him dressed and out of the house was welcome. It was actually a nice day, and they rode to the store with the windows down, sleeves pushed up, getting some sunlight on their skin. Harry took the opportunity to teach Draco a bit more about manual transmissions, having him shift the pick-up into the proper gear while Harry operated the clutch. Draco was getting better. If he practiced, he could be riding Sirius’ Bonneville as soon as the weather got warm enough. They both needed something pleasant to look forward to. 

They dropped off the tank to be refilled in the garden department, then wandered around the huge shop. Draco asked a few questions—mostly about electricity, and how muggles regulated labor around hazards like plumbing and power tools. Harry only understood the basics, explaining how trade schools and licensing worked back in England. They found the light bulbs, but Harry didn't know as much about the measurement system for electricity output as he'd thought. He left Draco browsing the display, pulling out his mobile and walking to the edge of the store to get enough signal to call Leon for clarification. 

With the information he needed, Harry started back. 

"YOU!"

A woman's voice. He didn't recognize the sound of her—American accent, adult but younger; probably in her twenties. She sounded angry. 

Harry didn't have his Beretta or Glock with him. He did have his wand. With his hand in his jeans pocket, fingers touching holly, he turned. 

"Oh! Hey doc," he said mildly, the tension falling away from his face. Standing before him was one of the muggle doctors who'd treated him after he and Nebojsa escaped Voldemort’s Ministry. He recognized her long, wavy blonde hair. And the fact that she was wearing a pair of leaf-green medical scrubs definitely helped jog his memory. He frowned, glasses slipping a bit down the bridge of his nose. "You're... not supposed to recognize me." 

She advanced on him, stopping maybe a foot away, up on the tips of her toes, getting in his face. Harry didn't back down. 

"Nobody remembers you," she declared; hard, accusing, glaring up at him. "Just me. I got put on a seventy-two-hour hold because of you, buddy." She said that last word like it was an insult. Midwestern Americans were famously passive-aggressive. 

Harry raised his eyebrow, not understanding the implication of a three-day-hold. 

"Psychiatric lock-down,” she provided. “They thought I was crazy." Because of him? Everyone else at the hospital where she worked would’ve had their memories Obliviated. The whole building forgot he existed. Somehow, she’d been outside the radius of the Obliviators’ Mass Memory Modification. She was the only one of nearly a hundred people who remembered he existed, remembered him using magic… yeah, that must’ve caused problems. Of course her co-workers locked her up. “I got demoted. I nearly lost my license to practice.” 

Harry frowned, English and therefore apologizing automatically. "Sorry about that." 

"Obviously I'm not out of my mind," she snapped. "Because here you are." She looked him over with critical, squinting eyes; her sentences clipped, speaking as thoughts took shape in her head. "You're a lot taller. Nice beard. What the fuck happened?" 

He shrugged. "Growth spurt." 

Her blue eyes narrowed disparagingly, a shade of anger in the tightening of her shoulders. She wanted to know what had happened that day at the hospital, why she was the only one who remembered his having been there—a large crew of American Obliviators was why. She seemed to know by his annoying avoidance that he wasn't about to give her any satisfactory explanation. 

"We… never figured out how old you were," she said instead, softening ever-so-slightly under his protracted silence. 

"At the time? Seventeen." 

"Jesus!" she balked, exhaling hard. "Seventeen... what happened to you?" she repeated, her head tilting. She couldn't stop looking him over—his height, his beard, and he'd changed his hair since then, wearing it longer, tied back by an elastic to keep it out of the way, a few shorter bits around his face tucked behind his ears. She was trying to piece together any information she could from his appearance. To her, it probably looked like he’d aged five years. 

There wasn't much for her to go by—he wore heavy, abused work boots left over from the war and spelled-up in size, dark slimming denims from a Romanian flea market, and a plain black hoodie with the sleeves pushed up, a hint of his heathered grey tee visible at the neck. He could’ve been any bloke off the street—aside from his Surrey accent, he blended perfectly with the rest of the muggles in the hardware store. 

Harry chewed on the inside of his cheek, glancing around for Draco. He didn't see his husband by the light bulbs. "Classified," he told the doctor distractedly. 

"Military..." she muttered. "Figures. They scrubbed your records—deleted files, pulled your lab results. I couldn't find you anywhere." 

Harry licked his lips, wondering where Draco was. "You wouldn't. SOCOM… they’re rather thorough." 

“Special Operations Command,” she named the acronym. “I looked it up after. Unconventional warfare and anti-terrorism.” Her glare turned hard again. “What’s a seventeen-year-old Brit doing running dark ops in rural Ohio?” 

“Classified,” Harry repeated woodenly. He was starting to worry about Draco—which was stupid. Draco was fine. Harry would _know_ if he wasn’t. 

The doc’s annoyed hands flew to her hips. “Jesus, man. You weren’t even legal to _be_ in the army!” 

“Not army…” he muttered under his breath, lifting some hair which had escaped his ear, falling over his glasses. The doctor’s sharp blue eyes flew to the scar on his forehead, taking in every detail of him. That mark was very much the same despite everything else changing. “I’m MI5,” he admitted. “There’s a difference.” 

She guffawed. "Wait—like James Bond? _That_ MI5?!" 

Harry was getting sick of the comparison. “Bond was MI6, technically. British Intelligence. Spies. MI5 is the Security Service, domestic threats and anti-terrorism. We work with SOCOM, CIA, FBI… whomever needs us, all over the world.” 

“That’s why your partner was foreign.” 

Mentally distracted, Harry nodded. He couldn’t see Draco anywhere. Maybe it was co-dependence, or trauma-bonding, or plain fucking panic after yesterday—irrational panic to which he was damn entitled. Death Eaters had tried to kill Draco ten hours ago: he was allowed to be on-edge. It was a human response he wouldn’t cut himself off from; acknowledging what he was feeling, the tightness in his chest, his fingertips on his wand, needing to know where the fuck Draco was, that he was still safe. 

He let go of his wand, rubbing unconsciously at the tattoo on his arm instead—knuckles hard against tense tendons, calling for Draco through the magic of the Dark Mark forever linked to his own ink. _Where are you, Dragon? Come back to me._  

A blond head poked out from an aisle down the way, behind the doctor. The store lights shone in his near-white hair, reflecting off his softly freckled skin and the few days’ worth of stubble on his cheeks. His husband was fucking gorgeous. This lighting didn’t flatter anyone, and yet Draco looked like a model or an advert in _Witch Weekly_ , popping around the corner like an aberration, a daydream of what men could look like if they mated with angels. 

Harry immediately opened his arm, wanting Draco near him. He hadn't realized how close he was to freaking out until he felt that familiar body against his own, Draco's weedy, deceptively powerful arm sliding around his waist, squeezing his side. 

Hanging from Draco's fingers were two large wrought iron house numbers—a one and a two, for Grimmauld Place. He'd said a few times that the address was difficult to see from the street. So he'd found muggle numbers he fancied to replace them. Draco was making their house his own. 

The doctor gaped at Draco, stunned at the sight of him. Draco was startling—magical in Harry's eyes, and he always would be. Draco defined magic to Harry: complex, full of contradictions, painful at times, yet something and someone he loved with every piece of his existence. 

Sometimes, as he did now, Harry worried that Draco stood out to muggles as otherworldly. He was more than a handsome face, steel eyes, fair white hair, and that lanky Seeker’s body; there was a tension about him, a priming to the air as though he could catch fire like Fawkes, or spit flames like the creatures he was named for. For a person who didn’t know that magic was real, meeting Draco had to have been an unnerving experience—to come face-to-face with that quality which was without rational explanation. It certainly accounted for a certain type of thrill-seeking muggle flocking to him in bars: Draco looked like an adventure not for the faint of heart. 

The muggle doctor observed them, their posture, the way Harry looked at him… the matching wedding band on his twisted, talented, broken-and-healed-a-dozen-times-over finger. 

"You… must be Draco," was all she said. She remembered his name. 

He looked askance at Harry, his pointed face turned up, eyes catching flashes of the bright industrial lights above them. He was curious how some American muggle he'd never met knew he existed. 

Draco wasn't worried at all—he'd been exploring the store, flexing his curiosity, and assumed Harry called for him through the Mark because it was time to go and Harry was too lazy to walk about and find him. Harry felt like a complete panicking ninny. He squeezed Draco a little harder, pressing the smaller wizard to his side. Having Draco against him convinced his heart to beat at something like a regular pace. 

"Uh, this is Cassie," he remembered the woman's name. "She's one of the doctors who saved my life." 

Draco raised an eyebrow at him. "Which time?" he drawled, his voice going staccato as he mocked his husband. “Must. Be. More. Specific.” Because Draco understood his husband’s life had been under near-constant threat last year. 

"My leg..." said Harry cryptically. "Operation Nagini." He said it like a code-name, knowing Draco would understand. 

The blond shivered within his arm. Draco was secretly afraid of snakes… which was ironic when he had one inked on his arm and could now speak their language, too. Harry understood being most afraid of things inside yourself. 

Cassie was looking at Draco like most non-magical people did; trying to piece together how a person like him could exist and not be an actor on television or otherwise fantastically famous, looking the way he did. His husband had a sharpness, a kind of stage presence which was hard to ignore. He was different, and that called attention wherever he went. Dying his hair or dressing down didn’t cover it up; like trying to convince them that a wolf was a dog—as soon as a muggle looked at him with a critical eye, they’d realize the lie. 

She asked of Draco, “You were in hiding, right?” 

Draco arched a practiced eyebrow, snarking: “Locked in the tallest tower of a Scottish castle most of last year.” Which was a rather fantastic sentence by muggle standards, but plausible, considering the number of old buildings in the UK. Cassie, being an American, raised both her eyebrows, surprised at the bland honesty in Draco’s voice. She didn’t doubt him; she was just trying to imagine a culture in which hiding out in a castle was the norm. 

“Hey,” Harry snorted. “You weren't ‘locked’ anywhere.”

“Riiiiight,” Draco mock-conceded, silver eyes flicking up at his spouse with an obnoxious air. “I was allowed to walk the grounds, permitted visitors and letters and everything. Like Mary Queen of Scots.” Which was about as current as Draco’s knowledge of their country’s history got, frankly. His extensive pureblood education left out anything not pertinent to the machinations of wizardkind. “It was quite humane.” 

Mary Stuart had her head cut off after years of imprisonment, denied her throne after she fled Scotland, leaving her infant son behind to save her own life. Harry didn’t care for the comparison. 

“You make me sound like the bad guy…” Harry bit the inside of his cheek, glancing aside. When Draco put things in that light, it sounded dreadful—when in reality he’d just been at boarding school like any other chap. Gently, Harry reminded him, “You were sequestered for your own safety. Three direct attacks—four if you count attempted poisoning.” Verituserum slipped in the Gryffindor pumpkin juice by an Imperius-controlled Ginny, an attempt to find out what secrets Draco had divulged to the enemy, and what knowledge he had of the Order. Only Harry’s hand-me-down Blood Bond in the Gaunt family ring had prevented Draco from drinking what could harm him. 

“Holy shit,” muttered Cassie. 

Her trained medical gaze noted the marks on Draco’s body, his coat open, the loose collar of his shirt casually displaying the marching line of cigarette burns from his collar bone up to just below his earlobe—a path Harry’s lips often traced in bed at night, to whisper snake-tinged sex in his ear. Harry was used to the remnants of torture on his husband’s body. Old wounds were a part of Draco as much as his quick mind and acid tongue. But on first sight, the damage to his body could be distracting—especially for someone trained to identify and intervene in cases of abuse. Draco wore the markings of a prisoner of war, a survivor of medieval-like torture. 

And there was the matter of their matching scars. The lightning shape carved on Harry’s forehead could be dismissed as coincidence. Once it was echoed on his spouse at his side—its twin cutting prominently through Draco’s full bottom lip… then it was purposeful; probably striking the muggle woman as a sort of brand, the mark of some fanatical cult cut into their bodies. Not that far from the truth, all things considered. 

"How's your partner?" asked the doc. "Nebojsa. The Serbian you came in with." 

It was an uncommon name. Little wonder she remembered it a year later. That name was all she had to go on, after all. She never knew Harry’s name, only Draco and Nebojsa. 

“Sia’s great,” Draco answered lightly. “Probably getting engaged soon.” _Once Dima works up the_ _bollocks_ _to ask,_ _anyway_ , he added as an afterthought in his head. 

Harry dropped a sideways look at Draco. _Sia would have to say yes_. Because it wasn’t guaranteed that he would, even after five years together. Sia hadn’t completely let go of his dream to serve his faith. If he got married, Nebojsa couldn’t become a monk; and even though Orthodox priests could be married so long as it was before their ordination, same-sex couples were still strictly forbidden in their religion. Obtaining a legal partnership with Dima basically signed an ex-communication order against Sia. Harry wasn’t so sure Nebojsa was ready to release his devotion to his faith… even for love. 

There remained more barriers than bridges leading in and out of the magical world. That didn’t mean they ought to stop building, to stop reaching out. 

“That’s good,” Cassie nodded, showing her support. “He’s still with…” She gestured inexactly, meaning Dima, whose name she didn’t know. “The underwear model?” 

Harry stifled a laughing sort of snort in his throat—her description of Dmitry was apt. Dima would appreciate it. The guy was an elite athlete by magical standards, which put him in the upper stratosphere of non-magical estimation; muggles had no concept, no words to convey the strength of a wizard with his soul bonded to that of a two-ton flying horse. They might call him Hercules, the son of a god… when in fact he was the son of a monster, a terrible killer he’d survived. 

Draco laughed too. “Yeah. Trouble on four legs.” 

Cassie thought about that a second—assuming Draco was referring to Dima and Sia together, rather than Dima in his creature form. Either way, the joke made sense… and didn’t violate the Statute of Secrecy. Draco was learning to juggle his language, speaking in an ever-improvised and evolving code, finding ways to build his typical _entendres_ into muggle-safe speech. Which was bloody hot. Draco could dance that line with him now, joining Harry in this world as well as in his own. 

Draco jostled Harry, his hand squeezing against the taller wizard’s side. “This one’s famous for getting his arse into scrapes. Thank you,” he told the doctor, slipping effortlessly from teasing to sincerity. That was Draco’s way—his emotions shifted like clouds past the sun on a windy day. He could go from joking to sweet in a heartbeat. “For saving his life. I wouldn't be here without him." He followed that moment of emotional beauty with a very good crack at Harry—Draco couldn't be nice without also saying something snide. That was just Draco. “He's very good for taking bullets.” 

Harry smirked—stupidly in love with the man at his side. “Wait—I’m your meat-shield?” Draco knew the term from playing video games with the guys. 

Draco nodded sagely. “I'm the brains of this operation, Scar Head. And don't you forget it.” 

Harry had trouble keeping the smile on his face from growing. “Sure thing, Dragon.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Walking out the front doors of the hardware store, Harry took hold of Draco's elbow, steadying him like he was a frail old woman. 

"Careful, luv," said The Boy Who Lived. "It's slippery."

"I'm not a fucking child," Draco snapped under his breath. "I have eyes. I can in fact see the ice on the fucking pavement. Thank you. Twatter." 

Harry stopped in the middle of the cross-walk, his feelings hurt. Draco forged on without him, knowing the way back to Leon’s truck amongst the other parked cars. Harry shook himself, following his husband only after a car honked at him to move his arse. He was blocking the drive. 

Harry’s longer legs caught him up, falling into step with Draco, lugging the refilled grill tank with one hand. 

"… I know you're not a child," Harry told him, an ache in his voice. "It wasn't my intention to make you feel like one. I don't look after you from thinking you're weak. The opposite." 

Harry put his free hand hand to Draco's shoulder, asking him to stop for a second and listen. Draco ruefully turned on his heel, purposefully using the slippery ice under his feet to his advantage, swiveling with perfect control. The pureblood had to prove he didn't _need_ help. 

It was never about the ice. 

Harry leveled with him, his voice pitched low so no one might overhear. "Draco. You killed the most powerful wizard alive. You did what I couldn't. I know you're stronger than me," he insisted, squeezing Draco's upper arm when he tried to scoff. "I _want_ to look after you—not because I think you need it, but because I love you, and that's how I show it. I want your life to be easier. And I don't want anything bad to happen to you... ever again." There it was. The uncomfortable truth. Harry kept speaking it, opening himself up. "I'm afraid something's gonna happen, again. I'm not trying to stifle you: I'm afraid of losing you."

"From slipping on some ice?" Draco mocked him, deadpan, his own voice barely above a whisper. "I can kill the most notorious dark wizard of our age, but I'm gonna slip on bloody _ice_ and crack my fucking skull open? I'm that delicate?" 

"No," Harry ground out, exasperated. He shifted them further to the side as an SUV drove by, tires splashing up the winter sludge now melting in the sunshine. Harry shielded Draco, taking the muck on his boots so none would hit Draco. _That_ was exactly what he was talking about, giving him an idea of how to express himself. "I'm... overprotective at times. I worry, and that sometimes comes off as overbearing.  It's because of everyone I've lost before you. My parents, Cedric, Moody, Sirius…” For the first time, he omitted Albus Dumbledore from that list. He was done mourning a man who’d manipulated and abused him. “You’re not the only one to have somebody you care about die in front of you. That’s why I act the way I do. Can you understand that? I don’t think you're weak, Draco. It’s not a problem with you, but with me. I don’t think I’m strong enough to lose you." 

Large silver eyes looked up at him, blinking in the snowfall.

"Get in the truck you great pillock." 

Harry swallowed. "Why’s that?" 

Draco's eyebrows pinched. “Because I don't feel like snogging you in the middle of a car park where we could get run over.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Back in their bedroom at the Harpers, Draco made it clear he wanted to fuck. Like Harry, surviving dangerous situations made him horny for days thereafter, a kind of physical need to validate their continued survival by getting hard and naked. 

Draco took Harry's clothes off the muggle way. That turned Harry on—the sensation of Draco's guitar calluses and hard knuckles against him, of his clothes brushing against his battle-bruised skin followed by warm, thin hands exploring him. Especially when Draco kissed him, hands sneaking under his sweatshirt to feel him up before pulling the material up and over his head, wanting more. Even the sound of his denims hitting the floor turned Harry on, the clank of his belt and thump of his wallet, the weight of denim pooling around his ankles, sitting on top of his feet. These were muggle sex sounds, and that spoke to him because they were a part of his earliest fantasies, what he thought of as normal. 

They weren't normal to Draco. This was a concession he made, a behavior he changed to suit Harry, knowing how much it turned him on. 

So Harry used magic to take Draco's shirt off. He still liked the sound of a belt and zipper too much, using his hands to get Draco's trousers off. They were Harry’s old tight khakis, the ones he’d worn to the Gladstone Arms two summers ago. They looked better on Draco than they ever had on his own smaller body.

They fell onto the bed, Draco on top. The pureblood held him by the hair, grabbing the elastic band at the back of his head as a kind of handle, keeping Harry still to snog, pulling his hair at the same time. They rutted together in their pants. 

Draco bit at his lips. Bony hips rolled into his own, seeking out some friction. He groaned, trying to drag Harry even closer by his hair. 

“Fuck me, Potter,” the pureblood said, teeth in Harry’s lower lip. A second later he soothed the bite, sucking a shade more gently with his teeth, and a long, salacious brush with his tongue. “Hurt me.” 

Harry… didn’t say anything. He was frozen. 

“Beat me,” Draco gave him emphatic, lust-fueled permission. 

Harry found his voice, shaky in the back of his throat. “That’s what you want?” 

Draco nodded, diving for his lips again. 

Harry held him back by his shoulders. 

“Draco, I… I can't. Not right now.” 

It was too emotional, too violent. The way Draco liked to bottom for him, to get hit and cry and struggle through it... Harry's heart couldn't take that. He needed to see Draco writhing in pleasure, and only pleasure. After all the violence of the last twenty-four hours, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Even when Draco fancied it, when it got him off, when it was what he had the guts to ask for. Not right now. He couldn't use his hands to hurt Draco—to slap and punch and choke him—because that was how he fought off Death Eaters, how he fought for both their lives last night. 

He needed separation from violence. Especially in their sex lives. The act of fighting was too fresh in his mind. 

“I won’t hurt you,” Harry said. “Just for a little while, a few days, okay?” 

“What?” Ashy brows drew down as Draco blinked, realizing Harry was refusing him. The next words out of his mouth were clearly meant as an insult. “Pussy.” 

Harry said nothing. 

“Fuckin’ pussy,” Draco repeated, his tone rising. 

He’d gotten mad a year ago, when Harry refused to fuck him before he went back to Hogwarts. Harry didn’t owe Draco topping, nor did he owe a beating. He had the right to say no, just as Draco had the right not to react well at being denied when he’d had the bludgers to ask for what he wanted. 

“What a wittle baby!” Draco didn’t mean it, but his mocking tone went too close to sounding like his Aunt Bellatrix: Harry immediately dropped to half-mast. 

 _That's fine_ , Harry thought. _Get it out of your system, luv._ He had a thick skin; he could take Draco’s name-calling. His erection would be back as soon as Draco stopped insulting him. 

Harry’s lack of reaction didn’t settle well with Draco. Because Draco always threw massive fits for attention. The fact that Harry wasn't responding at all probably made him more insecure, more towards manic but... Harry didn't know how to de-escalate this. Draco wasn’t an appliance, he didn't come with a manual. Harry feared he might be making things worse, but he didn't know what else to do. Letting Draco bully him into a type of sex he didn’t want was absolutely the wrong track—he knew that much and wasn’t about to change his mind to appease his spouse. He wouldn’t be run over by a temper tantrum. What bothered him most as Draco glared angrily at him was the simple fact he didn't know how to comfort his own husband, and he felt like a shitty spouse for not having learnt yet. 

Keeping calm seemed the right thing. 

"Draco," he said softly. "I wanna have sex. Just not like that, alright? I don't wanna hit you." 

Violence was intimate for Draco. It was personal. The people who used to hurt him were his own father, his past sexual partners, people who said they did it because they loved him, or at least wanted him. And Draco turned violent against his own family in the end—had to kill his father and his aunt Bella to protect himself. Violence was burned deeply into Draco's self-expression. It was why he liked BDSM, why he liked quidditch, why he took to shooting guns so quickly and didn't mind at all that his husband was a Hit Wizard with a high body count. Violence was so normalized to Draco that he couldn't understand that Harry might not _want_ to hurt him at all times. 

According to Draco, violent sex ought to make Harry's prick hard one hundred percent of the time. It didn't—Draco turned him on, and any action they did together was extra. He didn’t need that much aggression to get off; a little biting, hair pulling, or the occasional conjured rope was more than enough to satisfy him. That was why Draco was mad... because Harry didn't meet his expectations. Not wanting to hit him was like rejecting the most intimate, loving thing they could do together. To Draco, not getting hit meant he wasn't really loved, didn’t deserve what translated to him as the highest form of affection. 

Harry's calm only infuriated Draco. He punched Harry in the stomach—nothing, no reaction, just green eyes flashing at him that he ought to stop. But he didn't seem interested in stopping. It might’ve felt good to hit Harry, since he took aim at the Chosen One's face next. Harry blocked his husband’s fist, deflecting with his forearm and moving his dark head out of the way. He caught Draco's wrist to put a stop to the onslaught. Draco dropped his free elbow into Harry's gut, where he'd punched him before, compounding, aiming to wind him.

Harry could take a hit—back at school he never rattled, even when knocked by blokes twice his size. He was tough. The Dursleys saw to that as much as Voldemort and Draco himself via Crabbe and Goyle. The Chosen One barely flinched, firing back in kind… back then, anyway. Now Harry used his words, which wasn’t nearly so satisfying for Draco as the flight of his heavy fist in return. 

"Draco," Harry growled in warning. He didn't fancy getting beaten up. "Stop punishing me for expressing a preference. That's not fair." 

"Fair?" Draco snarled. He reached to the nightstand. Harry figured he was going for his wand. He'd seen Draco sitting on top of him, reaching out for his wand or Harry's glasses or something else, a thousand times. His guts didn't kick, didn't warn him that something might be wrong... not until Draco came back with his Beretta. 

Draco held the magic-imbued semi-automatic pistol to the underside of Harry's chin, pressing; cool metal against the tender palate in the curve of Harry's jaw. 

He saw something in Draco's eyes. Like when they were kids and Draco would hurl spells and insults all over the castle. He wasn't doing this to Harry. He was doing it because he'd been hurt, was blinded by pain he didn’t know how to process, couldn’t fathom how to react to. He might as well have been holding that gun to his father, or Philippe. Draco wasn't totally there—in this bed, safe with his husband. Draco was somewhere else. 

"Uh, safety's on," Harry told him. He was a flippant son of a bitch and this was the worst fucking time for it but... his humor was part of how he reached Draco before. Their ability to dead-pan talk about the terrible things in their lives brought them closer. Maybe he was hoping a little spousal death humor would bring Draco back to him. 

A thin finger applied pressure to the safety, flipping it. Now he could actually shoot Harry and kill him. After last night, the Beretta was ready to go—loaded with a fresh 12-round magazine of Magnification Bullets, amplifying any spell cast when the weapon was fired. At point-blank range, Harry's brains would be a splash on the busted headboard, nothing left of his skull. He'd be a headless corpse, like the bodies Draco dropped back at Hogwarts. Another person he'd loved, decapitated and done-for. Even then, Draco wouldn't know how to feel safe. 

Normally, Harry wouldn’t have his gun loaded unless it was holstered and he was on-duty. Today was an aberration, the _one time_ it was necessary to have a fully-loaded weapon at a moment’s notice. Any other time, Draco wouldn’t have been able to grab a loaded gun. 

There was no good way to get the Beretta out of his hands. Not safely. Harry knew a dozen close-quarters disarming techniques—none of which were worth the risk of his gun going off in Draco’s hands. Draco would never forgive himself for taking his husband’s life in a psychotic, irrational rage. 

Draco was manic. That was why he wanted to fuck so much. How he was able to tough his way through back-to-back attacks. The reason he couldn’t sleep. Draco was coasting on fumes, giddy one moment and brooding the next, swinging rapidly between moods. He didn’t know what he was doing, wasn’t in control of himself or his actions. Right now—holding a gun to his spouse—Draco was going through a psychotic break.

Harry closed his eyes. "Please... Draco. Put the gun down. Please." 

"Why?"

"Because threatening to kill me me isn't going to fix anything? We have to talk." 

"Why?" he repeated, a feigned tone of disinterest belying his deep frustration. "You get ta’ solve all your problems with this thing,” he pressed the Beretta into Harry’s skin, “an’ you get praised for it. I put a toe out a’ line an’ _I'm_ the monster?" 

Harry let the air out of his lungs, almost a sigh. "I never said that. I asked you to take my gun out of my face so we can have a discussion, as equals. We're not equals when you could kill me with a press of your finger." 

Draco's eyebrows rose. "Oh, I think this makes us perfectly equal, Potter." 

In a way, Harry understood what Draco was feeling. The first time he'd held a gun, it made him feel powerful, too. The more Harry shot, the more he felt in-control of his life. No one could stop him, no one could hurt him, and no one could make him do things he didn't want to ever again—because he'd shoot them dead for trying.

Draco was lashing out. The attacks yesterday ripped away his sense of safety, shattering the idea that he and Harry were in control of their own lives post-Voldemort. Now Draco realized the Death Eaters weren't done with them, that his old comrades remained a force to be reckoned with. They could've died in their sleep last night, which explained why Draco hadn't slept since. He didn't feel safe enough to close his eyes. The lack of sleep wasn’t helping him now. 

Putting a 9mm slug in Harry wouldn't make him any safer. But lashing out gave Draco a sense that he was doing something, anything—no matter how unreasonable—to defend himself. The fight wasn't over in Draco's head. He needed this violence; without it, he didn’t feel safe. 

"Okay," said Harry. "This is how you wanna talk? Then let's have at it." 

Draco's hand trembled, making the semi-automatic twitch against his chin as though it too were alive and scared. Harry didn't move. "Yer insane," Draco mumbled. "I could kill you. I could blow yer fuckin’ head off." 

Harry countered mildly, "Well, I can see you're not gonna put the gun down. No way for me to win that argument. I trust you not to kill me. So we have a wag like this."

"Fuck you," spat Draco. He wanted a reaction he wasn’t going to get. Harry wouldn’t be bullied. 

Immediately snarky, Harry quipped back, "Fucking me would require two hands, and you've only got the one free. You're welcome to try, tho." 

Sure it sounded like a challenge. Sure it was provocative and inappropriate. But that was who they were. Harry wasn't going to couch himself. Especially not with his own weapon held to his face in shaky hands. 

"Don't misunderstand me, honey. I very much wanted to have sex. Still do, which is odd but..." Harry micro-shrugged, more eyebrows than shoulders, not wanting to risk dislodging the gun or having it go off. Danger was something he normalized, the way Draco did with violence. He maintained a surprising large fraction of his erection even as Draco threatened his life. "I'm not comfortable beating the tar out of you after I killed a couple Death Eaters with my bare hands last night. You can see why I feel the way I do, right? I love you, but I can't fucking hurt you right now. I can't see you in pain again, and I certainly can't be the one doing it to you. I need some time, okay?" 

Draco glared at him, perhaps realizing as Harry already had that they'd never really had sex before without some element of violence, or pain, or power imbalance between them. They'd never just screwed because they loved each other and wanted to show it... not without inadvertently hurting each other, anyway. Sometimes brutality was the only way Draco could show that he cared, or accept that he was cared for. There was always a rope or a blindfold, or biting, bleeding, manhandling each other, hands around someone's neck, hitting, teeth bared, bruises the next morning, contortion and deep discomfort. They'd never just made love before. Maybe because Draco didn't know how. He couldn’t accept love without pain… because he didn’t know the difference. 

For a year and a half, Harry went along with it because it turned him on, too. Like Draco, cruelty made him feel in-control... even when Draco was the one hurting him. It gave them both a sense of trust, to give themselves over to suffering at the other's hand. Now it seemed Draco had gotten used to having his heart ripped out in addition to his throat squeezed or his body beaten. He couldn't fathom how they might enjoy sex if someone wasn't bleeding or screaming. 

If Harry wouldn't fuck him, wouldn't hit him... then Draco had gone for the next available source of comfort and safety: the direct violence of Harry's gun. 

"And if..." Draco cocked his head, the tendons in his neck taut. "I don't want to put the gun down? What then?" 

Harry closed his eyes, swallowing, willing his voice to stay calm. He told the reddish insides of his eyelids, "I would prefer not to have sex with my own pistol to my head, if that's what you're asking." 

Draco pushed the barrel into Harry's skin, until his head was forced back into the mattress. "This doesn't turn you on?" 

Sometimes Harry struggled to identify when Draco was engaging in flirtatious banter and when the pureblood was legitimately angry and harnessing that silky Lucius-Malfoy-esque affected voice to sound more sinister. This time there was zero doubt in his mind—Draco was definitely _not_ flirting. Draco was having some kind of flashback or memory overlay or false association; something was going on in his head which Harry wasn't privy to. This was a very different sort of manic episode than he'd experienced at Grimmauld Place; bouncing off the walls like a sugared-up little kid, testy but snapping back to normal after a good fuck, a few drinks and a solid night's sleep. Draco had been giddy, then sullen, then horny for no reason—all in the course of an hour. This... this was different. This was deep psychosis. It came from fear, and an inability to process or accept what had happened to them last night. Draco was lost: unable to control his thoughts or actions. Because Harry had to believe that Draco Potter—the man he loved, who loved him so deeply he'd turned his back on everything he knew and leapt, knowing Harry would catch him... his Draco, his husband, would never want to put a gun to his head. And Draco would never ask if it turned Harry on, because he'd know the answer. This was the fear other people had planted deep in his husband’s mind and heart; pain leaking out, taking the wheel against him. 

Harry had no inclination to bring about his own death; he'd only embraced it to protect Draco, to give him a shot at stopping Voldemort. He had zero interest in giving up his life now that he had literally everything he'd ever wanted—a spouse, a home, and a family. Those life goals didn't turn out quite how he'd expected, but he was so deliriously happy with it all that he regularly pinched himself, thinking he might still be dead and this was his afterlife, his dream world. 

He was very much alive and awake. He'd never dream of Draco acting this way—feeling so much fright and panic that he'd pick up a weapon and turn it on his spouse. 

Draco had gone for the gun because he was scared... of what, Harry didn't know. And because he didn't understand the source of that fear, he couldn't allay it, couldn't comfort his husband or get him to drop the gun.  

"No," said Harry despondently, his eyes screwed shut. "You're scaring me. And I don't think it's turning you on, either."

Draco glared at him. His voice was Lucius Malfoy’s, honey and cold dead silk, when he spoke again. "Where did you go this morning, Harry?" 

Fuck. Harry didn't want to hide it anymore. It was a terrible fucking instinct to follow but, with a gun to his head, he spoke nothing but the unfiltered truth. "I've been seeing a psychotherapist, a Squib. She's helping me sort through everything—the Dursleys, Dumbledore, the war. I didn't tell you because... I know what you think about 'feelings' and 'weakness.' Therapy is helping tho. After getting attacked last night I wanted to talk about it. That's what she's there for." 

There was no reaction on Draco’s face, as though he hadn’t heard the words at all. He just blinked, sharp eyes staring at Harry. Neither moved a muscle. 

"So... you lied to me." 

"By omission. Yeah." 

"For months, you lied to me," Draco repeated, making sure he had the measure of the situation. 

"Since May. Yes." 

The Beretta was jammed into his jaw; Draco’s demand hissed through clenched teeth. " _Say it_." 

Harry felt a bubble of panic in his chest. It made him raise his voice more than intended, nearly cracking. "Fine! I lied to you. And I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" 

"Because I... should've trusted you. I should've talked to you, confided in you; let you be there for me, not run away from you. I got help, but I did it behind your back. And that's part of why I needed therapy, actually, because I never learned how to lean on other people. I was irrationally afraid of how you'd react, that you might think I... maybe wasn't as strong as I made myself out to be." He took a breath to steady himself. "Could you possibly take the gun out of my face for a second?" 

Minutely, Draco shook his head, a flare of disappointment pulling at his eyebrows. "No. It would appear that a death threat is the only way to get a word of truth out of you." 

"Draco... _please_ ," he allowed himself to plead. "You're freaking me out." 

Draco looked at the gun, ignoring Harry completely. "Good." 

Harry’s stomach started to shake. He couldn’t help it. And Draco surely felt it, sitting on him. 

"Fine. You want the absolute truth? Here it is: I started therapy to be a better man, Draco. I did it for you. To be a decent husband, because I don't know how the fuck to do that, and everything I've done so far has been shitty to you—lying and manipulative—and you deserve so much better than that. You really do. I went to fix myself." 

"You needed an escape," Draco accused. 

Harry countered, "I needed _help_ _!_ I'm not afraid to admit that. Real men ask for help—they don't bury their feelings until they explode and hurt everyone with the misfortune to be nearby!" 

Shit. That came out wrong. He was talking about himself but it sure sounded like an accusation against Draco. Harry quickly clarified his meaning. "I'm the one with the problem. That's why I went for help. Because sometimes my thoughts come out wrong, or my actions don't reflect what I believe. My intentions get lost, and I end up hurting the people I love. That's not the man I wanna be. You deserve better than that." 

Finally, _finally_ , Draco took the gun away. He rolled swiftly, bouncing himself off the edge of the bed to stand. Staring daggers at Harry, he deftly released the magazine, tossing it on the bed, followed by the unloaded gun, which landed on Harry's twitching, nervous stomach. 

"You've lied to me for the last time." 

"What?" Harry didn't understand. He sat up, the defunct Beretta falling between his legs on the bed. 

Draco was Summoning his shirt, slipping his arms into it. His jacket followed, sliding onto his shoulders like an invisible butler was dressing him. He stepped into his trousers which floated on the floor, waiting for him, fastening themselves without so much as a muttered spell or the flip of a finger. Draco was so hypoxically mad, he didn’t even think about spells, never realized he was performing Dark Lord levels of sorcery without a second thought. He never stopped glaring at Harry. 

"I don't want to see you, you lying little bastard cunt. And I don't want to hear from you, either. Your words mean nothing. Don't come after me." 

"Draco, I don't understand." 

"No?" he simpered, every inch the Ice Prince of Slytherin. His nose went up, a superior arch to his eyebrow. A blue vein pounded in his neck, knocking out the rapid rhythm of his heartbeat drumming in his ears. "I'm leaving. Don't you dare follow." 

"But—" Harry was going to protest about the recent attacks, that there very well could be Death Eaters lying in wait, hoping to catch him alone. It was a terrible idea for Draco to go anywhere right now. They needed to stick together. 

The pureblood seemed to read Harry's mind, cutting him off with an imperious wave. "I killed The Dark Lord. With a blade and these two fucking hands. I'm the most powerful sorcerer alive—more powerful than you, or so you tell me. So what have _I_ to fear?" 

Harry took a steadying breath before admitting the truth, standing there in his underwear, not wanting Draco to go. “You don’t have much to fear, Draco. _I’m_ afraid of you getting hurt. And I want you to stay, to keep talking this out. I don’t want you to leave.” 

“Too bad,” he shrugged, a kind of resigned sadness in the lines of his weedy body. “Because that’s exactly what I’m doing. Leaving you.” He stopped, touching the door frame, his hand on the knob, ready to go. 

Harry was on his feet, about to come after him, to keep the conversation going. One over-the-shoulder look stopped him dead in his tracks—stopped his breathing, stopped his heart in his chest. Draco’s eyes were glowing, red like blood flooding a silver field, the way he’d looked the night Harry’s soul took over, guiding his hand to kill, to save himself. Once more, Draco needed to save himself… this time from Harry. 

“Don’t,” said Draco, holding Harry with just those Blood Sorcerer’s eyes. It was his soul, screaming to save itself. “Don’t follow me, Potter. I never want to hear from you again. We’re done. You lied to me, and we’re done.”

 

 

 

 

He heard doors slamming. Pounding footsteps. The creak of the loose floorboard at the bottom of the stairs. The _thunk_ s and _slam_ s of two enraged feet jammed into a pair of size forty boots, kicking the baseboards in his hurry to get out. 

Harry couldn’t move, his feet rooted to the floor, his body frozen. It was as though Draco Stunned him on his way out. He stared at the empty, open doorway, by some unseen influence forced to listen as this happened around him, to him, unable to do anything about it. 

He heard Charlene’s squeak of surprise as Draco stomped hell-bent and non-verbal through her kitchen. The _snick_ of the repaired sliding glass door leading out to the patio. The slosh of melting snow under heavy boots. Then the tell-tale _pop_ of Apparition as soon as Draco got beyond Leon’s wards. 

Harry snapped out of it. His cold fingers steepled over the bridge of his nose, the sides of his hands pressing into his cheeks; feeling his breath against his palms as though he were breathing into a make-shift paper bag like muggles did when they tried not to hyperventilate after a shock. He blinked, still not making a sound. 

Draco was… gone. Draco wanted nothing to do with him—not to see him or speak to him, for who knew how long? 

 _That was his illness_ , whispered a voice in his head. At first it was menacing, cruel, mocking, like Severus Snape about to tell him he deserved everything he got. 

But his conscience softened, becoming the lulling, sometimes foreign sound of his mother’s voice instead. _Draco i_ _s sick_ , Lily’s voice reminded him. _It’s not his fault._ _He can’t think clearly, can’t_ _control_ _his words or actions._ _But you can help him through it. Love him_ _, Harry_ _. Never stop loving him._

 

 

 

 

Harry dressed and packed their things with magic, not wanting to lose time. 

Less than a minute after Draco had stormed out of the house, Harry found Leon and Charlene exchanging confused whispers in the kitchen. The bag slung over Harry’s shoulder didn’t clarify much. 

The old married couple stood there, quiet and ready to hear whatever he had to say. 

“I… need an Ops team,” Harry admitted. “To tail Draco. He’s mad at me, doesn’t want me following him. But after yesterday… he needs a detail, even if it’s not me. Except… I don’t know where he is.” 

He pushed up his sleeve, showing the tattoo of his husband’s name across the tender inside of his forearm. His veins stood out, raised from his skin, reminding him of the fluttering bluish patterns he used to trace with his fingers and mouth along his husband’s neck. Harry’s own skin was so dark by comparison that his veins were a brownish purple beneath his skin. He swallowed back the image of Draco’s neck, replacing it with Draco holding a gun. Because his husband had walked out without his wand, or a weapon, or any other means of defending himself. Draco was at last the thing which he feared most—alone in the world. 

He couldn’t shake Harry. Never. 

He wanted to respect Draco’s wish not to have contact after their fight; so he’d send a Field Operations Unit to follow Draco and make sure he was okay, that no Death Eaters were on his heels, too. Draco had the right to walk away in peace, and stay safe. 

“There’s some _Drengir Leita_ in this,” Harry touched his tattoo. “It’s linked to Draco’s Dark Mark. Can we use it to trace him? Enough to get surveillance set up?” 

“The pair ‘a you are blood bonded?” Leon asked for clarification.

Between their marriage binding and Draco bringing Harry back from the dead... he lifted a shoulder, hitching up his bag. “Yeah.” 

“Good. Makes things easier.” Leon nodded once, curtly, before going for the telephone on the wall, dialing by heart. 

“I’ll get zee maps,” said Charlene. Harry didn’t understand as she left. But the old man slipped his arm around Harry, rubbing a back-and-forth pattern between his shoulder blades as the line rang against his ear. 

Leo spoke with Johnny, Jorn, Eli, and their new co-worker Jai Cardoso—Harry had recommended Jai, and Johnny hired him, promising to help him with his English. They quoted Leon a discounted rate for domestic surveillance, saying they’d be over in ten minutes for a briefing. Once they found Draco, the four of them would personally watch him in shifts so he’d never be alone in case there was another attack or emergency. 

Charlene returned with a large, leather-bound atlas and an old cigar box, spreading everything out on the kitchen table. Leon ushered Harry closer as Charlene unpacked the contents of her kit. She seemed to know what she was doing, but Harry had never seen this sort of magic before. 

“Old magic,” she explained hastily, “Cajun Voodoo. Reliable as dirt and about as pretty. We need some of your blood, ‘Arry, ‘ere.” She held out a pointed crystal, clear greenish-blue glass with a sharp tip. For a second Harry thought he was supposed to stab himself with it, but Leo produced a pocket knife. 

Harry gave himself a small cut across the meat of his arm, rolling the crystal in his blood before handing it back. Charlene tied a bit of string around the fat part of the crystal, then secured the string to Harry’s forearm, winding it around a few times without bothering to tie a knot. The blood-smeared crystal dangled from his tattoo, ready to be guided by the magic on his skin and in his blood. 

“Now yoo stand over zee map,” she guided him by his shoulders, positioning him just-so; his arm extended over a map of the world, the crystal swaying from his arm, less than an inch from touching the pages. It flashed in the light, fresh red blood against sea-colored glass, reminding him of the mix of colors flooding Draco’s eyes when he left. 

“Close your eyes,” she guided him, “and z’ink!” 

Think of Draco. 

His heart screamed. Tears threatened to fall from his eyes if he opened them. He could still taste Draco on his lips, smell his husband against his skin. 

Think of Draco. It was all he ever did. It was in his actions that he failed to think of Draco, to put him first, to hold Draco above all else. Now he was paying the price.

 

 

 

 

The cheery afternoon sunlight reflecting off the snow outside was completely incompatible with the tense mood in the Harpers’ kitchen. Yet the sun streamed through the repaired windows, warming skin, making soft patterns as snow-laden branches swayed in the breeze. 

Field Operators watched as Harry was able to track his husband back to England. Draco went to Wiltshire, presumably to his childhood home. Charlene flipped to a more detailed map, but as Harry searched again the pull from Draco’s Mark disappeared. 

“I bet he went to Grimmauld,” said Harry, flipping to find a map of London. 

His hands glowed the entire time. He couldn’t keep it in. But he was careful not to touch anyone, not to let the magic loose. He didn’t know what it would do when he was out of his mind with hurt, and he didn’t want to hurt anyone else on accident. 

He found Draco at home. 

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Jorn—Rikka’s ex-husband whom Harry had unknowingly punched his first day as a Hit Wizard—said in fascination to Leon, talking about Harry’s abilities like he wasn’t standing right there, able to hear everything as he fought to keep a hold on magic he didn’t entirely understand. 

Charlene snapped at the big Icelander. “If yoo would like to loose your family and ‘ave zee Dark Lord kill yoo twice for what they ‘ave, then by all means, be my guest.” 

Draco left London. Harry felt the pull of the string around his arm lessen, his blood on the crystal still reaching out to his spouse but getting nothing back. He flipped his way back to the world map and—frustrated but too stubborn to give up—he began his search all over again. 

Leon explained what was needed to the crew as Harry concentrated. They were to tail Draco discreetly, in disguise, and without being detected. They needn’t report back on his movements or habits. But if Death Eaters located Draco, or if he was in the slightest hint of danger, they were to reveal themselves, intervene, and get Draco somewhere safe. 

“You sure you don’t wanna know what he’s up to?” asked Johnny. 

Jai knocked him on the stomach—because Harry had already said no. He didn’t want Draco spied on… just safe. 

Eli felt much the same, saying, “Hey, we all fight sometimes. No marriage is perfect. Feeding a grudge doesn’t benefit anyone. Neither does keeping score.” 

“Spoken like a happily married man,” agreed Leon. 

“Everybody, shut up!” Harry snapped. He needed to concentrate. It was especially hard to track when Draco Apparated. He had to follow a sinking feeling in his guts, like having his intestines pulled out of his body one centimeter at a time while the contents of his stomach threatened to come up. With every sway of the crystal dangling from his arm, Draco got further and further away from him. 

Finally, it landed in northern Italy. The coastal town of Genoa. Blaise Zabini lived there—Harry knew as much from corresponding with him to organize Draco’s birthday party. Draco must’ve decided against staying at the Manor given the dire shape it was in, gone back to Grimmauld Place, and floo-called the only mate he had left who wasn’t mutual to Harry. It looked like Draco had found where he’d be getting wasted and crashing for the night—Italy was about six hours ahead of Ohio, so it was late evening… prime time for Draco to start drinking his problems away. 

Harry supplied the American operators with Zabini’s address and they were off, stomping out through the snow of the Harpers’ back yard to Apparate. 

“Yer welcome to stay, son,” said Leon, eyeing the bag over Harry’s shoulder. 

“Thanks, but…” he couldn’t find words for what he was feeling. The leaden lump in his throat didn’t help. “I’m thinking I’ll go home, wait at Grimmauld in case Draco wants to get in touch once his head clears a bit. He’s…” Harry wanted to be honest, to talk about what they’d both been going through. At least he had the language for it. “Draco’s dealing with some… mental health… problems.” 

Charlene looked like she wanted to say something. But she didn't know how to get it past the lump in her own throat and the tears in her eyes. 

Leon gave a rough sigh, taking the lead to spare his wife. "Tha' runs in the family. I’ve been on the muggles’ Effexor fer the last six years. It kinda… dulls the emotions a bit. It can feel like I’m wearin’ a mask sometimes; it makes me sommat impatient and,” he looked pointedly at his wife, “some might say short-tempered. But it keeps the lows under control. Depression. Since Hogwarts.” 

Harry had no idea. He’d never seen the old man take medication, or talk about his health. He just thought the ex-Head-Auror was a grumpy person. Harry attributed Leon’s brusk conversation and occasional emotive hugs to having lost his only son. He had no indication there was more going on, that Leon suffered from Depression long before Gideon died. 

Leo wasn’t Draco’s only relation to struggle with their mental health. The old man rarely talked about the son he’d lost. That afternoon, for Harry’s sake, he made an exception. 

Leon explained that Gideon was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder when he was nine. Charlene did something called home schooling for two years—pulling him out from the muggle educational system and teaching him exclusively at home with the help of tutors. They said that individual attention helped; it was what Draco had all of his childhood, too, tutors and around-the-clock staff to deal with his mood swings and tantrums. A single care-giver would’ve burned out. 

By the time Dee started magic school he seemed to be doing better; though he still lived at home, since the Salem Institute was a smaller, arts-focused school and didn’t offer boarding like every other magic school. That was _why_ he went to Salem and not Hogwarts like his father. 

Harry’s mind took off on a tangent. Gideon would’ve been a year ahead of him and Draco. In Slytherin, Dee and Draco might’ve been mates—best mates, even, because Draco never had a close friend, never had someone he felt comfortable leaning on, someone who understood what it was like and would never judge him for his mood swings, his violence and unpredictability. Hell, Draco and Gideon could’ve dated! Dee would’ve been better for Draco than Philippe. Being distant cousins wasn’t a problem, especially for purebloods. Either way, the two of them had a lot in common. With Gideon attending Salem, Draco had missed out on the chance to have a real friend at school. 

The leukemia diagnosis came along at fifteen, and something in Gideon snapped… just like Draco when his father went to Azkaban. 

"It was zee stress," Charlene said. After their teenage son ran away—and got a girl knocked up, but they didn't mention that so neither did Harry—the Harpers brought him back to his childhood psychologist, who diagnosed him with Bipolar II. 

"That's what Draco has, too," admitted Harry. Although he was starting to suspect Dr. Beasley had padded her analysis. If she'd have seen Draco hold a gun to Harry, the way he'd been disconnected from his own heart and mind, she'd probably say he was the first type of the disease: Bipolar I, With Psychosis. Harry had been reading a lot. 

“We never found a medication or combination zat worked for Dee,” said Charlene. Harry understood he’d died sometime around age sixteen. He imagined Gideon as being a lot like Draco during their sixth year; under immense stress, having outbursts, feeling isolated and completely alone despite the people repeatedly reaching out trying to help him. Because of their Bipolar, they saw those offers of help as interference, someone trying to control them. That only made them more paranoid, increasingly fearful and secretive… until they couldn’t take it anymore, and exploded into mania or a psychotic break. 

Draco had aided the Death Eaters in a year-long manic episode, repairing a Vanishing Cabinet so they could enter Hogwarts. What had Gideon’s mania driven him to? 

Leon dry-washed a hand over his face, coming clean to Harry with a sort of family secret they obviously trusted him to keep. “We told everyone it was the leukemia. Tha’ was easier. Dee took his own life.” He pointed out the kitchen window into the tranquil snowy woods behind the house. The blood from the fighting had been cleaed away but… in Leon’s mind, it would always be there. “Dee walked out to the woods with one a’ my huntin’ rifles an’ shot himself in the chest.” 

Harry found the kitchen countertop to lean against, needing something solid. 

It seemed that once Leon started, it got easier to get the words out. “Found his body by the creek—leanin’ ‘gainst a tree, looking out at the water like… he'd needed ter see sommat peaceful before he left this world.” 

That was why Charlene never went to the range anymore. She'd been a champion speed shooter back in her youth; Harry knew from the trophies and photos displayed in the lobby of their business featuring a trimmer, more muscular Leon and Charlene with big blonde 80’s hair. Since her baby killed himself, she had no interest in handling a gun. 

Charlene seemed to understand what was going on with Draco from her extensive experience with her own son. Her sensitivity—being both a mom and a Seer—was through the roof. She probably suspected before Harry said anything: she could read the irascible set of Draco’s familiar shoulders, knew the enraged footsteps of a young man marching off blinded by emotion, ready to hurt something or someone, even it that target was himself. 

“If Draco is manic,” she offered, “yoo cannot take anything ‘ee says personally. Stay calm. Respect his wishes so long as those don't put anyone in danger, including ‘imself, or cause ‘arm,” which was how her heavy Creole accent pronounced ‘harm.’ “Ee is entitled to his emotions. ‘Ee gets to be angry. ‘Ee does not get to drain your bank account or burn zee house down. It is your job to be reasonable, but also allow ‘im to make mistakes—for your own sanity, but also so ‘ee can see zee effects of his illness once ‘ee comes down from mania.” She spoke from too much experience. For Draco to admit he was sick, there had to be irrefutable evidence that his episodes caused him to do things he would never otherwise consider. “Shielding ‘im from zee damage ‘ee causes doesn't ‘elp anyone get better; it only covers up zee illness, enabling ‘im to ‘urt ‘imself or others all over again.” 

That made a ton of sense to Harry. Policing Draco would never produce a positive reaction. So Harry would intervene if and only if Draco was in danger, or someone else became at-risk; if Draco put his friend Blaise in jeopardy, or was about to blow the Statute of Secrecy and get himself arrested. 

Draco had to be allowed to fuck up—otherwise there was nothing to point to, no proof of how his behavior effected others. Their entire relationship, Harry devoutly sheltered Draco from the backlash of others. So long as he hushed everything, so long as he gave Draco _carte blanche_ to hurt people’s feelings and be a complete dick to everyone, Draco would never accept that there was a serious problem he needed to do something about. In a way, Harry’s blanket forgiveness allowed Draco’s manic behaviors to continue unchecked, allowed Draco to hurt everyone he came into contact with while Harry dismissed it, forgiving him… giving him license to hurt others because he was in pain. 

Leon’s mostly-white mustache twitched. “Ya know… Draco probably won't admit he needs treatment until he does sommat real rash—sommat he’d never wanna do with his senses intact.” 

“Something—oh, say,” Charlene’s manicured hands opened, her palms raised, offering an example. “Like leave ‘ees ‘usband.” 

Eyes on the floor, Harry whispered, “Or point a gun at my head.” 

Charlene surged forward, holding him. He was too tall now and she couldn’t squash his head into her bosom like she used to. She ended up pulling his taller frame down to her, a hand bringing his head to her shoulder, carding through the baby hairs at the back of his neck, squeezing him tight. “Oh, ‘Arry!”

Leon came in at his back, sandwiching him, letting him know he was loved.

They were… his family; the one he’d accidently made for himself along the way. Partly because he’d blown up past relationships, lacking the ability to trust the people he loved with what he was going through. The Harpers knew first hand what it was like to live in proximity to Bipolar Disorder, as well as what it meant to survive someone like Lucius Malfoy. They’d already lived the aftermath, and found a kind of happiness for themselves, a peace within the reality of mood swings and losing your temper for no good reason because of the shit you’d been put through. They were experts in this sort of thing, and had been his therapy before he knew he needed it. 

“I know it’s… not productive to hate people,” Harry whispered. “But God do I hate Lucius Fucking Malfoy. 

Against Harry’s back, Leon agreed. "Always had tha’ bastard pegged as a sociopath. At least a clinical narcissist. No regard fer others. No sense a’ folks' feelings, no compassion, no empathy. No heart. Only ever cared fer himself, and power." 

Harry agreed with that assessment. That was the only explanation for how Lucius treated his wife and son—like they were props instead of people, existing for his own amusement. Lucius Malfoy played with people like they were dolls. Harry distinctly remembered Lucius planting Tom Riddle's diary on Ginny, an innocent eleven year old girl. It took someone deranged, with no regard for the lives of others, to do something like that. To sell their child for sex. To sequester and brainwash and probably beat their spouse into submission. Or any of the other things Lucius did. The man made no sense to Harry because he was out of is mind in the deepest, most clinical sense.  

“Draco is a miracle,” Charlene told him. “’Ee survived.” 

Harry searched for words. “He is. He survived everything. Even me. I… God, I fucked up so bad!” Eyes screwed shut, he hid his face in Charlene’s shoulder. She squeezed him back so tight. 

“Chin up, laddie. No one’s dead.” That was Leon’s idea of comfort. “Most mistakes below tha’ can be fixed. We have _magic_. Never give up on tha’.” 

Charlene kept stroking his back, the same gentle sway between his shoulder blades as Leon had done before. They knew how to make a kid feel better. 

She whispered into his ear. “Listen to me, ‘Arry. ’Aving mental ‘ealth struggles doesn't make yoo a bad person. It makes zee road harder. But for those who love yoo, and see who yoo are inside, who see your true self, yoo will always be loved.” And she wasn’t just talking about Draco. “People like Lucius Malfoy and Tom Riddle…they ‘zink so little of themselves, they could not accept zat someone loved them, zat there were people out there who _would_ love them if only they ‘eld out and found those kindred souls. Zat is how they ended up as twisted as they did: they gave up on love. Love isn't a cure," she said. "It's the fuel which keeps everything and everyone going." 

In that moment, it was as though his mother was speaking to him again, this time channeled through the Seer’s lips. 

“Keep loving ‘im. Especially when its ‘ard. Never stop. Zat's when 'ee needs it zee most.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Don't hate me. You've known it was coming.


	19. Wicked Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pull the wrong string and Harry Potter’s carefully constructed world falls apart. Commence the Reckoning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** old-school Noir feels, D/s ritual, Master/slave, submissive brat, body worship, a blowjob, remembering past battles, angst, dirty cop, criminal activity, bribes, a punch thrown in anger, screaming matches, accidental flirtation, mental health, emotional repression, PTSD, shock, avoidance, victim’s rights, and dancing around secrets kept
> 
>  **AUTHOR’S NOTE:** This chapter is brought to you by sadism and the Costco liquor store. I have been writing it for eight months; and before that, the plot has been distilling and condensing for something like eight years. That’s uncountable bored bus rides, spacing out in meetings, and mindlessly doing the dishes, all-the-while thinking to myself “what if… what if… what if.” And we got here. So off the cliff’s edge we go, backwards and blindfolded, into the darkest days of Harry’s life.

 

 

 

_The world was on fire and no one could save me but you_

_It's strange what desire will make foolish people do_

_I'd never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you_

_I'd never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you_

_No I don't want to fall in love_

_With you_

_What a wicked game you played to make me feel this way_

_What a wicked thing to do to let me dream of you_

_What a wicked thing to say you never felt this way_

_What a wicked thing to do to make me dream of you_

 

 

“[Wicked Game](https://youtu.be/8-2hUmoaPfU)”

Chris Isaak

 

 

 

 

Every morning. Without fail, every morning since fourth year. Dmitry would find him—hot hands, devotion and yearning, warm mouth suckling. 

Dima liked to worship his body. He needed to have a purpose, to hear orders, to be praised. Pain made his dick hard: but it was discipline which made him feel loved. 

Five years ago Dima had shaken him awake in his bed at Durmstrang. The sun hadn't even been up. Dima looked like he'd been up all night—his hair on end, his eyes red. He'd been crying. Dima knew his father would kill him for being gay. He pleaded that they could hide it, keep themselves a secret, no one would ever have to know. Locking and Silencing Charms, always at night and never in the daylight, in their rooms where no one would barge in without knocking first. They could do this. He wanted to. It was worth dying for. "You are worth my life," Dima said that dark morning years ago. 

He said it every morning—with his eyes, and with that wet mouth on Nebojsa's cock. It was a choice they made, confirming each other, accepting their death sentence in the moment their eyes opened. The ritual was simple, but it meant the world. It was their center in a world gone mad. 

There was a body between them this morning. Not a new obstacle. If Dima couldn't reach him first thing upon waking, or if their surroundings weren't private, he would wait for instruction. He liked that, too—kneeling, waiting, a physical demonstration that he waited upon Nebojsa’s pleasure. 

Slowly, Dima sat up in their bed. He’d slept—lightly but a few good hours. Winter sunlight filtered through the usual London gloom, painting his body in early gold. The sheet fell away from his huge shoulders as he stretched, then scratched at the stubble on his neck; he was a classical statue come alive with magic, the highest beauty of the male form in motion, stretching, flexing like stone come to life. He was the male equivalent of Helen of Troy: empires would crumble, armies would destroy one another, for a glimpse of his inner beauty. 

Dima felt none of this for his own form. He rolled his head, loosening his neck, easing tight muscles… thinking nothing of how he belonged in his own paintings, of the magnificence of light when reflected from his indelibly magical skin. 

Harry Potter had stolen Dima’s pillow… or rather, Harry wanted it in his sleep and Dima let him—wanting him to have it even if that meant Dima woke up with a sore neck. That was Dmitry’s true self, beneath it all. It was good to see him again. 

Dima ambled out from under the covers. His body language had always been lazy, belying the mind within which turned at proton speed. He knelt on the mattress, his round backside against his heels, powerful hands folded in his lap. He bowed his head, waiting. Supplicating patiently. He wanted instruction—craved it. First thing in the morning, setting the intention and purpose of his day, almost a kind of meditation. That was part of the ritual—soothing him first thing in the morning, providing a task to be accomplished, one small victory to start the day. 

He was allowed to initiate, to kiss or touch, turning his partner on. It was a great feeling to wake up to—Nebojsa far preferred it to explosions and screaming. But Dima didn't touch his cock without permission. No one did. 

Discipline. Ownership. Ritual. Possession. 

These were hangers on from religion, from strict parenting, from Durmstrang, and a thousand other influences. They took what worked for other situations and made it their own, assembling their own bespoke protocol. 

Nebojsa turned his head on his pillow, looking to the world’s most famous wizard asleep next to him. His heart ached for Harry. 

In his own way, Dima was bowing to Harry, too. That morning there were two dominants in their humble bed and Dimka knew it. His sexual service was offered to Nebojsa, but his submission and devotion was for both of them. For Dima, both Nebojsa and Harry had earned his loyalty. With The Boy Who Lived asleep, Dima had the opportunity to express his feelings without going too far. Slowly, he was recognizing where the line was; he was re-learning, teaching himself how to back off when his fledgling, needy heart wandered too close. Nebojsa kept a strict eye on him. 

"Let Harry sleep," Nebojsa whispered in Romanian. "Go start the shower. Leave the door closed—the steam helps my throat. Let it build." He was fighting a cold, unaccustomed to London winters. It was a different sort of cold, wetter and somehow heavier than Sweden, sticking in the back of his throat. "Strip, and wait for me."  

Dmitry nodded. 

They rarely use honorifics beyond their own names. With Dima being royalty in his own right, it felt strange, forced, reminding him too much of formal affairs where he and his father were addressed by rank. Dima wanted to be a man, not a position. And Nebojsa didn't need a title in order to lead. He didn't need Dima to call him anything. His trust was more than enough—a mantle upon his shoulders, the weight of leadership balanced by the buoyancy of freedom; they had no inhibition, no boundaries when they were together. A name, a title, would only hold them back, a reminder of the world they rejected from their bed. 

Sex was about the mind. And the heart. Those two organs working together unleashed the deepest magic. 

Dmitry went to do his bidding. He left a trail of socks and dirty underwear in his wake. The royal prick had grown up with an army of house elves, never learning to pick up after himself. He was a duke, after all. Nebojsa got to yell at a duke to pick up his underwear off the floor. How many people got to raise their voice to a person of Dima’s station without consequence? 

Perhaps they'd get a dog. The dog would destroy anything Dima left so carelessly on the ground. That would teach him. And Misha would enjoy having a running partner, another source of joy in their home. 

Nebojsa never had a pet before—it was another mouth to feed when resources were already scarce. And he didn’t savor the idea of adopting an animal only to give it up a few years later upon his ordination. That struck him as needless heartbreak. But he wouldn’t become a monk… not anymore. Perhaps it was time to give shelter to a stray? 

As Dima’s sarcous bare butt disappeared into the bathroom, Nebojsa looked again at Harry, asleep on the pillow next to him. Perhaps they already had something precious to look after: Harry Potter, The Saviour, The Chosen One. 

Dumped. 

As much as his friend was hurting, as much as his pain sliced through Nebojsa's own heart... he had to acknowledge: it took a powerful person to break up with The Boy Who Lived, to walk away from all that Harry was, all that he offered—heart, passion, devotion. But Harry could be controlling, too… deceitful, hard-headed, insensitive, and occasionally selfish. Nebojsa couldn't begin to know what had gotten in the way, what had made the Dragon decide to leave. He might never know. It wasn’t his place. 

Harry was bereft. He came to them last night, numb—couldn’t bear to be in Grimmauld Place alone. Too many memories tearing at his heart everywhere he looked. He'd spent the night in anguish, crying himself to sleep in their bed. Harry had never clung to him like that, not even bleeding in a torture cell. It was hard to watch anyone go through that, let alone this man for whom he felt so much, so connected. Like his own heart had been blown apart by the same bomb. 

Nebojsa touched his cheek. Even in sleep, Harry was unsettled. His brow had lines threatening to become permanent. His ink-black beard couldn't hide how his jaw clenched. Even his dreams were troubled. 

Nebojsa brushed wavy black hair away from Harry's face. He was letting it get long—untamed, like his spirit, young and a bit wild. He was truly beautiful.

 

 

 

 

He tucked the sheet around Harry before getting up. 

In the bathroom, Nebojsa relaxed; letting the steam sink in, taking the heat into his lungs. He leaned against the tile wall, fingers curled in Dima's hair. A duke and a billionaire knelt before him as he would to a king; at his feet, all trappings set aside, ripped off like dented armor until they were only two bodies. Dima waited on his word. He was re-training patience, to enjoy the little things; eyes closed, their breath syncing, breathing the same steam, feeling the same wet heat inside and out. 

Nebojsa didn’t need to be blown yet. It wasn’t actually about getting a blowjob—the sex act was pretext, an excuse to shine this small light on trust, power given through submission. Dima knelt before him, allowing his head to be controlled, his mouth moved across Nebojsa’s stomach one kissed centimeter at a time. He directed his lover’s worship of every second, each breath, the desire building between them. Too many dominants rushed it. Nebojsa preferred to soak in it, owning that time. With magic, mere minutes could be stretched to hours. Each press of lips could become infinite with a twitch of his fingers. He lived in this place, this building up. 

There was always something new to discover, when one took the time to look. Today Dima had fixated on a particular scar, his hand coming up to touch, learning its line all over again, committing the feel of healed skin to memory, his eyes closed in order to heighten every other sense. Nebojsa in turn found a tiny concave spot behind Dima’s ear where his index finger seemed designed to fit by divine right. He held Dima’s hair, rolling strands between his fingers before his hand said it was time to tighten up and take what was offered. When he was good and ready, he gave a tug, guiding the man to his waiting cock. 

Every morning. Every blessed day they woke up, together and still alive. Even at Valaam. The holy city, a monastery island. 

Even that fateful morning of battle. He would always remember it. He’d woken early for vespers. Dima was still asleep—on the floor, one of dozens of men on conjured mats, men with nowhere else to go. He'd woken his love with a hand over his mouth, the other wrapped around his throat. Dima knew his hands, knew to be silent. "Quiet," he’d mouthed the command. "Take my cock before I have to go. Don't let anyone hear us." 

He'd held Dimka down by his hair and fucked his mouth, sending him back to sleep with come in his throat. An hour later, thirteen hundred people were dead. 

That was how magic worked. It was frightening, blinding. Like falling in love. It rarely made sense. But surely, it was like touching heaven on earth.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

 _Tap-tap. Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap._  

Harry woke, his eyes still shut. His world was black. For a moment he couldn’t remember where he was. Unfamiliar sheets; smooth, comfortable, but scented like leather and tobacco, the sulfur-smoke of plain candles, and a concentrated, grassy-citrus hit of vetiver. 

Dmitry’s cologne. Sia’s skin. He was in his friends’ bed. 

Then the events of the last forty-eight hours came rushing back to him—and he slammed a pillow over his face, blocking out the murk of London’s early winter daylight, giving himself something forgiving to scream into. 

When his voice died out, he could hear the water pipes but not the sound of the shower or sink running. The utter lack of sound coming from the loo told Harry there was a potent Silencing Charm on that side of the flat. His mates were probably fucking in the shower and didn’t want him or Misha to have to hear it—good for them. He didn’t want them to stop being affectionate on his account; he’d crashed their flat, after all.   

 _Tap-_ _tap._ _Tap-tap._  

He knew the sound of a bird’s beak on glass. Bloody insistent post owl. Harry threw the pillow away and opened his eyes, his shoddy vision making the industrial flat a blur of grey-brown brick and stormy concrete floors. Dima had canvas drop-cloths over half the place, splattered with dried paint. Each time the Potters failed to show up for band practice, the painting supplies seemed to multiply, taking up a bit more space, until there were large canvases leaned against speakers and amps, the muted-silver SG Type Draco usually borrowed all but abandoned in one corner, waiting for him to come back. He might not. 

Harry didn’t need his glasses to see any of this. But he would need them to figure out how to open the window latch and let that stupid bird in. 

 _Accio glasses_ , he thought, sticking his hand out. Since he couldn’t see without them, it was pointless to stumble around looking. Sia had probably put them somewhere safe. _Accio_ _mobile_ came next. 

He should’ve been more specific, as he got not only his own cell phone, but Sia’s as well, and Misha’s came flying out from his bedroom. 

Harry groaned at himself. His mobile was dead—he’d forgotten to charge it last night. He’d been too busy feeling sorry for himself. At least a glance at Sia’s phone told him the time: too damn early. 

 _Tap-tap. Tap-tap._  

He stuffed his glasses onto his puffy face. He’d slept in his clothes, and was just a hair towards ripe—dehydration from crying his eyes out into Sia’s shoulder last night. He’d been a right mess, which he still felt on the inside. His body was like a dry husk—he was emotionally empty, too wrung-out to feel much of anything. 

Harry peeled off his shirt, tossing it at what appeared to be the laundry hamper. Shivering, he picked up a sweatshirt Dima had left on the floor—because Dima was the only one who left his shit lying around—slipping it on to keep warm for now. The warehouse flat wasn’t precisely cozy for the winter months, intended to be used more as a crash-pad and art studio than for daily living. The guys spent most of their time at the office, or on the pitch in Misha’s case. 

Glasses on, he could now see that it was a barn owl tapping on the window. Harry let it in, receiving the bit of parchment strapped to the bird's leg. 

It was addressed to him. The half-page was splattered with ink, written in a great hurry, and hardly legible. 

 

 

 

 

> _WHAT THE FUCK, HARRY? Taylor's out of it. Did you lose control? Get over here and fix this!_

  

Between two Death Eater attacks, his fight with Draco, his bawling last night, and passing out in the wee hours of the morning, he’d completely forgotten his link to Taylor. In his emotional state, he must’ve lost control of the Imperius Curse he cast some eight months ago. He couldn't even imagine the situation at Fred's flat. 

He didn't have swear words strong enough... which was saying something. He lit the parchment on fire—a twisted instinct advising him to destroy any evidence—watching it burn, giving himself that moment of flame to think things through. 

There wasn’t anything to do but go—face the music, take his licks, own his punishment. He’d gotten away with so much… he was past due. 

Harry strapped on his boots, checking he had his badge in his trouser’s back pocket out of habit. His bag had been moved, and rather than take the time to search it out for fresh clothes, he borrowed one of Nebojsa’s less garish printed silk shirts from the clothes rack near the bed, tucking the tails loosely into his day-old denims. He threw his leather jacket over it, penned a quick note for his mates, placing it on the kitchen table… and began his walk over to Fred's. He needed the air—even London air—to help him think his way through this.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry let himself in with the spare key Fred had given him. 

Taylor was throwing things at Fred. Which she had every right to do. And screaming. Which she also had every right to do. They'd held her hostage. 

"I'm pregnant?!?" she shouted. _CRASH. SMASH_. "Fucking pregnant!" Fred ducked. A wet dish towel went _splat_ against the wall behind him. "I don't want to be pregnant, you scum! You evil, evil fucking man! HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME!" 

Fred didn’t have his wand out. Probably for the best. For the first time in eight months, Taylor was herself again. And she was understandably murderous. 

"What if," Harry suggested from the doorway, "we got you scheduled for a cesarean? The baby's far enough along, right?" 

She rounded on him. "YOU! You fucking bastard scumbag! You came to check on me, make sure you still had your damn claws in me? I made my mum's pie for you!" Her eyes narrowed to slits, she charged at him with deadly fire in that gaze. "I cooked for you and you fucking ate it like you weren't controlling me with those creepy green eyes. You're the definition of evil, Harry." 

She punched him. He let it happen. He fucking deserved it. He could have dodged her fist, could have restrained her. The training and reflexes were there, ready beneath his hands. He could’ve stopped the blow, or restrained her without harming her or the baby she unwillingly carried. But his heart, his aching guts, told him not to move a muscle. He let Taylor fracture his cheekbone, turning his head with the force of her fist. She was livid, and he had it coming. He deserved a lot worse for what he'd done. 

"You get this thing outta me," she hissed at him, up on her toes to get in his face. She was so angry she forgot to be afraid of him. "You do it right quick. Take your precious magic baby and get the hell out of my life. And I don't wanna remember any of it. You can do that, right? You'd better fucking make me forget."

 

 

 

 

"We can't do this anymore," Harry told Fred. The pair of them were standing in the flat’s small bedroom, discussing their options. " _I_ can't, anyway. I know it's for your kid. I know it's family. You want your son, you want him to have a life. But I can't do this to Taylor. Not anymore. I can't live with myself." 

Fred nodded, conceding as much. “An early cesarean is probably for the best. I'll call her doctor and make the appointment. I can manage it myself from here. You've... already done so much...." 

Harry had to check, to be sure. "You're not gonna put her under the curse again, are you?" 

Fred gulped. Because, yes, that was what he'd intended. To keep her quiet, docile, compliant to the last. He’d do it the moment Harry turned his back—because he felt he needed to, protection for his unborn child. He loved his son… he didn’t love or respect Taylor. 

"You can't, Fred," Harry pleaded. Not just because it was against the law. It was wrong. They’d already done it once. They ought to have known better then. To do it again, to choose that path, was…. 

Fred glared at him. “But… what if she tells someone?” 

Harry pushed his glasses on top of his head in order to mash the heels of his hands against his eye sockets. His brain hurt. He hadn’t slept nearly enough. Nebojsa had held him until something like two in the morning. He never let go. Harry only managed to sleep at all because Dmitry offered some homemade Sleeping Draught from their potion cabinet; it was Dima’s brew, and bloody strong. It knocked seventy-five-kilo Harry unconscious in seconds. He’d passed out in Sia’s arms, tears on his face. 

Most of the potion-induced mental fog had burned away on the brisk forty minute walk from Southwark to Soho—so the sluggish weight he was left with was pure guilt. 

“Then we take our lumps, Fred,” Harry said stoically. 

His mate didn’t care for that course. “I’ll go to Azkaban!” Fred pointed out through clenched teeth. “My son will grow up without a father. That’s not why we did this, Harry.” 

The Boy Who Lived dry-washed a hand down his face, feeling the injury to his cheek already threatening to swell. He was so accustomed to being lightly injured that it didn’t phase him for a second. “Yeah? Why’d we do this? Remind me.” 

“For _life!_ We did this for my son, so he could have a chance.” 

Harry regretted taking the easy way out, that night Fred and George had called him down to Diagon Alley. He'd been exhausted, physically and mentally. Emotionally, too. Just like today. He'd just come back from the dead then. He’d seen so many people die, experienced first-hand how easy it was to be removed from this earth. And he'd been scared of losing a single life more. In his fear and bone-deep tiredness, he hadn't fought back when he should've. He wet along with Fred and George, who were the closest he knew to big brothers. He deferred to them—his elders, his adoptive magical family—just as he’d been trained. Harry stopped thinking for himself and simply went along… to belong, to be in on the secret, a member of the cool kids club, a part of something great. They appealed to his ego, his God Complex, as much as his love and loyalty to family. 

One more time, he’d allowed himself to be manipulated by people he trusted—talked into something he didn’t want, made to feel he had no other choice. After a lifetime of conditioning… Harry believed them. 

There might've been a way for Fred to keep the baby without violating Taylor's fundamental human rights in the process. He didn't know what that might've looked like but... they were wizards. They had fucking magic! They should've put their heads together and found a better way. 

That was his mistake. He had to own it. He had to learn. And he would _never_ do it again. 

“Why is your son’s life more important than Taylor’s?” Harry posed softly. 

“They’re equally important,” argued Fred. “It’s only… Merlin’s fucking bollocks, Harry, I’m _not_ a blood-purist. This is different! It’s not because Taylor’s a muggle and our son has magic. I’d still care just as much if my son were a Squib. He could be for all I know! This is… it’s….” He got stuck, unsure what he meant to say next. 

“It’s Kidnapping.” Flatly, Harry named the charges. He knew the law forwards and back now, including the holes. There wasn’t a single hole they could slip through in this situation—Kingsley had done too good of a job working with the Wizengamot to refine their criminal code, especially when it came to crimes against persons and liberty. These changes were meant to have additional counts against Death Eaters and sympathizers who’d extorted or threatened others during the war. 

Harry counted off on his fingers each crime they’d be found guilty of if hauled before a court. “False Imprisonment. Use of An Unforgiveable. Unauthorized Exposure of The Existence of Magic. That’s twenty-five years, minimum. The International Council could tack on up to fifteen more for Statute of Secrecy violations.” Forty years. Twice as long as either of them had been alive. 

Fred glowered at him, the information he was hearing deemed utterly unhelpful. “Would you stop being a Hit Wizard for a mo’ and help me find a way out of this?!” 

“That’s the thing. I don’t think there _is_ a way out.” Harry let out a long breath, emptying the air from his lungs. “Whatever our reasons, we did this. Eight months of Taylor’s life. Strain on her body. All the additional risks of a magical pregnancy. Not to mention the psychological impact. She didn’t want this, and we forced her against her will. She came to us, telling the truth, and we didn’t give her a choice. We took away her ability to make any choices for herself. We made her a prisoner and altered her mind so she couldn’t run or get help. So we may not be Death Eaters but… from the outside, I’m sure it looks like some deep blood-purity shit.” 

Fred blinked at him. “You’re _not_ helping.” 

Putting his glasses back on, Harry spoke frankly. “Everything I’ve done to ‘help’ has made the situation exponentially worse. Maybe its time I stop mucking and take responsibility.” 

Red bloomed beneath familiar freckles. “You’ve got some nerve talking about responsibility,” Fred pointed back toward the main room. “When I’ve got a girl and a _baby_ on the way!” 

“You don’t _have_ a girl,” Harry corrected slowly, enunciating. “We have a captive, a prisoner held against her will and forced to carry a baby sh—” 

“FUCK YOU!” Fred bellowed at Harry, hands in fists at his sides. “Sanctimonious fucking boy-hero cunt! You don’t know a _thing_ about doing what’s right! You’ve never protected your family—you run away when life gets tough and bury your head up Malfoy’s arse!” 

He’d never seen Fred this angry. Instinct told him to get his hands up, to be ready to block a swing which was invariably coming his way. Truthfully, Harry wanted to punch himself—Taylor hadn't punished him nearly enough. 

Fred kept swearing and screaming at him, and Harry let him. He needed to get it out, and words were preferable to knocking Harry’s teeth in. After the war, the Dursleys, Snape and Dumbledore—and of course being married to Draco—Harry was totally desensitized to people yelling at him. Even a raised voice inches from his face no longer triggered his fight-or-flight response. He could stand there and listen without reacting, without Fred’s anger causing any riposte within him. He gave Fred a full minute to get the rage out of his system. 

“Listen,” said Harry evenly. 

Fred’s eyes moved back and forth, agitated, thinking Harry was going to speak his own mind. Except that wasn’t what Harry meant. He twirled a finger in the air, implying the sounds of Taylor banging around the flat’s other room, still rightly furious with them. It sounded as though she’d started smashing plates. 

“The front door’s unlocked,” Harry pointed out. “Taylor’s free to go. She knows that? There’s no spell holding her… _right_?” 

Fred’s eyes rolled. “Right,” he intoned, as though Harry ought to know he wouldn’t use any more magic on her than was strictly necessary. Harry _didn’t_ know that anymore, which was the problem. Once they stepped off that cliff, they were in freefall. Harry was attempting to Apparate them all to safety before they smashed into whatever was at the bottom of this hole. 

“So… she hasn’t left,” Harry stated, gesturing toward the crashing sounds of breaking porcelain. “She’s still here. She’s mad as a blast-ended skrewt with a tarp over its vision-end. But she’s here. Which means we can do what we ought to have done in the first place.” 

Long arms folded over Fred’s chest. He was wearing one of his mum’s knit jumpers—Harry presumed out of nostalgia, or perhaps it was laundry day, as the shop was doing well and Fred had clothes which would be considered more fashionable, and Fred dressed himself smartly these days. Perhaps he missed his family, missed the Burrow more than he let on. He’d purposefully kept away from the family after Taylor’s pregnancy, not wanting to implicate the rest of the Weasley clan if it all went tits-up. 

“And what’s that? What should we have done, Oh Chosen One?” Yeah, Fred was mad at him. They’d all fucked up—except Taylor. She did absolutely nothing wrong, and yet they’d treated her like a lab rat, a baby incubator instead of a human being. Harry was trying to do the right thing now, as much as he could. 

He'd thought at the time that he was saving a life. He had no right to do that—he wasn’t in charge of Taylor. He had no right to decide for her. This was Taylor's body, Taylor's life they’d stuck their wands in. He had no say over her. And to assume otherwise made him no better than Voldemort. 

He learned to police other people’s behavior from the Dursleys; his Uncle Vernon smacking him, Dudley giggling and watching, and Aunt Petunia peeping over the fence at the neighbors only to criticize them. Then Harry’s perceptions of control solidified under Dumbledore, a master of subtle manipulation. At Dumbledore’s feet, he learned that controlling the actions of others made you powerful. The more people you had under your influence, the closer you got to being untouchable. And if no one could reach him, then he’d never be hurt again. Every time he told someone what to do, every person he treated like a puppet, was out of fear they’d hurt him first. That was the legacy, the lessons he’d been left with. He was following the script, doing as had been done to him, because he knew how well it worked. 

He also knew how much it _hurt_. The only way to stop was to tear up the script—to do the opposite of what had been done to him his entire life. 

He may not be a vessel to Voldemort's horcrux anymore. But there was still darkness in him. He couldn't go on denying it. He had to start fighting it, fighting back. Otherwise he would become the thing he fought so hard to destroy—evil. 

Harry blinked softly, his voice low. “We talk to her.” 

“Talk?!” 

“Yeah. Talk. As equals. We tell her the truth, and we honor whatever she decides. That’s… something like justice.” 

Fred’s jaw clenched. “You’re barking mad.” 

“You got a better idea?”

 

 

 

 

Harry had arrived at the realization that when you hurt someone, and you were sorry, you had to give up your say going forward. You didn't get to decide what your punishment was going to be. So he wasn’t about to present Taylor with an offer of whatever _he_ thought was fair or just or owed. 

He had to tell her plainly, his head bowed, “What I did was wrong. My words probably don’t mean anything to you, but I know I hurt you… very deeply and in ways I can never comprehend. And I’m sorry. From here on, you get what you want. What you say goes, Taylor. I’m not in charge anymore. You are.” 

Taylor put down the coffee mug she’d been prepared to throw at his head. She stood in a circle of broken porcelain, having bashed a good number of their plates and bowls on the hardwood floor. 

“What happens,” she questioned, highly suspect, “if I contact your authorities?” 

“Fred and I go to jail,” he answered honestly. “We have our own prison, since it wouldn’t be that hard for a wizard to break out of a non-magical facility.” Harry knew as much first-hand; even injured and wandless, it had taken him less than three days to bust out of a medium-security facility in Moldova. 

They weren’t using Azkaban currently, having eliminated the use of Dementors in favor of hiring and training new human guards. The facility was under construction, repairing the damage from when Lucius Malfoy and the other Death Eaters broke out as well as changing the core schematics—removing solitary confinement cells and moving towards a rehabilitative model. Azkaban was getting an exercise facility, classrooms, and secure rooms for medical assessment and treatment. They were installing a visitation center, too. Prisoners wouldn’t be isolated anymore, but tended to by a dedicated staff as well as permitted to see their family and friends under supervision. 

It wouldn’t be the same place when they were done. It would be humane, which was a new concept for wizarding Britain. In the interim, they housed the convicted and those awaiting trial in foreign facilities on-par with the new standards. Frankly, they were running out of space, the temporary locations intended to be exactly that. Construction on Azkaban was behind schedule. 

He and Fred would probably be held by a neutral government—he had to search his mind for a country which hadn’t been effected that much by the Death Eaters. New Zealand? Australia? Maybe Japan or China. A prisoner Harry Potter would need to be shipped off as far away as possible. His sorcerer’s abilities would be made public. They’d put twenty guards on him at all times. Kingsley’s credibility would be ruined. Hermione and Ron might lose their jobs. Dima and Nebojsa, too. All because of Harry. 

“George might be able to pay a fine to avoid jail time, but he would lose the joke shop. Convicted criminals can't own commercial property or operate a business for a period of ten years after judgment. You would go into a custody battle against Molly and Arthur for the baby, since our law favors placement with magical relatives over placement with a non-magical parent.” 

Taylor folded her arms. “And if I go to _my_ authorities and report that you kidnapped me and held me hostage?”

That would turn out even worse. “We have something called The International Statute of Secrecy of 1692—a universal law stating that it’s illegal to expose the existence of magic to a non-magical person. The International Council has their own enforcement teams, so that’s who would step in. They have moles in every governing body in the world. The Council’s enforcement would deploy. Your memory and the memories of anyone you told would be altered because that's how the Statute of Secrecy works, then Fred and I would go to prison… and Molly and Arthur would get the baby no matter what. Because you wouldn't remember us, or remember being pregnant, or anything else. They’d… delete the last eight months from your mind.” 

"I'll keep that option in mind," she muttered, more than half serious. She was still glaring at him, reading his mix of exhaustion and resolution from across the room. “What other options am I missing? 

“I… have some money. I can pay you restitution,” Harry offered. It was a shitty thing, but maybe it might make some small recompense to Taylor. 

"Well why didn't you fucking say so in the first place?!" she screamed, her hands flying up. "Kidnap me. Tie me up in your filthy cellar like an animal. God damn bastards... we could've bypassed the mind-control! _Motherfuckers!_ " She whipped the coffee mug at Harry after all. He caught it, setting it on the shelf behind him. 

Fred's eyes widened. "What?!" 

Taylor explained that she'd sold some of her eggs to a fertility company, which was how she got the money to train as a makeup artist, buy all her supplies, and get her business off the ground. Unlike Fred and George, she never had a benefactor to give her an interest-free start-up loan. Taylor made it happen on her own, selling her eggs to get what she needed. "Stupidly easy," she said. Fred didn’t follow, not understanding how muggle fertility science worked. 

Twice she received offers to become a surrogate but it fell through each time. The clinic she’d worked with was going to pay her fifteen thousand pounds to carry a baby for a barren couple. Both times she was ready to do it, to help out people who wanted a kid in exchange for the money. "Not every woman wants to be some rubbish-bin-of-a-man's incubator," she spat. "But I want my business to grow, and that requires money. So I'll do whatever it takes. I was gonna risk my life for some stranger's baby. I'll risk my life for yours. But you don't deserve it." 

She glared at Harry, then Fred: Harry who had done this to her, and Fred who slept next to her every night like it was okay. "How much am I worth, boys?" Then she pointed at her stomach. "How much is _he_ worth to you?" 

Fred's hand was over his mouth. He couldn’t believe what was happening. She was ransoming his son’s life... which was kinder than what they’d done to her. She gave them a choice, which they never really gave her. 

Head bowed, Harry told her, "You're worth whatever you say. I forfeited my right to an opinion when I threw my hat in this. You tell me how much you want and I'll make sure you get it." 

Taylor's eyebrow cocked up. "How much are you worth, Mr. MI5?" 

Harry lifted a shoulder, the leather of his jacket creaking. "I don't actually know. My husband and I merged our accounts. Draco had to kill his abusive father in self defence earlier this year, and after I paid the fines for his dad's crimes Draco was able to inherit his business. That's his income: I don't have the right to give his money away. But I can give you everything I have in savings, and my salary, and potentially sell our house." 

"Where would you live?" 

Harry shrugged, honestly surprised she'd care to know what he'd do if she made him homeless. He deserved it. The fact that she cared to ask showed she was a better person than him by a long shot. "With mates, maybe—my work partner and his boyfriend. I think they'd put me up. Otherwise I could go to Molly and Arthur, or get a flat with Ron." 

He didn’t want to think about his life, his future, without Draco in it… but that was what it might look like. He could be divorced at eighteen, flat-sharing, starting his life over again. It wasn’t what he wanted. 

Taylor took a minute to think it over. She grabbed a pen and a grocery receipt and started making notes to herself on the back of the white slip, tallying up the value of her bills, plus anything else she wanted. She did her maths and came back at him with a number. 

"Two hundred thousand pounds." 

Harry nodded, agreeing on the spot. "Cash, gold, or diamonds?" 

Her mouth dropped open. 

"We have our own currency," Harry explained. "I need to convert what I have into something that's of value to you. Large transfers of cash raise eyebrows from banks, so you'd have to drip the money into your account slowly to avoid triggering the authorities and getting yourself audited. Gold has its advantages; you could keep it in a safe or a vault, sell one bar a week and make small cash deposits to multiple accounts. And the gold would appreciate in value over time. 

“A diamond is the middle-ground.” He was thinking of the sack of sparkling stones Dmitry had given him. “I can use magic to set very real, non-magical diamonds into what looks like an engagement ring. You pretend you broke things off with your fiancée and you're selling your ring. Pay tax right there in the jewelry shop, and if you're audited you have a receipt from the store. Women sell their engagement rings all the time when a wedding gets called off, so it wouldn't be suspicious. Your decision, tho: cash, gold, or diamonds." 

"If you weren't a fucking security goon," she muttered, "you'd make one hell of a criminal." 

"Dark Lord, more like," murmured Fred. 

"It's my job to think like the bad guys," Harry admitted sourly. "Because on my bad days, I'm about one promise away from becoming one." 

Taylor gave him a long, ponderous look. "What's the promise?" 

Harry spoke to his feet, hiding behind the curtain of his loose hair as it fell to shield his face. His head was much heavier than it should’ve been. "That I would love, honor, and obey Draco until the day I die? I'll always love him. But I'm not honoring him by doing what I know is wrong, and the only thing he's ever counted on me to do is _not_ become an abusive narcissist like his father... and I'm slipping close to that, so...." 

He sighed, weary—with himself, his choices, the hole he’d dug for himself. He had to work his way out. "This doesn't make things right. But it's a start. Cash, gold, or diamonds. I’m good for it. I can have it for you within a few hours. Our bank is deep underground and run by goblins," he gestured with a flat hand down around his thigh, "They're knee-height trolls with stumpy legs and short arms—so it takes them a while to get large orders together and bring everything up above ground in, basically, haunted mine carts." 

Taylor licked her teeth. "Potter… your world is an episode of Loony Tunes. No wonder none of you are sane." 

"Pretty much."

 

 

\- - -

 

 

An hour later, Harry stood on the steps outside Gringotts with a cigarette in his hand, a diamond evaluated just over two-hundred thousand pounds in his pocket, his mobile pressed to his ear as he smoked like a fucking chimney. 

He’d gotten a few minutes of charge on his phone at Fred and Taylor’s place—he and Fred had the same pack-of-tarot-cards size Nokia model. His would probably die in his pocket before he got back to Soho, but he had enough juice for one call. 

He got the voicemail for Dr. Beasley’s office. They were open on Saturdays but Georgia was five hours behind London; Harry knew full-well he was ringing their line at an absurd hour of the night. He didn’t expect to get a human—didn’t want to speak at length to anyone, but needed to get a session on the books immediately.   

The recording beeped, and he blew out a lungful of smoke which tasted like the Gryffindor Common Room on fire. “James Black,” he lied to the answering machine, giving his pseudonym. “First available appointment, please.” He recited his mobile number and hung up, popping his black-papered cigarette back in his mouth and pulling. A little nicotine was keeping him level, the burning paper providing some warmth for his hand as the winter wind picked up around him. Cigarette between his lips, he moved to zip up his jacket. 

“Harry? ‘Alo!” Caught in his own head, he didn’t recognize her voice at first—pleasant alto, Austrian accent, a mixture of German and softer Italian. He turned and saw Jana Möller coming up the bank’s stairs. She was waving at him to get his attention. They’d gone through Law Enforcement training together; Jana became an Auror. 

Harry had to search his brain for the name of the bloke with her, holding her hand… Robert something, a Ravenclaw prefect back when Harry was a first year. Robert was in his mid-twenties now but not much about him had changed except for a new pair of glasses and better robes. His clothes looked sharp, custom-made, tailored to fit his long skinny arms. A winter hat hid whether or not he’d changed his hair since school. 

“Jana. Good to see you,” Harry replied on autopilot, sticking out his hand to shake both of theirs. “Rob, always a pleasure.” 

Robert gave Harry a steady, appraising once-over—taking in the purple-grey bags which were surely under his eyes, his lived-in denims and loud-print shirt, his long hair, leather jacket, and lit cigarette back between his lips. He was very different from the eleven-year-old Rob met years ago, save for the glasses and perhaps his scar. They hadn’t seen each other in six years, which was plenty of time to become new people. 

“I think you and Draco had the right idea with a shotgun wedding,” the former prefect said conspiratorially. “Planning a ceremony is… it’s something,” he amended quickly, flashing a quick smile to Jana—not wanting her to think that the stress of organizing their wedding was putting him off. 

“We’re having a Christmas wedding, just like you,” Jana informed Harry, squeezing Rob’s hand with both her own excited ones. She had a pretty diamond ring on her finger which looked like an heirloom of Rob’s family. The stone was a third the size of the one currently sitting in Harry’s pocket. He let his eyes go to the ring on her finger, reminding himself what jewelry settings looked like, how metal brackets were needed to hold the stone in place. He’d be conjuring a metal band in a matter of minutes—as soon as he finished his cigarette and found a way out of this sociable run-in. 

“I cannot believe in thirty days I’m going to be Frau Hilliard!” Jana admitted, smiling happily. “We would love it if you and Draco could come.” 

“ _Süsse_ ,” Rob used a pet-name before correcting her gently. “It’s their first anniversary. I’m sure they already have plans.” 

That casual mention hit Harry like a bludger straight to the chest, winding him. _I couldn’t even make it a year without fucking things up_ , he spat in his head. 

Out loud, he said, “Thanks but we’ll be out of the country.” It was so easy to lie. He didn’t even think about it anymore—false statements just fell out of his mouth like snow from the sky. 

“Of course,” Jana conceded. “Please give Draco our best.”

Harry nodded, blowing smoke into the wind so it wouldn’t end up in their faces. 

Jana pulled on Rob’s hand, a silent suggestion they ought to continue on with their errands inside the bank. Robert hung a second longer, saying to Harry, “Great shirt, by the way. You’re all over the fashion pages these days _._ Where’d you get it?” 

Fuck. He was wearing Nebojsa’s shirt—a raucous pattern of black and silver scroll like iron work on a field of white silk, wound through with a design of blue ribbon and the silhouette outline of birds in flight. The overall effect was more like a woman’s silk neck scarf than a traditional shirt pattern. It was actually subdued for Nebojsa—Harry had thought to borrow the least loud of what was on the clothing rack. Harry had no idea where the shirt had come from; he simply took it off the hanger for its cool color palate and put it on, never looking at the tag. 

One more lie, then. “Sorry. Was a gift from a friend. Truth is I can barely dress myself—it’s all Draco.” Which was, for the most part, true. Everything Harry knew now came from his husband’s head. 

Rob laughed appreciatively—acknowledging that some blokes, gay or straight or somewhere in between, were born without an eye for fashion. “Where would we be without our better halves?” he commiserated. 

“Robbie,” Jana gave his hand another tug. 

“Good to see you,” Harry offered, Vanishing his cigarette with a magician-like curl of his fingers since it was spent—he was never one to drop his rubbish on the ground. Seeing Harry’s casual sorcery first-hand, Rob’s eyes widened behind his glasses. “Congrats on your engagement. I hope the wedding goes well.” 

Rob was stunned silent by Harry’s wandless, non-verbal magic, unable to get a sound out in parting. 

“Thanks, Harry. _Truß!_ ” Jana wished him goodbye as he started down the steps, giving what he hoped could be interpreted as a casual wave and not as awkward, as on-edge, as he felt. He needed to get away. A run-in with a happily engaged couple was literally the last thing he needed.

He had a diamond worth a house in his pocket which was hush money to a woman he’d effectively kidnapped, brainwashed, and concealed, as he was chatting with his Auror friend about her upcoming wedding. He could not compute the level of fucked-up his life had become while he was in his head making other plans. 

Without Draco as his focus, he was left with what he was. And he didn’t care much for the man he’d accidentally become.  

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Back at Fred and Taylor’s flat, he used his glance at Jana’s ring as a template, conjuring a simple silver setting for the massive diamond the goblins had appraised and valued a hair over the amount he and Taylor agreed upon. She’d have to pay tax when she sold it, anyway, and Harry wanted Taylor to walk away with the full amount. It was literally the least he could do, to keep to his word now. 

She surveyed the glittering stone before trying to hand the ring back to him. 

Harry refused. “No. That’s yours.” 

“Payment in advance? You’re awful trusting. What’s to stop me from taking this and fucking off?” 

Fred slapped his hands against his face, regretting giving Harry the reigns of this situation. He was probably thinking it would’ve been better never to have owled Harry in the first place. 

“Your word, I guess,” Harry told her frankly. 

“So we’re men of our word now, huh?” Gaze shifting between Harry and Fred, mocking them, she slipped the ring onto her finger. “Okay, _fiancé_ ,” the word was used contemptuously towards Fred. “I want brunch. And we have have no plates.” They were broken all over the floor. “Take us somewhere nice.” 

Fred gave Harry a long look. _Is this really better than the Imperius Curse?_ To Taylor, he said, “Sure. I’ll just change my kit an’ we’ll go eat.” He tugged off his mum-made jumper and went to the bedroom, searching out something Taylor would approve of for being seen in public. 

She turned to Harry. “So… why’d you stop? Change your mind or... ?” 

“I…” The lies were stacking up. He didn’t want to think up another falsehood, to build one more road-block between who he was and who he ought to be. “Draco and I had a fight yesterday. He… Draco left me.” He’d said it last night to Dima and Nebojsa. It was still hard to get the words out. A part of him didn’t believe it; this was some sick dream, like the nightmares he used to have through his link with Voldemort—soon enough he’d wake up, wake with Draco curled in bed beside him, and things would be back to normal. Except this _was_ his life, or what he’d made of it. His mistakes, everything he’d done in the dark, was colliding with his proper life. “I was in shock, freaked out, depressed. I lost control of the magic. I’m sorry, but you and the baby were the last thing on my mind when I woke up this morning.” 

Taylor gave a soft snort; her words heated, her tone detached. "What the hell did you do to that beautiful man? Cheat on him? Beat him? Kidnap some other girl and get her up the duff, too?" 

He deserved those accusations. From where Taylor stood, every one seemed plausible. 

He countered with the naked truth. "I started seeing a therapist, because I have Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from fighting in the war, and I was compartmentalizing my life to the point I couldn’t function socially. I started therapy because I didn’t like the way I was treating other people, including you. I wanted to learn how to be a better person.” He left out Draco’s Bipolar because it wasn’t pertinent, and it was Draco’s personal business what went on in his head. “When I told him I was in therapy he pointed a gun in my face, told me not to follow him, and he walked out. That was yesterday afternoon." 

Taylor made a non-committal noise in the back of her throat, nonplussed. "Maybe the gun in the face is a bit dramatic? But you deserve the rest." 

He didn’t have a response. Because everything she said was true.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

The chaps who worked for the limo company were starting their first shift when Harry returned to the warehouse in Southwark. He could hear the workers chatting, laughing, doing maintenance on their fleet of vehicles, getting ready to go out for their afternoon fares. It was a merry, industrious sort of noise. 

He took the stairs, climbing upward, the voices and metallic sounds of engine work fading, music coming to his ears instead. Strings of an acoustic guitar echoed faintly in the concrete and brick hall separating his friends’ home from the professional working spaces. 

Harry had locked their door with magic when he left. He’d always been stodgy about home security; more-so after Draco came to live with him. He was still on hyper-alert after a group of Death Eaters had burst into the Harpers’ very secure house. 

The handle moved under his hand, the door left unlocked in anticipation of his return. Harry slipped in. 

Nebojsa was home alone—the bedroom and bathroom doors were wide open, no one in either room, and the smattering of dirty clothes and drop canvases on the floor had been cleared away. A clean floor meant that Dima was out, Sia tidying up after him like a six foot tall tattooed house elf. 

The sorcerer sat with his long legs stretched out across two chairs in the kitchen, a six-string acoustic guitar over his slim thigh. He seemed to be looking out the window, fingering the strings in a simple melody. A closer look showed there was something on the window sill… a silver box? Harry took a few steps closer. It was a bread pan, with a dish towel draped over the top. Nebojsa appeared to be serenading a ball of homemade bread dough, encouraging it to rise.   

It was a ridiculous idea—singing to bread. Yet it was exactly the sort of thing Nebojsa would do. The little yeast particles in the bread were alive, and Nebojsa was wishing them well, encouraging their place within the workings of the larger universe. Eventually, when the time was right, he would bake the bread and eat it; like a farmer talking and tending to his animals, knowing he would soon slaughter them to feed himself and others, but wanting them to have a good life and to make the most of their lot. 

Nebojsa knew that destruction wasn’t sinister in itself. He celebrated the process of things. He found joy in the smallest of actions or the darkest of hours. His faith helped him to not be afraid, to move beyond fear. There was nothing left to stop him. He expressed himself as he saw fit, having no qualms about doing something so silly as play a song to his Saturday fermentation project. 

Harry had discovered over the summer that bread-making was one of his mate’s hidden hobbies. Sia learned at the monastery, where he and the monks would bake bread to distribute to the poor and the homeless—because praying for people was a lovely thing to do, but prayers were best when backed up by one’s actions. You had to physically embody the things you believed in. Nebojsa knew how to do that; it was a sort of magic Harry desperately wanted to wield. 

Sia was barefoot, tapping the side of his foot now and again against the wooden chair, keeping time to the sweet song which he played for his bread. He didn’t stop when Harry came in—his head turned, catching sight of his houseguest from the corner of one chilled blue eye. He said nothing, just dropped his chin a tiny bit, acknowledging that Harry had come back. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry said. He didn’t know where else to start. 

Because he was English and apologized about a dozen times a day for seemingly inconsequential things, Nebojsa just looked slightly confused. He didn’t see anything for Harry to be sorry for. 

“I borrowed your shirt without asking. I’m sorry,” Harry repeated. 

Long fingers stilled, Sia’s attention turning to him. “Yoo never vear bright colors. It looks good on yoo. Of courze I do not mind.” 

“Still,” Harry insisted, unzipping his jacket now he was in the warmth of their flat. “I shouldn’t have helped myself to something of yours. It was rude of me.” 

Nebojsa propped his foot up on the edge of the chair; twisting to look at Harry squarely, his knee up, setting his guitar aside for the moment, its neck leaned against the side of their simple kitchen table. 

“ _Dobro_ ,” he agreed, a Serbian word meaning ‘okay’ or ‘fine,’ conceding to Harry’s point of guilt. Harry got the impression Sia only said that to make him feel better, along with his next statement. “From now on, yoo have permission to borrow my clothes as yoo like. Vot iz mine, iz yours.” 

For a second, his clean jaw moved, a flicker of muscle as though he were biting the inside of his cheek or pressing his molars together—biting back a compliment. Harry saw it in his palest-blue eyes: _my clothes suit you_. Nebojsa chose not to say it, as it could be taken the wrong way; as flirting, maybe, but he could also sense that Harry wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be taking compliments, and so he held his approbation back. 

Sick of talking to each other from across the big open room, Harry walked over. 

Nebojsa kept his mouth shut, understanding Harry had more to say. He gave the Englishman the time he needed to get his words together, watching as he removed his leather jacket, draping it over the back of a chair. 

Harry leaned into the chair-back in front of him, using his hands to take some of his weight when he didn’t quite feel like sitting down. He spoke to Sia, looking at his own feet. 

“Why are you so damn nice to me?” 

It was almost a complaint—and he accidentally swore. He ought to be able to better control his foul mouth. That was another bad habit of his, something from his husband. Swearing was a part of how they communicated. But according to Sia it could also serve as a distraction, and often muddled how you truly felt. There were so many words in so many languages available to them, and Harry couldn’t manage to edit a select few out of his vocabulary around his friend. It was a kind of deference and respect he used to have. He rarely swore in front of his professors or Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Somewhere along the way he’d lost that verbal filter, and started swearing at everyone indiscriminately. 

Nebojsa shrugged. “I zhink… yoo vould razher have a friend right now zhan a critic, no?” 

Harry countered. “Be my friend, sure. Just don’t let me walk all over you for the sake of being nice. In English we call that being a doormat.” 

The smallest laugh stuck in Sia’s mouth. He didn’t open his lips to let the sound out, but Harry knew it was there. He couldn’t figure out what Sia was laughing about. 

“In zhat case,” he said. “If yoo have an owl… please latch zhe vindow after. _Promaja_ ,” he gestured to the window through which Harry had received Fred’s owl early that morning.

Harry was truly a bell-end and a terrible friend—so lost in his own world that he left his friends’ window wide open, treating them to a freezing cold room after they got out of the shower. They had magic to instantly re-heat the room, but still. He was inconsiderate. He was rude. He thought of himself before others—including his friends who were kind enough to welcome him into their home and take care of his wreck of a self last night. He repaid them by letting their house turn frigid. 

Nebojsa was totally calm about it—not angry, simply offering information. “In Serbia, zhe draft from open vindows iz how evil spirits enter zhe home.” That made sense. Every time Dima threw the windows open—venting the fumes from his painting projects—Nebojsa came by that night with a burning smudge-stick of sage, shutting the windows, muttering, waving the smoking herbs over the windowsill in a blessing, cross motion. He was purging the house, protecting them from vengeful spirits. “Ve do not leave vindows open. Iz a… superstition.” One which even Dima didn’t always observe. 

In Harry’s mind, he was just one more unholy spirit, haunting his friends’ lives, taking up space in their house. He was one of the evils sneaking in through their open emotional windows. 

He took his hands from the chair, stuffing them in his back pockets instead. He told the table surface, “Sorry about that. And sorry for crashing your weekend.” 

“Harry. Yoo are velcome as long as yoo like. Yoo could never be a burden.” 

He didn’t know what to say to that—Sia being unnecessarily nice to him all over again. He spoke to Harry’s greatest fear, soothing him effortlessly. Harry didn’t know how to respond. The only other person who could read his emotions so effortlessly was Draco: his husband once compared Harry to a children’s book with gobs of pictures… but that was because Harry had let him in, felt comfortable expressing his true self. With Nebojsa, even if he was shut-up tight, his friend still knew what was going on in his head as much as in his heart. 

Uncomfortable, Harry changed the subject away from himself. “Where are the brothers?” 

Pale eyes flicked up to regard the ceiling, recalling their schedules. “Mishenka—at zhe gym. Dimka iz in _Ruminia_ , to oversee zhe vinterizing of zhe outer buildings. Zhey vill be gone a few hours.” So he and Sia would be alone. “Tonight zhey have very important meeting vith officials from Romanian magical government and Zhe International Council. And Lucian, zheir dhampir ancestor. Zhey discuss passing zhe duchy to Lucian as an impostor Tiho—zince Dima refuses, and zomeone must.” 

Harry understood Dima wasn’t ready to come out, yet he was quietly protesting the restrictions against LGBT people in his country by outright refusing to accept his father’s title. It was a noble gesture. And both magical groups stood to gain from concealing Tihomir’s death from the muggle public for a while longer—like it or not, the duke had been a prominent figure in local politics and culture. Harry had seen with his own eyes the massive civic building in the town named after him, since he donated the money for its construction and maintenance, relieving local taxpayers of the burden. 

Tihomir may have been a ruthless psychopath, but he was equally as charismatic and influential as he was cruel; he knew how to get people to buy his bullshit so that he could freely get away with literal murder whenever it suited him. Just like… Harry. 

The town needed someone to keep things steady. And a two-hundred year old half-vampire wizard might be the one to do it: a fake, called in to steer the ship until Dima was ready to step up. 

“Cool,” said Harry lamely. He didn’t know how else to respond, or what might be appropriate. The situation was completely out of his depth: Dima and Misha were princes, while Harry grew up in a cupboard in Surrey. He still didn’t know that much about Sia’s upbringing, other than his living with a muggle aunt and uncle in downtown Belgrade after his parents died. Harry imagined it must’ve been a bit rough, meaning Sia might’ve felt some of the same awkwardness Harry experienced now, never knowing the correct way to behave or speak when it came to their friends’ status as royalty. Harry did his best to ignore it, but Sia wouldn’t have had that choice—especially with Tihomir as their Potions professor. Nebojsa was considered far below the Ionescues in station, and so he’d learned the manners and protocol expected of him in public. 

Harry asked, “What about you? Plans for today?” Because, like Harry, Sia had the habit of throwing attention onto other people to detract from himself. It was a false humility Harry picked up to avoid the attention of bullies like the Dursleys: in Sia’s case, his deflection came from his rigorous study as a novice monk, always limiting focus on himself in order to raise others up. In Harry’s opinion, Dima didn’t need any lifting—his pride and ego were plenty high. 

“Oh!” Nebojsa seemed surprised Harry would ask after his schedule. “I go vith friends to a concert tonight. Iga, Lina _i_ Mandy, Yura,” he named who else was going. Of course he wanted to hang out with Iga and include her after her sister’s death. It was a good idea to get out of the house and be around people she’d known for years. “Zhere are no tickets, only pay at zhe door. Yoo are velcome to join us, of courze.” 

He was trying to give Harry something to do as well, a spark to look forward to. Harry worried music might only remind him of Draco. “Thanks. I’ll think about it.” 

Sia nodded agreeably. Leaning back in his chair, he inquired after Harry. “Have yoo eaten?” 

Harry shook his head. He hadn’t thought of it, forcing himself through the many difficult tasks of the day as though his body were a machine, smoking so he wouldn’t realize he was starving. 

He refused to take care of himself… ignoring his own needs was a way he punished himself, common amongst people with PTSD. It was the same as when Draco refused to have the scars from his torture healed. They were like house elves who insulted their families and then had to reflexively beat themselves about the head for it. They needed to hurt themselves. Maybe it was to distract from all the other pains they felt, to manifest the mental and emotional anguish into something physical which could then be seen and justified. Or because they didn’t think they were worthy of basic, decent things, like food or water or looking nice. That was why Harry had kept Dudley’s old clothes; a part of him didn’t think he deserved any better. 

Nebojsa tipped his head, trying to make contact with Harry’s gaze. He couldn’t catch it. Harry wasn’t ready to be treated like a person. He was a monster who hurt people, lied to them, to get what he wanted. Monsters didn’t deserve a bloody breakfast fry-up. 

“Vhy don’t you have a nice long shower, and I vill make yoo breakfast,” his overly nice friend suggested. “Eggs? _Proja i kajmak_?” That was a kind of peasant corn bread with creamy, fluffy white cheese to spread over it. _Proja_ and raw _kajmak_ cheese was the most addictive combination of sweet and savory, dense chew and lightness, melting against your tongue. He could eat an entire family-sized platter of the stuff. 

Harry groaned, closing his eyes, feeling like the scum of the earth. His friend was offering to cook for him… and suggesting he take a shower, which could only mean one thing. “Oh God,” he swore again, unconsciously, then flinched. “I smell, don’t I?” 

He hadn’t thought to put on deodorant in his hurry to get to Fred and Taylor’s that morning. And he’d been walking around the city quite a bit, running errands. After taking his jacket off, Sia could probably smell him from a meter away, past the heavy waft of cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes and hair. Harry was mortified. He’d sweat in his mate’s shirt. He _smelled_. He could die of embarrassment. 

Sia’s brows immediately knit, not wanting Harry to be self-conscious or misunderstand him. “No, notzing like zhat! I thought, zhe hot vater….” He gestured vaguely, a spiraled uplifting gesture around his neck. Sia was trying to help him relax, to find a moment to be alone. “It alvays helps me think.” 

“ _Dobro_ ,” Harry agreed. Nebojsa smiled to himself, moving into the kitchen to make Harry breakfast. The Englishman in him began to protest automatically. “But you don’t have to cook for me. I can make my own.” 

A hand on the refrigerator handle, Sia looked back over his shoulder. Harry liked the way his hair moved—like black water in a wizarding photograph, forever flowing. It was an optical illusion created by the way light struck his ever-shiny hair, making it seem as though those silken strands were always moving. 

If Nebojsa wore glasses, he’d be looking at Harry over the top rims of them, his narrow nose pointed down. “Vot if I vant to?” he quipped. “May I do as _I_ please?” 

At that moment, Harry’s traitorous stomach gave a great grumble which Sia could surely hear. Harry turned pink. 

He conceded. “Only… if it makes you happy.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Glasses off, naked and damp, surrounded by a pleasant steam, Harry picked his way through bottles and pretty glass jars in languages he couldn’t read. 

Funny enough, Misha was the one who bought so many God damn bath products. The stereotype of gay and gay-adjacent men being concerned with skin care didn’t hold true in the Ionescue household. Dima used tanning oil in the summer, deodorant, quite a bit of cologne, and that was it. Sia wore eyeliner when he felt like it and brushed his long hair so it didn’t get tangled. But it was Misha who religiously washed his face with three different soaps, or poured bottles of this-and-that in the tub to soak, until the loo smelled like the Prefect’s Bathroom at Hogwarts with its hundred spouts of bubbles. 

In their shower, Harry didn’t know what bottle was for what. He needed to wash his pits and bits, and perhaps his hair. That was all. 

He rarely used other people’s homes to wash up. Come to think of it, aside from Hogwarts he’d only ever taken a shower at the Ionescue palace and the Burrow. With the Weasley clan, gold was tight and bathing products were sparse. There was one family-sized container of shampoo, one bar of soap which Harry suspected Mrs. Weasley made from scratch, and a bottle of body lotion on the counter with the discount tag still on it. At the Weasleys, Harry never worried about what to use because there were no choices to it… which was a striking metaphor for his life. Until Voldemort was dead, he never felt he had much of a choice. Now that he was on his own, he had far too many choices to make, and it felt as though he was always picking the wrong one. 

It was strange and a bit surreal to be blundering through his mates’ personal grooming supplies. He felt like an interloper even when Sia had given him permission. He immediately set down anything written in Japanese or Korean—those were obviously Misha’s and he didn’t want to mess with them. After a minute he stopped looking at labels and went by smell alone.

He sniffed a fancy-looking jar, the contents of which smelled like coconuts with the appearance and consistency of green-grey mud, the label entirely in French. He put it back. 

Something citrusy—likely for the face. Flowery, like roses—maybe for the body, but maybe not. Astringent—for treating pimples or oiliness, yet he didn’t want to risk using it incorrectly. 

Woody, warm, with a bit of lime. That had to be Dima’s bodywash. Pits and bits were attended to. 

A few bottles later, Harry found a milky liquid which smelt of vanilla and white chocolate. Awkward, but he immediately recognized the scent from Nebojsa’s hair. 

Still unable to shake the sensation that he was doing something wrong, Harry squeezed a bit into his palm and lathered up.

 

 

 

 

“Господи Помилуј....” 

Nebojsa's knuckly hands gripped the edge of the kitchen counter as soon as Harry was sequestered in the bathroom. He needed the wooden box screwed to the wall to maintain his balance. He let his body double over, folding himself in half—bending, bowing to the invisible but very real pressure. Back straight and parallel with the floor, his humbled pose took some of the weight off of his spine.  

He felt lightheaded. His heart threatened to slam out of his chest and bounce away along the concrete floor. He could feel it banging against his ribs, clamoring for escape. 

Seeing Harry Potter wear his shirt was nothing short of an arrow through the heart. Complimentary, a sort of admiration, nearness, relief, a balm to the spirit. Harry carried a piece of Nebojsa on his broad back, out into the world to conduct whatever clandestine machinations he was up to these days. Harry kept too much to himself. But he'd felt a kind of comfort in having Nebojsa with him. 

The gesture shot too close to his own romantic side. He'd neglected romance for years; it had little place in his mind during the war, and only now were the urges returning. He _wanted_ to see Harry in his clothes. Because, in a way, it was like knowing Harry more intimately than with all his clothes off. Harry picked up his shirt and flew out the door as a lover would. The thought of Harry dashing about Diagon Alley in his clothes made his poor strangled heart skip another beat, made blood sing in his ears, made his knees weak. 

Harry didn’t mean it that way. The Boy Who Lived was being practical, efficient. He hadn’t intended any symbolism or sentiment. Harry’s actions only reached him, affected him, struck him, because of his own deeply emotional investment.   

Nebojsa breathed deep into his belly, fighting the sensation he was about to faint. 

Except there was something on the air with each breath, permeating the flat. It was Harry's sweat, the magic on his skin and maleness of his body drifting into Nebojsa's nose with every attempt to breathe the man away.

Harry smelled... incredible. He was natural, his scent always lingering in the air around him when you were lucky enough to be granted that closeness. His smell was intensified by the delirious fact that he hadn't showered after rolling out of _their_ bed that morning. Harry was spiced rum and ginger, exotic powders, and burnt sugar like the color of his skin beneath his wavy black hair and high-end silk outlining his muscles in a tease to drive anyone mad. 

He'd left the room but the musk of his skin lingered, his magic still possessing the air. Harry had no idea how powerful his presence was, how overwhelming. He didn't understand what he did to the senses. His scent, the deep thrum of his voice, his hesitantly sweet and boyish manners, even his earnest desire to correct mistakes. Nebojsa just wanted to hug him, hold him again, mother him, until his confidence budded back like crocus coming up through the snow. Harry was a man broken in half. This was a winter for his spirit, his ground frozen. He had to survive, to hold on inside himself and not give up hope, until his exterior thawed. 

Harry needed a gentle hand carding through his hair, massaging his scalp, trailing down his neck to ease tense muscles. He needed hands to gently wash his hair in the shower. He needed to feel human again, loved, looked after. And he wasn't going to give that care to himself because, as he was, he didn't think he deserved the courtesy of a meal, let alone kindness or pleasure for his body. 

And there was no one to give that to him, no one to offer their love for him when he didn't love himself. Harry would have to come around on his own. 

Harry accused Nebojsa of being a doormat. Because Harry couldn't recognize unconditional love when it was right in front of him; consoling him, supporting him, trying to cook him breakfast. 

" _Gospodi pomiluy_ ," he repeated the prayer. _Lord have mercy on us sinners_. 

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Dr. Beasley’s regular assistant was on holiday, meaning Harry didn’t recognize the gently smiling, twenty-something African-American lady behind the front desk when he arrived. This substitute secretary handed Harry a few pages stapled together, with a note from the doc stuck to the top. He recognized Akilah’s handwriting. 

 

 

 

 

> _If_ _you would please answer the questions honestly based on how you feel today. I won’t be reading your answers, all I need is your numeric score when you’re done. You can give this packet back to Janelle and she’ll shred it for you.  – Dr B_  

 

Having shown up a quarter of an hour early, he helped himself to a bottle of water from the complementary cooler in the waiting room before sitting down to answer nosy questions. 

Six months ago, he would’ve scoffed at a clinical assessment like this: now he saw value in an occasional self-appraisal. These questions could help identify patterns in his inner thoughts or behaviors he might not be aware of otherwise. 

He couldn’t make out quite what the questionnaire was getting at. Sometimes it probed towards PTSD-like symptoms, while other questions seemed to hint at depression or anxiety. Some pointed toward normal qualities like shyness, or touched on things he said or did as a result of being out. He charged through: there were several pages to mark up, and then he had maths to do when he was done. Certain sections were weighted, some answers worth more points than others.

 

I was bullied as a kid.  _–Yes_

My relationship with my parents/guardians is difficult, strained, or non-existent.  _–Yes_

Outside of my family, I only have a few close friends.  _–Yes_

I need potential friends or romantic partners to prove their trustworthiness to my satisfaction before I’m willing to consider deepening my relationship with them.  _–Yes_

I am highly suspicious of people who praise or flatter me.  _–Yes_

Strangers who approach me typically do so because they want something from me.   _–Yes_

I often feel out of place at gatherings, or have nothing in common to talk about with people outside of my regular social circle.  _–Yes_

I avoid situations where I would have to interact with people who dislike me, disagree with me, or disapprove of me.  _–Yes_

I observe other people’s behavior and try to copy them in order to blend in.  _–Yes_

I enforce strict boundaries for who is allowed physical contact with me and who is not.  _–Yes_

Other people have unrealistic expectations of me.  _–Yes_

My actions, words, and emotions are highly scrutinized by others. _–Yes_

I have a difficult time accepting critiques or criticism, especially from those I care about.  _–Yes_

I find it hard to ask for help.  _–Yes_

It is devastating for me when I disappoint someone I love.  _–Yes_

I have trouble experiencing pleasure, or allowing myself to feel happy.  _–Yes_

I am self-conscious or unsure about my physical appearance. _–Yes_

I don’t feel attractive, or have trouble identifying what others find sexually desirable about me.  _–Yes_

Dating is/was more stressful for me compared to my peers.  _–Yes_

When someone makes me uncomfortable, causes a public scene, or stirs up unnecessary drama, I cut them out of my life.  _–Yes_

I hold back parts of myself from my friends and family because I don’t want them to judge me, reject me, or abandon me.  _–Yes_

I lie in order to make myself look better, to cover up my mistakes, or to avoid reprimand.  _–Yes_

 

Every other question he answered with a ‘no,’ which in some cases earned him more points. He got a little worried when his final score was 423. Memorizing the number as he stood, he passed his packet back to the receptionist, Janelle, and watched like a hawk as she dropped his papers into the shredding machine behind her desk. 

Most people would’ve handed over their papers and walked away—after taking that test, Harry was more acutely aware of his lack of trust in this young woman he’d never met before today; his hovering cynical observation, needing to be absolutely sure she destroyed the evidence that he wasn’t as self-secure as he pretended to be. Which was totally neurotic from the outside, but made perfect sense to all the self-protective feelings flying around in his chest. He was reaching Alastor Moody levels of paranoia, watching this poor girl try to do her job under his weird, edgy presence. 

Janelle was likely very much aware of his eyes on her—he stood directly in front of her desk, not hiding his focus—but she didn’t seem perturbed, or remotely creeped-out. Many of Dr. Beasley’s other patients were military, too, and the others with PTSD and trust issues probably kept just as close of an eye on her. She was probably trained by Dr. Beasley to understand that it was _his_ problem, and had nothing to do with thinking she wasn’t good at her job. His traumatized brain needed to be sure she destroyed all evidence of his weakness. Because Death Eaters or reporters might go through the clinic’s garbage and realize that this packet with no identifying markings had in fact been filled out by Harry Potter. 

He forced himself to breathe. He was being ridiculous. 

As he was crossing the waiting room—going back to his seat where he belonged—the door to Akilah’s office opened and one of her other patients walked out. Harry froze. So did Ivan Ješić. 

Their gazes locked. Both were immediately lost as to what was the acceptable mode of behavior in this situation. Did they acknowledge one another? Pretend to have never met? Or attempt to ignore each other completely, each willing the other out of his field of vision like some fluke hallucination? 

Technically speaking, Ivan was Harry’s indirect supervisor at the Ministry, outranking him by a smidge, and before that they’d been co-workers here in America. Their shared past was a major contributing factor to Ivan’s new job—Ivan had taught Harry to sharp-shoot, had been with him on his first Field Ops mission. And Harry was one of only a few people who knew that Ivan was still sheltering Pavel and Anka Gregorovitch in his guesthouse, passing the old couple off as his grandparents. Most Americans couldn’t tell the difference between Russians and Serbian people, anyway; and even then, it was possible that a guy from Serbia might have grandparents from another country. Wars displaced many people in that part of the world—a fact which helped the wandmaker and his wife hide that much more effectively. 

It was Pavel Gregorovitch working in secret who provided the Ministry with their current arsenal, of which Ivan was chief Quartermaster and instructor at Fenchurch. 

Harry and Ivan weren’t exactly mates but… just like that stupid test pointed out, Harry was looking to Ivan, waiting for the older wizard to make the first move so that he could mirror the more confident, outgoing man’s behavior. 

Harry was an awkward son of a bitch, standing there like he’d been Stunned—legs still aimed toward his seat, his torso and head turned, staring at Ivan like the ginger wizard was one of Luna’s Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. His famous green eyes were probably huge behind his glasses—they felt dry, and it wasn’t just the winter air in Savannah. 

For a second, Ivan didn’t know what the hell to do, either. They were both caught someplace they’d rather no one be made aware they frequented. Ivan was a huge guy, built like an American football player; Harry watched as the bloke tried to compose himself, saw his Adam’s apple jump under his ginger-gold beard, the muscles in his neck flexing as he forced a thick, panicked, uncomfortable swallow. He was rendered as visibly nervous and directionless as Harry. 

They faced each other like two desperados in a standoff, neither certain if speaking first made them the winner or the loser. And Slavic men were highly competitive—few more-so than Ivan. It appeared that their sudden meeting threw him off his game as much as it rattled Harry. 

Miraculously, a latent part of Harry’s brain managed to push out a greeting. “ _Zdravo_.” It was a Serbian word, sounding an awful lot like the Russian _Zdravstvuyte_. It literally meant ‘health.’ People used it to say both hello and goodbye. 

Ivan followed Harry’s lead. “ _Pozdrav_.” The Serbian version of ‘hey.’ And he bucked up his chin—a strong bit of body language Harry recognized from other Durmstrang guys. Viktor did it. So did Misha and Dima. Seeing that tiny motion made Harry feel like a member of their club; he had to do the secret-handshake-chin-lift back. He hoped it looked right—keeping his face focused and blank, his eyebrows down, that small-but-significant movement of his head, like pulling a trigger. 

Akilah would probably say that all of this macho posturing only meant so much to Harry because he’d never had a positive male role model as a child, so he looked up to just about any bloke who was a father-like figure. 

Ivan remained in shock, so it fell to Harry to keep going. 

“ _Opet, ti?_ ” In three syllables, Harry was able to crack a joke. _In Serbian_ , no less! His sarcastic tone did most of the work, anyway. _You again?_  

Ivan’s cheeks lifted. He had dimples under his beard when he smiled. Harry had managed to stick a pin in the situation and deflate it, siphoning some of the tension out of the room. Janelle stared at them from behind the desk with her mouth open. 

“ _Kako si?_ ” Ivan asked how Harry was doing. 

 _Fine_ was the only thing he could say and get them both on their way as quickly as possible. “ _Dobro, a ti?_ ” 

“ _Dobro takođe._ ” Ivan rubbed his hand against the back of his neck, feeling the same pressure as Harry to get on. “ _Videmo se_?” _See you soon?_  

Harry jerked his chin again. “ _Videćemo se Ponedeljak. Aj ćao_.” Because—when he was panicked and not thinking—he apparently spoke perfect Serbian, including knowing the word for ‘Monday’ off the top of his head, despite having never heard it before. 

“ _Doviđenja_ _p_ _rijatno, Odabrani_ ,” Ivan said goodbye as well, calling him The Chosen One with a nervous sort of smile. Harry knew the title from Sia’s lips… and yet there was a part of his brain not just hearing the language and translating but inherently understanding in real-time, without the barrier of English. It wasn’t a lingering Translation Spell—it was something entirely different. 

Ivan didn’t seem to know the difference, clearly suspecting Harry had a Serbian Translation Charm left over from work or something. The big man gave a wave, passing Harry on his way out. 

As the door closed behind him, the receptionist Janelle sucked in a noisy breath through her teeth. Harry turned back to see her flinching. 

“I am _so_ sorry,” she apologized in her American accent. “I checked both your files, but… Micah didn’t leave any notes that you two know each other.” Micah was the usual weekend receptionist, the face Harry was accustomed to seeing. “If I’d known, I never would’ve scheduled you back-to-back. Again, I—”

“’S alright,” Harry told her, holding up his palm in a universal sign of forgiveness so she’d know she didn’t have to keep saying she was sorry. As a Brit, apologizing was _his_ job. 

“I’ll update it right now.” She started typing on the desktop keyboard in front of her. Dr. Beasley used software to schedule her patients but kept her session notes offline and in hard copy, locked in a cabinet in her office. After taking Harry on as a patient, she hired a Field Ops Team to shield the entire building and conduct regular sweeps. That was a risk and a burden the doc was willing to take on, to help him. 

Janelle’s nails clicked against the keys, reminding Harry of the sound of raindrops against a car windshield. She asked by way of idle conversation, “What language was that, by the way?” 

Harry walked back to her desk so they didn’t have to speak loudly. “Serbian.” 

She raised her eyebrows. Like Misha, she had a piercing in one of them. “Speaks… fluent… Serbian,” she said the words as she typed them into her computer. 

Harry couldn’t help his curiosity, asking in a low voice, “What else does my file say?” 

Her brown eyes flicked up at him. Something about his gaze seemed to hold her attention. She had rich hazelnut-colored skin but Harry could still make out the blush overtaking her cheeks the longer she looked at him. 

“Just that… your name isn’t really James Black. You’re a covert agent with an overseas phone number, and all your sessions are automatically charged to your Amex.” She pulled away from him to glance again at the screen; she frowned at what she saw there, then turned her eyes back to him. Her blush was fading, replaced by confusion. “And you’re married.” 

Bollocks. Was he flirting? He needed a book or something— _An Asexual’s Guide To Avoid Accidentally Hitting On People When Trying To Be Polite_. He would read it cover-to-cover, to prevent blindly walking himself into situations like this. So long as there was a chapter on why people seemed to fetishize an English accent, and how he might get around the effect his voice had on people. Because he hadn’t figured that one out yet. 

From the other side of the room, Dr. Beasley loudly cleared her throat. She gestured into her office, inviting Harry in. “Shall we?” 

Harry tried for an apologetic smile towards Janelle—he probably just looked sheepish before he ducked into Akilah’s office. 

With the door closed, his therapist offered him a contrite sort of frown. “I take it you and Ivan bumped into one another? I apologize. That shouldn’t have happened.” She was aware they worked in the same office, in related branches of work. 

“It’s fine,” Harry offered. “I’m the one who called for a last-minute appointment. I’m just glad you could fit me in.” He parked his bum in the middle of the sofa as Akilah sat in her usual chair. “So, what was that test for?” 

“I wanted to catch you when you’re at less than your best,” she said candidly.

Harry shrugged. “I figured as much. I got 423, by the way. What was it looking for? Does a high score mean something significant?” he pressed. 

“Any score over three hundred is cause for concern,” she told him. “The test is designed to identify a condition called AvPD—Avoidant Personality Disorder.” 

Harry betrayed nothing with his body language or voice, keeping perfectly still. “That’s what you think I have?” 

Akilah shook her head. “No. You’re a bit young to be diagnosed with a Cluster C Personality Disorder. We would generally wait until a patient is fully developed—mid-twenties or later. AvPD is uncommon, but it’s something we see when a highly intuitive person like yourself is denied proper socialization, or deprived of family bonding experiences early in life.” 

Harry summarized, “Being locked in a cupboard delayed my social skills. The way the Dursleys isolated me made it harder for me to put myself out there when I had the chance, because I was late in figuring out how relationships are built and maintained.” 

Akilah nodded. “I would say that the betrayals and hardships of your life have had an impact on who you turn to in a crisis. As a child the Dursleys were abusive; you relied on magical people like the Weasleys, Sirius Black, and Albus Dumbledore to frighten your abusers and shield you. When confused or overwhelmed, you often looked to creatures for help—Hedwig, Dobby, Fawkes, Buckbeak. When Dementors side-lined you, you turned to the werewolf Remus Lupin for defencive lessons. When Dolores Umbridge tortured you, you felt your friends were too close to the situation and you didn’t want to endanger them. When Cho Chang caused you to question your romantic inclinations for the first time—you retreated, accepting a relationship with Ginny soon there-after. Later, you threw yourself into your relationship with Draco after your friends responded negatively to your coming out: and then you replaced them with new mates from the Balkans who are highly sympathetic to your side of things.” 

Because he’d _literally_ replaced Ron and Hermione with Dima and Misha using Polyjuice Potion, pulling his old schoolmates into the line of fire in order to protect his new friends—his gut instinct telling him to shield the most damaged, the wizards who were most like himself. He was always looking out for anyone like him, those who had it rough growing up, or anyone society rejected… like Luna, Draco, Leon. Those were the people with whom he bonded well and deeply. 

Akilah wasn’t nearly done. “When you lost another mentor, Alastor Moody, rather than return to your existing social network you reached out to his even more reclusive friend, Leon Harper. When the British Ministry collapsed, you decided to fight You-Know-Who on your own. You moved to America—you went around the world in order to build a fresh army, doing things your own way. And when you felt your marriage hitting a rough patch, you came to me. 

“The pattern, here, is your tendency to reach out to distant third-parties when you encounter difficulties—you seek outsiders to your situation as your new allies, people you sense are more likely to take your side. In each of those examples I gave you, there was a more traditional route to follow in getting help. But those traditional options would have involved vulnerability on your part, self-exposure, the possibility of rejection, or the discovery of information you wished to keep to yourself. You repeatedly choose to seek out new places, new support systems, rather than rely on the strong relationships you’ve already built: the people who are right there, ready and willing to help you, should you ask.

“Now I’m not accusing you of running from your problems,” she prefaced, knowing that would be the first rebuttal on Harry’s lips. “You’re a brave man. You surround yourself with other inventive free-thinkers. You like to do things a certain way. There’s nothing harmful or unhealthy in that. But you do leave people behind, dismissing them from your life if they don’t fall in line with your vision, if they criticize you too harshly, if they won’t go along with your plans. When you fear someone might abandon you for being true to yourself, you ditch them first, so they can’t reject you.” 

She was talking about how he walked away from his family—the Weasleys, Ron and Hermione, Remus—when they didn’t support his choices. Was he supposed to stick around and argue with them while the world burned? 

“Doc…” Harry interrupted, apathetic, voice stripped of any emotion. “I’m not exactly in the mood to explore why I’m rubbish as a friend. Today’s… not a good day. What’s the take-away from this AvPD shit? What am I supposed to get out of it?” 

She leaned back in her chair, considering the stone wall affectation he was giving her. “When you’re in a crisis, Harry, I want you to question your instinct to pull back and isolate yourself. And I want you to be aware of these patterns of constantly seeking biased or outside support. It’s great that you called this morning and came in. That’s the right step. I want you to stick with that motivation—sharing, talking things out, that feeling of opening up and reaching immediately around you, gathering your resources. You could never be a burden,” she repeated words Nebojsa had said to him that morning, and they weren’t any easier to hear from her than they’d been from Sia. “Asking for help is the bravest thing you can do. I’m always here for you—and so is Draco, and Ron and Hermione, the Weasleys and the Harpers… everyone who loves you wants to be there for you, to support you through whatever you’re facing.” 

 _No_ _!_ his brain argued immediately. _The Weasleys think my marriage to Draco is bound to fail: they think we’re too young and too different to make it work. Hermione and Ron would probably be_ _chuffed to bits_ _that Draco walked out_ _—they’d have their old mate back_. _Alm_ _ost everyone_ _disapproves_ _of Draco and would secretly be happy to hear we’ve separated._  

That was why he went immediately to the Harpers; they would understand Draco’s thought-process and be able to help Harry organize for his safety. That was why he ended up hugged between Dima and Sia last night. Because he defaulted to people who agreed with him, people who were predisposed to see his situation from his perspective… the people he’d let in, those who knew the truth about him, and the truth about Draco. Nebojsa and the Harpers were the only ones who knew Harry was in therapy. They were the only friends he’d confided in, felt comfortable disclosing Draco’s mental health issues to. He knew they’d understand, would support him, wouldn’t judge… because they’d already been there themselves—hell, they were _still_ in the fight, every damn day, just like Harry. 

When he panicked, Harry returned to his war buddies. He went back to the trenches, because as far as he was concerned only someone who’d fought that war could comprehend what he was going through. By knowing the experience, living it together, they could help each other through. 

Why did he think the Weasleys would be any less understanding if he told them everything? Why didn’t he open up to them the same as he’d blurted the truth to Nebojsa or the Harpers? The Weasleys were some of his oldest and most loyal, loving friends. What happened, that he no longer trusted his first real family? He’d run away, forming this second outter circle to whom he could retreat when he was afraid of losing what he’d built in the last seven years. 

He ran because experience told him that honesty and truth-telling was the surest path to abandonment. He accidentally spoke Parseltongue in front of half of Hogwarts during second year—and everyone decided he was the Heir of Slytherin trying to kill his fellow students. The entire school turned on him, ostracizing him until he could prove it wasn’t true. He attempted to have a human conversation with Rita Skeeter once—she published steaming piles of rubbish about him which everyone believed and ridiculed him for. He was starting to build something real with Sirius—and Sirius got murdered because Harry took Voldemort’s bait. When he told Ron and Hermione he might be gay—they walked out of his life. He confided in Remus Lupin about his intentions towards Draco—he got himself screamed at… and then Remus was killed in battle, too. Harry told Draco he was in therapy—Draco left. 

Telling the truth drove people away. Telling the truth shattered others’ good opinion of him. Telling the truth lost him allies and broke his friendships. Telling the truth made him impossible to love. 

Or maybe being honest was the fire, the forge, which allowed relationships to come back stronger than ever. Draco was the first person on earth he was brutally, soul-bearingly honest with—and every time he was truthful they only got closer, until it felt like they were one mind sometimes, one soul in two bodies. Maybe it was the truth which lifted his relationships up, strengthening them, and the lies he told which tore everything down. 

It was never too late to come clean. He’d seen that with Taylor this very morning. As soon as he took down his guard and spoke to her, honestly and as equals, they were able to find a way forward which suited everyone. He had to start talking. He had to make that leap, to tear himself open no matter how much it might hurt. Honesty was the only way he could ever have what he wanted—relationships, happiness, a family like he’d always dreamed of. 

He never knew it would be this hard to make his dreams come true. 

“Yesterday… I told Draco I’ve been coming here, to therapy. I did a shit job telling him. He… we were arguing and I reckon he had a psychotic break, learning that I’d lied to him. He held my gun to my face and told me he was leaving—and he did. He left me.” 

Harry kept talking, emotionless but getting the words out. He had to practice speaking the truth. “He’s with his friend Blaise in Italy. I have a Field Ops Team trailing them if anything comes up; but the team’s not spying or reporting back to me or anything. They’re just watching over him, in case. Draco said he wants no contact, so… yeah, I’m respecting that.” 

He didn’t have any more tears. If anything, he was a bit numb after the long morning he’d had. His emotions might come back later, or stay hidden within all the holes they’d found in his heart to burrow themselves into. He didn’t know. 

“Are you… okay?” asked Akilah.

“I honestly don’t know.” He’d already been talking more than usual today—his throat was a bit irritated, but he kept going. “A part of me is definitely hoping Draco will snap out of this and come back. That he’ll wanna get back together. And then… another part of me wants him to go out and find himself, because he’s maybe losing some of his natural curiosity in being with me; I want him to get out there and enjoy his life… and maybe it takes him being furious with me, being manic, to get out from under the depression he’s been going through. I’d be an unstable mess if I’d had to kill my dad, if my mum didn’t remember me, if I saw Draco die. I get it. He’s manic but… at least he’s allowing himself to feel things again, in real time, not bottling himself up.

“I don’t know whether this is good for him or not. I have nothing from which to judge because… well, I’ve never been there. I’ve never gotten him through a full psychotic breakdown. I was off fighting a damn war while he suffered with this on his own. I’m here now, but I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do. 

“I know I love him.” That much was unshakable. How he felt about Draco was never going to change. “Obviously I’d prefer to be there for him, to be with him, to… start doing the work and see if there’s a way we can move forward together. But… he asked for this time to himself. And because I love him, because I respect him… I’m not gonna Apparate out there. I won’t drag him back home kicking and screaming. That’s not healthy. That’s what Lucius would do… because Lucius never trusted Draco or believed in him. I _do_ trust him. It’s scary, knowing he’s out there by himself. I don’t want him to feel alone. But being alone might be good for us both right now. To decide what it is we want as individuals, before we talk about us.” 

Harry’s mobile rang, startling both him and the doc. Normally he wouldn’t have answered his phone in a session, but one glance at the square little screen told him it was Nebojsa calling. Since Sia knew where Harry was, it had to be important. 

He answered with the phrase, “ _Gde si?_ ” Because he knew how to say “what’s up” in Serbian as well; so long as he stopped paying attention the words flowed out of him like Parseltongue spoken to a snake. 

Sia automatically responded in English. “An owl from Draco.” 

“What does it say?” Harry demanded. 

Nebojsa grunted over the line. “I have not opened it, _brate._ ” The word meant brother, just as they called each other in snake tongue. 

“Read it to me,” insisted Harry. 

He heard Nebojsa breathing, like he was holding the phone cinched between his shoulder and the side of his face as he tore the parchment open. Harry and Draco hadn’t exchanged owls since the war; and like those tense times, he was anxious to read—or in this case, hear—Draco’s every word. 

“ _I’m fine_ ,” Sia read out. “ _I’m vith Blaise. Stay zhe hell a_ _v_ _ay from me. Vill write if I have anyzhing else to say._ He did not sign,” Sia added, “but iz his handwriting.” Sia had watched over Draco at Hogwarts, so he’d recognize that tight, slanted penmanship. 

“ _Hvala_ ,” Harry pushed out a thank-you. “Sorry you had to swear.” He didn’t know what else to say except, “I’ll be back in a bit. _Aj ćao_ _._ ” 

“ _Aj zdravo_ , _brate,_ ” Nebojsa said before hanging up, not wanting to eat up Harry’s therapy hour.

 

 

 

 

Harry spent the rest of his session working with Akilah on a draft of his response to Draco, making sure he communicated what he needed to say in ways which were respectful and clear. By the time he left, he had a good idea of what he wanted to say. 

He snagged a pamphlet on the way out—one of the less annoying ones explaining what Bipolar was and what to expect being around a person during manic or depressive episodes. He tucked it in the inner pocket of his jacket, knowing Draco wasn’t the only person he owed an owl to. Blaise Zabini was gonna need to be read-in on what was happening in his own flat.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry didn’t Apparate back to London. Outside Dr. Beasley’s office he rang the Harpers. 

Leon wasn’t home, but Charlene was. Harry asked if it might be alright if he sat in Gideon’s room for an hour or so to write some letters. She understood why he wanted to be in that frozen, shrine-like space. Harry needed a visceral reminder of what could happen if Draco’s condition wasn’t addressed and dealt with. Nobody wanted what happened to Gideon to befall Draco, too. It was the worst possible outcome, an extreme, but he needed to face the very real possibility. It didn’t do anyone any good to pretend the situation wasn’t dire. 

Charlene gave him the squishy, motherly hug he needed but never quite knew how to ask for—her hands stroking long, soothing lines down his spine, cooing French-accented nonsense in his ear for a full two minutes as she rocked him in her arms. Then, after giving him a large mug of black tea spiked with a bit of bourbon, she closed the door to her son’s room and left Harry to it. 

The first note was easy. He used parchment and a muggle-type ballpoint pen he found in Gideon’s desk drawer. 

He wrote looking at potioneering and quidditch trophies, and occasionally the photo on the wall of Dee and his father on a fishing trip. These relics served as a reminder that it didn’t matter how smart you were, how much money or resources you had at your disposal, or even how much your parents loved you—Bipolar didn’t care. At any moment, their minds could turn against them… and it wasn’t anyone’s fault. It couldn’t _be_ fixed, only managed and mitigated, acknowledged and then lived with one day at a time. 

 

 

 

 

 

> Blaise,
> 
>  
> 
> I need to tell you something about Draco. I believe he has Bipolar Disorder. I've included some literature about it. I think right now Draco may be going through a manic episode. He might not be completely in control of himself or aware of his actions. All I can ask is that, as his mate, you could try to forgive him for any nasty shite he might say because he doesn’t really mean it, and be patient with him. 
> 
> If you think Draco is going to hurt himself or someone else, if he's in danger of exposing magic or doing something he wouldn’t in his right mind, please get in touch with me right away. I'll come handle the situation. 
> 
> I know he doesn't want me to show up and I respect that, but this is about his safety, and yours.
> 
>  
> 
> Reach out anytime. I’ll be in London.
> 
> \- Potter

 

 

The second letter was much harder. Of everything he wanted to say to Draco, it all boiled down to wanting him to be happy, that Draco was the only person who got to decide what the right steps were for him or where his life would go. Writing the words “I love you” over and over again to fill an entire page didn’t exactly get the point across even if it was how he felt. 

His gut told him to wait another day before sending his letter to Draco. Maybe two days. Maybe longer. Draco would want that time to cool off. And to catch up with Blaise, too. 

Harry might not have owled at all except… Draco left his wand behind. Harry didn’t want his husband running around without one. It didn’t matter whether he needed it or not. If someone who meant Draco harm saw him walking around Italy, invariably drunk and wandless… it was a bad situation waiting to happen. Draco ought to have a wand on him, for his own safety. 

Letters written, Harry rolled up his parchments, tucking them in his jacket pocket. In a few days he would owl his husband, offering his words of acceptance, offering to send on Draco’s wand and anything else he might want or need. Just as when he’d fled Malfoy Manor a year ago, Draco had left with only the clothes on his back. This time around, there was one big difference: Draco was a very different man on the inside. He had a power—a sorcery born from the both of them as much as from Voldemort—and that magic let him do just about anything if he got angry enough. 

For now, Harry needed to get word to Blaise—who likely had a seething, violently drunk sorcerer on his hands and deserved to know what he was dealing with.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry found himself back in Diagon Alley for the second time that obscenely long day, hiring a continental post owl to carry his letter to Blaise. He wouldn’t risk using Hedwig only to spook Draco, tipping his husband off that he and Blaise were communicating behind his back. That wouldn’t go over well. 

His unsent note to Draco was a weight in his pocket begging to be let out, too, to fly to Italy with Harry’s words on wings. 

Instead he wandered his way out of the magical world once more—through the brick wall separating the hidden alley from The Leaky Cauldron, and then out into London. 

The sky was threatening something between rain and snow, making it wise to take the tube back to Southwark. London was slowly becoming his city, the place he thought of as home. He was able to zone out on the underground, the steady _ker-thunk kah-thunk, ker-thunk kah-thunk_ of the carriage on the rails lulling him like a familiar sort of music, the sway of the car like a breeze, rocking him as he held on to the bar overhead. 

He turned up his collar to keep out the sleet-like mist, glasses stowed in his pocket and dark head down, his hair partly shielding his face from the cold as he set a speedy pace back to his friends’ flat.

 

 

 

 

Kicking off his wet boots at the door, Harry asked casually, “ _How long should it take a person to become fluent in Serbian? More than a year, right? I mean, someone who’s never spoken a foreign language before—not a linguist, but a regular_ _idiot_ _person._ ” 

Nebojsa was in the kitchen, his hair pulled up in a messy knot on top of his head, making himself tea. He always tied his hair back when he cooked, to keep it from getting in the food. He stopped short, a jar of _varenya_ in his hands, his head swinging to look at Harry—who had spoken in perfect Serbian. 

“ _Ti_ ….” He got lost, staring at Harry. His hands set down the jar of cherry syrup, as though he might drop it from shock. Harry noticed the ball of bread dough he’d sang to earlier had made its trip through the oven and was presently cooling on the kitchen table. The knife and butter dish positioned nearby meant Nebojsa intended to have himself a snack before the concert he was going to that night. 

“ _T_ _his is something… beyond my understanding,_ ” admitted Harry, positioning his damp boots on the mat beside the door, hanging up his jacket. 

It was admittedly strange to hear the thick, buttery-beautiful Slavic language pouring out of his own mouth. He’d never heard Serbian before he met Nebojsa last year. But Harry had learned as a child that he spoke snake language, so at least for him, discovering the ability to speak yet another language—and perhaps a more useful one at that—wasn’t _that_ strange. 

“ _Translation Charm?_ ” Nebojsa suggested. 

“ _I don’t think so_.” In his socks, Harry padded into the kitchen, stopping beside the table. “ _Could you check? There’s gotta be a latent spell on me or… something. I feel like I’m going crazy_.” 

“ _You’re not crazy_ ,” his friend reassured him. “ _That’s just the Serbian talking. We’re all a bit out of our minds._ ” 

Nebojsa went to the night stand beside his and Dima’s bed, retrieving his black-lacquered wand. He didn’t carry it around the flat when he didn’t actually need it. Sia was going to use it now, to be absolutely sure his magic was done correctly and took proper hold. He gave a flick before pointing it at Harry. It was rude to aim your wand at someone normally—but Harry had asked so it was fine. He recognized the motion of a Termination Spell, ending any and all magic between them. 

" _Dobro_ ," Harry offered. " _Now say something_." 

Nebojsa gave him an odd look just for that. He'd removed any charms he might've placed on Harry with that _Finite Incantatum_. His face said it was unlikely that Harry would remember those few Serbian words but... mostly they spoke Romanian, because Misha hadn't learned Serbian, and they spent time in the Ionescue's country, not Nebojsa's own. Harry rarely had reason to speak Serbian over Romanian or Russian. Nebojsa was more confused than ever, hearing his mother-tongue come out of Harry’s mouth when it shouldn’t have. 

Harry raised his eyebrows, urging Sia to speak back to him. 

Nebojsa landed on something to say—something complex enough that it would take understanding of his native language to comprehend, yet something unusual enough that Harry couldn't infer or guess his way to it. 

" _Dmitry_ _only_ _joined the Hit Wizards to be near you_."  

Harry understood every word. He wasn't sure whether Nebojsa was speaking the truth, or saying something off-the-wall to be sure Harry truly could understand him. If he was trying to be ridiculous, he might’ve said the sky was orange or that Gringotts was on fire. 

" _Me?_ " Harry questioned. " _No..._ _Dima_ _joined to stick with you._ _I had nothing to do with it_." 

Nebojsa looked away, then, thoughts swirling in his head. He didn't want to look at Harry as he tried to reason it out in his head... because Harry was definitely understanding him and speaking Serbian back to him without a Translation Charm. 

" _Se Impetro Munus_..." Nebojsa whispered the theory’s name, a hand on the back of his neck, rubbing absently as he got lost in thought, staring off at nothing. Harry recognized one of his own nervous gestures having jumped ship, becoming Sia’s mannerism sometime over the summer. He couldn't tell anymore if Sia did that because they spent so much time together or... because they'd started exchanging magic unknowingly, sharing aptitude and perhaps more by way of the ancient transitory theory. Nebojsa suspected it was true—that abilities were jumping between them the same as had happened to him and Draco. 

“ _…_ _Kako_ _?_ ” Harry murmured. _How?_ He couldn’t make any more sense of it than Nebojsa. 

“ _Our accident at the_ _Law Enforcement Library, maybe?_ ” Nebojsa sucked his entire bottom lip into his mouth, black ring and all. He was blinking fast—not wanting it to be true, yet seeing no other way to explain the evidence. “ _When you used your ability on me, it must’ve opened some type of channel between us. And we’ve been feeding into it ever since. Perhaps more-so by_ _work_ _ing together, or sleeping side-by-side_ _last night_ _. For all we know, we could be using this magic on each other in micro-doses_ _… even_ _in our sleep_ _, or shaking hands_ _._ ” 

Harry protested, “ _I think… I would know if I was leaking magic into you, or vice versa_.” 

Nebojsa wanted that to be true, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. The evidence to the contrary was increasing, and Nebojsa was too much of a realist to ignore a mountain of likely truths. “ _Did you realize when it happened with Draco?_ ” 

He hadn’t—but that was because the exchange went on primarily during life-or-death situations or when they were having sex, so his attention had been a bit divided. He wasn’t in any fit state to be thinking about complex magical theory when Draco was ramming him so hard he saw stars. 

“ _No but…_ _this_ _doesn’t feel anything like_ _back then_ _._ ” 

Except, maybe, when he’d held Nebojsa’s life in his hands—slipping through his fingers, dying right in front of him. That felt like the desperate moments where Draco had worked to protect him, finding his healing power just in time to unleash it as Harry went off to war. 

And… at the Ministry last year—Voldemort’s Ministry, when the building was occupied by the Death Eaters and the pair of them had gone after Nagini under Polyjuice disguise. In Severus Snape’s body, Nebojsa had held Harry back from killing Philippe Didier and blowing their cover. With his hand over Harry’s mouth, willing him to stop… there had been a light in Sia’s eyes, white shimmering sparks dancing across Harry’s vision and illuminating Nebojsa’s, Snape’s black gaze turned to something entirely different. Harry remembered a sensation like his lungs filling with blood, strangling him from the inside—he’d nearly passed out, blood on his mouth when Sia finally let him go. The experience had been as painful as two days of torture rammed into something like six seconds. It felt like having the life choked out of him, his soul ripped out through his mouth by some type of Dementor. 

That was Nebojsa’s power. He’d accidentally used it on Harry back then, before either of them understood what it was. They still had no fucking clue, to be honest. Every time Harry’s hands lit up was a gamble. 

They’d already opened this road to traffic. And everything they did after only knocked down trees and flattened ground, expanding the thoroughfare by which they were exchanging aptitude. They were getting stronger simply by being near each other. 

That didn’t explain why a brush with each other’s powers nearly killed the other. 

Harry had one more thing he needed to know for sure. He closed his eyes tight, until he couldn’t see a damn thing. In the dark, he bolstered his courage, thinking to himself strongly and clearly enough to project his mind: _You can hear me_ _in your head_ _, can’t you_ _, Sia_ _?_  

He heard bare feet against the polished concrete floor. Yes, Nebojsa could hear his thoughts. So said his feet trying to put distance between them. It freaked him out.

 _I… I made bread_ , Nebojsa’s mind stammered, searching out something mundane and normal to hold onto as his perception of reality turned on its head. Nobody in the magical world had the power of telepathy—not sorcerers and certainly not ordinary wizards. Harry had dug through every book and record he could find on the subject. As far as anybody documented, no wizard or sorcerer had the ability to project their thoughts or read others’ at will. What they could do was so far beyond Legilimency that it had no name he could find. 

 _You should eat_ _, Harry_ _._ _Please._ _You always starve yourself as punishment when you think you’ve been anything less than perfect._

_I do not_ _!_ Harry shot back, his eyes flicking open at the accusation. _Why would you say I starve myself?_  

Nebojsa had put the kitchen table between them—backing away because he didn’t want to feed into this any more than they already unknowingly were. 

He held his hands out, calling Harry’s attention to the warm loaf of bread; an offering, a suggestion of reality on which they could both agree. “ _Then eat, Chosen One_.”

 

 

 

 


	20. I Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like Alice, Harry falls down a rabbit hole. BDSM, Rock & Roll, and Emotional Outbursts. Overdue apologies, and a glimmer of hope in the fight against the ever-shifting Death Eater insurgency.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** ever-present PTSD, shock, flashbacks, a panic attack, avoidance, emotional disconnection, grief/depression, random outbursts, crying in a loo, romantic jealousy, the effects of toxic masculinity on young queer men, discussion of polyamory and group sex, alcohol, recreational drug use, internalized homophobia, thoughts on reclaiming of the word faggot, Shade: The Library Is Open Because Reading Is Fundamental, BDSM culture, the concept of social vetting, Masters  & slaves, floggers/whips/impact toys, service submission, smoking fetish, sex workers, a dungeon and a professional dominatrix, cultural differences, discussion of violation of consent, animus, emotional labor, forgiveness, naivety, sexual repression, Martyr Syndrome, mental health check-in, a million words and still failing the Bechdel Wallace Test because all of your main characters are queer men and your focus is on redefining healthy masculine identity
> 
>  **AUTHOR’S NOTE:** This chapter is too long: another 40k in the bucket. And late. I was in the hospital a few days, send good vibes. Glad to be home and able to function ‘somewhat’ normally. I am falling apart by fucking centimeters.

 

 

**DISCLAIMERS & MUSIC LINKS:**

There's a ton of music flying around this chapter.

\- The warehouse concert, I was imagining a modern Slavic folk band along the lines of [DakhaBrakha](https://youtu.be/OqcYOmNNs5o) or [Vivienne Mort](https://youtu.be/AwW-Kuzt3X0)  
\- For Durmstrang’s metal band, [5Diez](https://youtu.be/j22l-wgi2Mw) (note: video contains significant strobe lights)  
\- The folk song Sia sings is “[Ne Zhaleyu, Ne Novu, Ne Plachu](https://youtu.be/KL12-TBvNBI)” by Sergey Esenin, which translates to “I’m Not Begging, Weeping, Or Complaining,” and was the original title of this chapter before it got out of hand. I couldn't find a balalaika version.  
\- The “inappropriate power ballad” is "[Community Property](https://youtu.be/ivnK29YADYs)" by satirical troll-band Steel Panther, I’ve only changed a few of the lyrics for context

 

_I'll use you as a warning sign_   
_That if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind_   
_And I'll use you as a focal point_   
_So I don't lose sight of what I want_   
_And I've moved further than I thought I could_   
_But I missed you more than I thought I would_   
_And I'll use you as a warning sign_   
_That if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind_

_And I found love where it wasn't supposed to be_   
_Right in front of me_   
_Talk some sense to me_

“[I Found](https://youtu.be/GPkuHLJ_H2A)”

Amber Run

 

 

 

 

 

Dima and Misha were getting ready for their appointment with the Romanian magical authorities and their dhampir ancestor. Of course they had to arrange to meet at night; Lucien was nearly two hundred years old and probably couldn't be in the daylight for long without consequences. Harry pictured the human-vampire hybrid looking like an older, somewhat gaunt, old-timey version of Tihomir—maybe with a mustache? Lucien was the half-brother of their great-great-great-grandfather, an acknowledged illegitimate grandson of Empress Catherine the Great born at the dawn of the1800’s. 

The idea of a near-immortal half-vampire wizard did spook Harry a bit… but not enough to quash his curiosity. Harry was the tiniest bit jealous of the Ionescue brothers. Their father was gone and that was for the best, yet there remained for them this network, a legacy, a heritage to live out. Harry never had that—remnants of generations past. He’d been left a sizeable pile of gold but no real clues as to where he’d come from, who his people were. For Harry, knowledge had always been the most important, most precious gift he could receive. Yet information about his extended family was achingly slim. He didn’t even know his magical grandparents’ names. 

Watching Dima and Misha get ready reminded Harry of the Weasley boys on the final day of school. They always had a clean, proper set of clothes held aside, wanting to have something smart to wear when their mum and dad came to get them at King’s Cross Station. Dressing up for your family was a sign of respect. Harry never had a family to look smart for. He spent half his life in rags because no one cared if he looked nice. 

That was why he bought himself a suit and new robes when he got together with Draco; finally, he had someone held so high in his regard and cherished so deeply in his heart that he knew it was time to clean himself up. Like the Weasley boys, no one told him to do it. He knew in his guts that Draco deserved him at his best. 

Done up smart, Dima looked supremely uncomfortable—and Dima didn't emote much to begin with, so the fact that Harry could tell he was unhappy from across the flat was that much more striking. Dima looked miserable: he hated getting dressed up, and he hated formal events nearly as much as Harry did. That said, Dima could wear the hell out of a tuxedo—his huge shoulders helped, and the suit had obviously been tailored especially for his astonishing frame. With the formality of the occasion, he wore something like a sash between his crisp shirt and fitted black wool jacket, the shiny blue material fixed with many important-looking medals and insignia brought up from the dragon-guarded family vault. One of the shiny bits Harry recognized as his Order of Merlin. His family regalia nearly eclipsed that uniquely British honour pinned to his broad chest. 

Dmitry kept pulling at the sash, unhappy with the way it laid, a lopsided weight. 

Sometimes Harry forgot that technically Dima _was_ a duke—Nebojsa made him so by killing his father. Dima was already a duke whether he acknowledged his inherited title or kept refusing it because he couldn’t share it with his partner. 

Tonight he looked like a proper aristocrat instead of his usual death-metal roadie look. In his head, Harry always pictured Dima as he wanted to be: wearing a tee with the sleeves ripped off, wrinkled cargo shorts, and high-top Puma trainers… the pristine sneakers being an Eastern European status symbol Harry never quite understood, but every Russian, Slavic, and Balkan bloke he met owned at least one pair whether they were wizards or muggles. The trend seemed to permeate both sides of their culture. Misha had at least six pairs in different colors, lined up on a shelf in his closet. 

Even a minimalist black tux was slowly killing Dima, taking bites out of his soul by the grumpy look on his face. 

Misha was late coming back from the gym. Then he insisted on taking a shower, which was an entire production. Misha took his skin care very seriously. Presently the younger Ionescue was faffing about his room in nothing but a towel, blasting music. Every few minutes he’d poke his face out to sing lyrics at them or bang his head, all energy—attempting to cheer his big brother up by playing some of his favorite metal but only succeeding at getting on Dima’s nerves. 

Nebojsa wasn’t intervening. He occupied himself in the kitchen, putting out his usual assortment of snacks in addition to the loaf of bread he and Harry had broken into earlier. Nebojsa’s friends were coming over, meeting at the flat before heading out to their concert. Harry had decided to join them—only because it was weird and pathetic to stay in their flat, alone, and mope. 

Misha had an impressive stereo with large speakers, a multi-CD changer, and the volume cranked up, tracks set to play at random. One of the albums took Harry by surprise. It was Mindless Self Indulgence, the band at whose concert they’d all met two summers ago. The song? Harry’s breath got lodged in his throat. His head swam with the memory of Draco jumping around on the dance floor, drunk and happy and grinding on Harry, his lips marking out those words… “faggot, faggot, faggot.” 

It was loaded. Controversial. Emotional, now, especially after coming out—Howlers outside the castle windows, bellowing that word mere days before his death. There were still a lot of people out there who wanted him dead, who’d call him a faggot and drive a knife through his heart if they could get close enough. 

Draco never seemed to mind that word much—insisting it was merely a word, that people assigned meaning to it in their heads; some were teased and bullied with it and grew to hate it, while others used it to describe themselves, a part of their identity, wearing “faggot” with pride like the medals on Dima’s chest. 

Misha didn’t care if people called him a fag—neither did Nebojsa, singing along from the kitchen, his bum swaying in skinny grey trousers, the beat in his long languorous body. Dima hated that word. And he probably feared it, too. 

As for Harry… it had started to matter, too. 

These were his friends, his brothers, his chosen family. And they were all a bit gay, one way or another. They could say “faggot” about themselves or to each other. But increasingly, Harry didn’t want to hear that word from anyone who wasn’t nominally bent or queer themselves. Even coming from the mouth of a queer singer through the stereo, the slur brought up a lot of unresolved feelings, and something almost like self-defencive anger. In Harry’s head, he _was_ a faggot, but _being_ a faggot remained a bad thing. 

Misha ducked around the door frame, holding his towel secure with one hand so he wouldn’t accidentally flash Harry. He had his hair comb in his other hand, lip-syncing into the bit of plastic like a microphone. 

“ _I played that shit straight,_ _blowin’ suckers on the side hopin’ I’d get laid!_ ” Misha mouthed. Like Draco, he’d had a few discreet hook-ups with other blokes but never came out, maintaining the public image of a strictly-straight guy for his own safety. Misha put his muscular chest and towel-covered crotch to the door frame, gyrating against it, pointing at Harry. “ _Now everybody knows, no way in hell I can ever live it down!_ ” 

Dima was gonna throw something at him. 

Misha had the right of it, though. Harry was out—the only one of them to go completely public about the fact he loved another bloke. Most people didn’t know about Misha; and since he was with Ginny now, the fact that he was bisexual-adjacent probably wouldn’t come up anytime soon. 

Dima was dead set against being out—ever, if he could help it. Nebojsa might come out… if it wouldn’t send Dima into a fit about his safety. Because Dima grew up in a country where people were thrown in jail, or tortured, or murdered for being gay. That was what “faggot” meant to Dima: a death sentence, the last word spoken before your execution. 

Poor Misha was only trying to lighten the mood. Harry chased their little brother back into his room, opening the door to his closet as a less-than-subtle hint that he ought to get dressed so they wouldn’t be late. Nebojsa would be upset—he considered tardiness to be disrespectful. With Sia’s eye on the clock, he and Dima always showed up early to work. Harry assumed that was part of Serbian culture. 

For his trouble, Harry found himself styled instead, with Misha pulling out several shirts for Harry to try. He only had a duffle with him, a few items mindlessly stuffed in his bag before eyes full of tears drove him out of Grimmauld Place. He wasn’t sure when he might feel comfortable going home again. He had a few essentials and a set of work clothes, but nothing suitable for going out. 

Like Draco, his Eastern European friends favored lean, form-fitted tailoring. He needed Misha’s reassurance that he wasn’t bursting out of every shirt in the wrong way. He settled on a henley-type with an interesting texture, a sort of raised knit, not quite a jumper. Misha kept undoing Harry’s buttons to reveal more of the significant hair on his chest. 

Harry had made peace with his body, but he wasn’t quite comfortable leaving the flat with his shirt half-open like Sia did. The third time Misha went to undo a button Harry preferred to have done-up, he realized he had to assert himself—Misha didn’t see he was starting to annoy Harry, too. 

Having someone fuss over his appearance reminded him too much of Draco. Misha had overstepped into an intimacy Harry needed to be exclusive to his spouse. Only Draco could unbutton his clothes. 

“Stop,” he said plainly, stepping out of Misha’s reach. “I’m a married man, I don’t wanna advertise.” He wanted to look nice, but not like he was on the market, looking for a shag. 

Misha just shrugged, wearing an expression which seemed to say, _to each their own_. At least he left Harry alone, pulling a sharp navy tuxedo out of his closet. 

When Harry came back to the main room, Sia was improving Dima’s mood with more success than Misha. 

The Serb had a glass of wine in one hand, the other wrapped around Dima’s middle, hand splayed across his stomach under his many glittering medals. Nebojsa snugged himself up to Dima’s impressive bum, swaying, getting the music into him too. It took a few tense seconds before Dima pressed back, an answering pressure, connecting their bodies from shoulders to knees, his butt on his boyfriend’s crotch.

It was the first time Harry had ever seen Dima dance while sober—he always needed to be drunk or high before he found the courage to be touched by his boyfriend in public. 

Harry blushed. His friends were… special, and complicated, and… kinda sexy. 

Cute couples used to make Harry uncomfortable, a kind of envy paired with equal parts confusion and stodgy English propriety. He never understood that kind of cuddly, mushy behavior because, before Draco, he’d never experienced _any_ desire to act on romantic or sexual feelings… and before the Weasleys he’d never experienced physical affection of any kind. He’d never been tickled as a kid, or smothered in kisses, or picked up and swung around. It was all dream-like behavior to him—something he saw other people do, something imagined, wanted, craved, but he was never permitted. Draco had wormed his way in; persistent, sly, getting under Harry’s guard and finding ways to be affectionate without disturbing his thick shell of ‘acceptable behavior between blokes.’ Draco got Harry to break the rules, to take off his armor and learn to be touched… in a closet of all places. 

Dima was the same as Harry. His walls were high and heavily fortified. Even now, in the privacy of their own home with only Harry and Misha watching, he hesitated before giving in—accepting Nebojsa’s kiss behind his ear, acknowledging the whispered compliment that he looked amazing, allowing himself to be held close. 

Tonight the separation between Dima and Sia was more glaring than ever. While Dima and Misha were trussed up in bespoke tuxedos, Nebojsa wore his usual leather boots, tight trousers, and kohl-black eyeliner. In perhaps an unconscious mirror to the brothers, he’d chosen a plain buttoned shirt in a soft cream material—half-done as per his usual—with just the shadows of his black tattoos showing through the brushed natural fabric like obscured fish swimming beneath white waters. 

Harry always thought of his friends as a pair, like a married couple who'd been together forever. He considered them one collective, a unit, a package deal. They were always together for as long as he’d known them. But Nebojsa had nothing to do with Dima's family or political affairs. He'd have no reason to meet Lucien or speak with government officials on behalf of the Ionescue family. Maybe he felt it, too, tonight; the difference between them. They were together, a couple of five years who lived together and shared everything... but they weren’t married. Sia was a member of the family mentally and emotionally, but not in name. In public and in the eyes of the law, they were nothing to each other. 

Harry had never seen Nebojsa in plain white before. He always wore bright colors and patterns, or black, or leather. In white, he somehow looked more goth than he did dressed entirely in black—perhaps because of his dark hair in contrast, or how closely the shirt matched the color of his marble-like skin. Next to Dima’s fading tan, Sia looked like a ghost. Maybe goths didn’t believe in using blush? Or more likely Nebojsa didn’t want to pack any additional feminine elements into his already androgynous look, turning his partner off by mental association. 

He hadn’t stopped to consider what it meant that Dmitry was strictly attracted to men—masculine men. Dima fancied deep voices, body hair, muscles. When they were younger it wouldn’t have been a big deal. But as the couple went through puberty together, as Dima developed and was forced to blood-bond himself to a creature, his body gaining superhuman strength and the ability to transform… Nebojsa didn’t. Sia’s body didn’t express that many male traits. Sia got rather tall and his voice dropped but… that was it. Nebojsa didn’t even grow a proper beard, just patchy stubble which he shaved clean. Now that he’d recovered from his injuries, his face filling back in, and grown his hair long, Sia was increasingly mistaken for a woman in public places. 

It struck Harry that Dima must really love Nebojsa, to be with him all these years, even when his adult body didn’t turn out how either of them might’ve expected or preferred. Dima loved Sia for who he was, not because of how he looked. So Dima would never ask his partner not to put on makeup or to stop wearing the occasional dress if he wanted to… even when those forms of self-expression might make Dima uncomfortable or put Sia at increased risk for homophobic backlash. 

They shared an understanding that Dima’s hyper-masculine preferences could be indulged from time to time, but wouldn’t rule their lives. Their relationship didn’t revolve around what gave Dima an erection.

Harry and Draco on the other hand… it just happened that having an emotional connection to their relationship was part of what turned Harry on. So he pushed for it. Their early relationship was born out of sexual desire, a deeper bond coming with time and at Harry’s insistence. Most of their fights happened when Harry wanted affection or reassurance and he’d refused to put out if his emotional needs weren’t met first. Draco got mad when Harry insisted on the importance of talking over fucking, or if Harry’s boundaries didn’t match up to his own.

Dima and Sia got to form their relationship by the opposite pathway, being mates for a few years and falling deeply in love before anything physical happened. They’d been inseparable for going-on nine years. In that time, they learned what the other needed to feel good, how to manage emotions, and how to turn each other on despite not being the other’s ideal physical type. They made up for their physical mis-match in their profound intellectual and emotional connection. 

Looking at his friends with freshly wounded eyes, Harry had to admit he was envious of their relationship. He wanted his husband to understand his own sexuality the way Dima and Sia had taken the time and care to really _get_ each other, inside and out. 

It had never occurred to Harry before that his marriage in many ways depended on Draco being turned on. Draco expected to have his sexuality catered to, believing on some level that he was entitled to sex. Draco used Harry’s high sex drive against him, fucking in lieu of talking things out. And Harry was guilty of the same thing—he initiated sex when there was something he needed to talk about but didn’t know how. Fucking made him feel stronger, more connected to his spouse. Once he was high on post-orgasmic endorphins, he felt like he could say anything and Draco wouldn’t mind, wouldn’t have a bad reaction or fly off into a rage because… sex regulated Draco’s Bipolar. Draco felt more like himself after sex, which was maybe why he wanted it so often. Harry had been organically medicating his husband before they ever realized what the problem was. 

Draco’s constant barrage of name-calling and rejected compliments was a turn-off for Harry, as well as emotionally draining. Harry didn’t enjoy being bullied into things in their sex life, either. He didn’t care for having anyone’s come all over his face, and yet Draco had done it to him multiple times. Harry only swallowed after giving a blowjob as a gesture, a sort of care and kindness, not because it turned him on in any way—the same as if Draco were injured and needed hands to press and hold the wound shut, or if he threw up Harry would hold his clothes out of the way and rub his back until he was done. Harry didn’t always do these things because they got him off, but because that was the way he wanted to treat his husband… the love Draco deserved. 

Draco struggled to do the same for Harry. He wasn’t often interested in compromise. He’d never been taught how. He wanted what he wanted, and believed he deserved to be serviced or sacrificed for. That was the grandiosity of his Bipolar. Harry’s own PTSD and history of abuse meant he never stood up for himself until things reached a breaking point; he would put up with Draco treating him badly, doing things he didn’t care for, believing that was the price he needed to pay to have Draco stick around and keep loving him. He allowed Draco to be rude or cruel to him as much as he was to other people. Harry fed into Draco’s delusions. In part, Draco’s condition got _worse_ because of Harry’s failure to stick up for himself. He didn’t want to hurt Draco’s feelings by correcting him, so he ended up with his own boundaries repeatedly breached and his own feelings hurt instead. He would rather get hurt than risk alienating his husband.

Draco believed he was entitled to sex. They fought whenever Harry refused to put out, denying Draco sex, advocating for his own limits. When Harry stopped fucking him, stopped hitting him, stopped feeding the greedy self-hating monster inside Draco’s heart… that was when Draco snapped. He didn’t know how to deal with not getting his way because, up until yesterday, Harry always gave Draco what he wanted. He fed the disease. He fed it because he loved his husband and wanted Draco to be satisfied, not recognizing the difference between being happy and being _healthy_. 

And the entire time they had Dmitry and Nebojsa as an example—only an owl or a phone call away and these two would’ve flown to their sides to help, to talk through how they’d managed to make their relationship work for the last five and a half years despite having different sexual interests, different limits, different bodies, different backgrounds and beliefs and everything else. It was possible. Harry had been ready to learn a new way months ago. But Draco… his husband still didn’t see anything wrong with the way they treated each other. Even with a gun to Harry’s head, Draco didn’t see it. 

Draco only saw the lies. 

Harry realized he was staring. His eyes were fixed, hurt and hungry, as Nebojsa tied Dima’s bowtie. 

He wanted Draco back. He wanted Draco fussing over his clothes before he went to work. He wanted Draco smiling, laughing, his breath smelling like coffee and trying to fuck him all over again as soon as he got his clothes on. But he wanted Draco healthy first. And Draco had to royally fuck up before he’d admit there was anything to warrant fixing. Maybe holding a gun to Harry’s head wasn’t enough for Draco to see how much pain he caused. Harry didn’t know what might be enough. And that left him in this limbo, this unknowing, this hell.

 

 

 

 

Nebojsa asked Harry to fetch Misha’s camera and take a few pictures of the brothers all dressed up. Dima groaned loudly. 

“For Misha’s girlfriend,” Sia reminded him. 

It was a good idea. Sia thought like a mum, wanting pictures of his family—commemorating the night they managed to stuff Dima into a tux, like it was the Yule Ball or something. 

Sia was doing the same thing as Hermione’s mum, documenting her daughter’s life through photos. Dima and Misha didn’t have a proper parent to dote on them—Nebojsa filled that role, just as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had taken on the role for Harry, and then Remus and Sirius. 

It was hard for Harry to accept his adoptive family. He didn’t feel he deserved their care. Because they weren’t his biological parents, a part of Harry always questioned their love, their loyalty. His experience with the Dursleys made him so cynical and suspicious. The way that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and especially Remus pulled away from him after he came out reaffirmed the bitter voice in his heart, telling him their love hadn’t ever been real. 

They did love him, though. They reacted the way they had out of love for him, and concern that Draco might not be a great partner because of his long history of bad choices and violent, abusive behavior. They feared that Harry had finally escaped domestic abuse under the Dursleys only to fall into a fresh abusive relationship with Draco. When Harry chose Draco, the Weasleys and Hermione cut ties because they refused to be around someone as unstable and hurtful as Draco. By leaving, they were protecting themselves. They saw hints of Draco’s Bipolar and interpreted that as dangerous sociopathy—that Draco was an abuser like Lucius, rather than a victim lashing out because he was hurting, needed help, and had no idea how to ask for it. 

Finally, as the camera in Sia’s hand flashed, Harry understood. This was what Dr. Beasley meant. Because Harry never had a proper family, he never learned how disagreements worked inside a family, either. He saw the cool-down period taken by his loved ones as abandonment. Arthur and Molly didn’t hate him. Neither did Hermione. Even Ginny was fine with his ambiguous sexual identity and choice of spouse after she got out from under the Imperius Curse. 

After years of abuse at the hands of the Dursleys and Dumbledore, Harry’s Complex PTSD was the reason he thought his family had turned against him. His family disagreed with his choices, so they decided to take a step back and let him live his life. They did that because they loved and respected him, and unlike Dumbledore they weren’t gonna make major life choices for him. They wouldn’t separate him and Draco. They wouldn’t say ‘no’ when he brought Draco ‘round to family functions. They loved Harry, and wanted him to have moments like this—photos dressed up before an event, forcing a smile because at some point in the future they’d each be ready to look back and see something to be happy about. 

Still, Harry kept himself out of the way. Ginny didn’t need a snapshot of her ex standing next to her new man. He couldn’t help thinking that, all things considered, Ginny had upgraded. Harry had done her a favor in breaking up with her—releasing her, saving her from the anchor he’d later become. Misha was a better boyfriend, a better person, than Harry knew how to be. 

Ginny deserved a good man in her life. Harry deserved a good man, too. And so did Draco. 

Harry hadn’t been a good man, and that was why his husband left him.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Iga was the first guest to Apparate into their flat. Harry had never seen Iga in anything but work attire or sweats at the gym. Seeing her in street clothes for the first time, he had to adjust his assumptions about her. 

Iga was... stunning. She was in excellent shape, and naturally slim, with long legs and—Harry had never noticed before—astonishingly large breasts for her slender frame. She must’ve worn an athletic bra all this time. Her fawn-brown freckles were like a dotted trail leading down her neck to spill over her bust, miles of creamy skin exposed by the low V neckline of her stretchy cotton top. 

Harry did his best not to let his eyes get stuck in her cleavage from across the room. He didn’t want to be the gross, pervy bloke who was constantly distracted by a woman’s breasts. His gaze kept drifting down more from surprise than sexual interest; he’d never seen natural breasts the size of cantaloupes on a frame as slight as Draco’s. Perhaps Iga’s chest was surgically altered? She was pureblood but orphaned, living on her own in the muggle world since Durmstrang collapsed. Two years was plenty of time to get a boob job, and as a witch she could’ve Appareted to any of the countries which permitted cosmetic surgery for teenagers. 

Out of its usual practical plat, her auburn hair was wavy and caught in the light. She moved like a dancer, perfectly in control of her trim, toned limbs, aware of the shape of her body and how best to move it. She had an unconscious brand of grace, a certain aristocratic air left over from growing up in pureblood high society, softened by her casual and friendly personality. 

She had an oval-shaped face with an upturned nose which went slightly square at the tip. Her blue-green eyes were slightly squinted, a constantly discerning look about her face. Her mouth opened wide when she laughed, pale throat framed by her long hair. Her coloring and the shape of her face put Harry in mind of a bright, resourceful little fox.

The way she looked at Nebojsa... they'd been _really_ close friends before the war. Perhaps Iga reminded Sia of a female Dima?

Iga was confident, physically fit, and had a similarly sarcastic sense of humor, sharply observant of everything around her. She and Dima had vigilance in common, too. In greeting Nebojsa, Iga hugged him—hard, familiar, squeezing his growing lats with both hands, fondly assessing the muscle he was fighting to put back on. Pleased with his improving physique, she rocked happily in his tattooed arms, chattering up at him in Russian… happy to be in the circle of his embrace. 

Nebojsa gently tucked her hair behind her ear as he smiled and answered her rapid barrage of questions. 

Fuck, Sia spoke four languages—Serbian, Romanian, Russian, and English. No, he spoke at least five: Harry forgot about Church Slavonic. Six if he counted Parseltongue. Harry had missed out on learning any foreign languages in school—and he felt it more acutely around his continental mates. He'd tried to catch up last year, picking up some French from Draco. Now he had Sia's Serbian in his head, and he blamed their accident at the Law Enforcement Library for that unintentional exchange. 

Harry had always wanted to speak a foreign language: to be that well-to-do, well-traveled bloke capable of communicating across language barriers. It was part of his grand fantasy of what he’d be like as a adult. He tried to get Draco to teach him French, but he wasn’t as good at learning new languages as he’d hoped. Even after a year his French was quite poor. 

Of all the languages he could’ve picked up, his cupboard-dwelling self never would’ve guessed that his first fluency would be Serbian. Until last year, he couldn’t have pointed to Serbia on a map, couldn’t have identified the language if he’d heard it. Now it was in his head… forever. And he had Sia to thank for that, just as Voldemort had accidentally given him Parseltongue. It would always be a part of him now, something of Nebojsa’s to carry around with him wherever he went. 

Harry wondered what else might've leaked over, and whether that exchange in aptitude had been one-sided, or perhaps went both ways. 

Harry knew Durmstrang had been a bilingual school, conducting classes in both English and Russian. Draco had voluntarily taken up Russian when he was ten, hinting at his intention to attend Durmstrang. He quit the language year later, after learning that his mother had forbade it and he was bound for Hogwarts. 

It seemed the Durmstrang student body had been a mix of Scandinavian, Eastern European, Balkan and Russian. That explained why every Durmstrang-educated person he met was so incredibly good at Translation Charms. After spending so much time with his new friends, Harry was beginning to pick up the differences between Romanian, Serbian, and Russian. Tying them all together was something called 'mat,' the cussing dialect which was more-or-less universal between them. His friends had sworn so much during the war not just to ruffle Sia's feathers or as a form of stress relief, but because swearing literally made it easier to talk when they all spoke different dialects. They taught Harry to swear so he could understand them and be universally understood, too. They swore for the same reasons he and Draco did—connection. 

Durmstrang never accepted accept muggle-borns, which was too bad. But they allowed mixed-bloods like Nebojsa, and Mads who was half Veela, making their no-muggle-borns policy that much stranger by contrast. Harry got the impression some of the school’s blood-purist administrators were the ones behind the policy, as the overwhelming majority of Durmstrang graduates he’d met within his own age group had no issues with muggle-borns. It might’ve been people like Igor Karkaroff and Tiho Ionescue campaigning to keep Durmstrang ‘pure’ by not allowing muggle-born kids, compromising to allow half-bloods after the student body and liberal parents kicked up a fuss. 

For having grown up like the Ionescue brothers, Iga—a witch from an old, rich and powerful family, steeped in pureblood magical culture—knew how to blend in and appear muggle. She didn't carry a purse, but rather had some cash and her ID stashed in her back pocket. Her denims were so curve-huggingly tight that Harry could see the bump her money made in her back pocket... and also, he kept noticing how Nebojsa's hand would travel low on her back, resting just above her bum as they chatted, Iga in the circle of his arms like it was no big deal. 

Confusion flared, a fire in his guts Harry couldn’t ignore. It didn’t seem right to him that Iga would be so cozy with Sia when his own boyfriend was distant and surly standing right beside them like this was perfectly normal. Harry had never seen anyone but the Ionescue brothers be that physically close to Nebojsa, and they were a family. Seeing Iga comfortably in Sia’s arms while Dima stood by reminded Harry of when Ron and Hermione got together—they’d stand with Ron’s arm around her shoulders, leaving Harry to droop somewhere nearby like furniture, no one of his own to touch or be snug with. 

Maybe... maybe there'd been something between Iga and Sia at some point? They might not have been entirely pretending to have feelings for each other back at school. Standing together, contentedly close and laughing, they certainly passed for a couple. Harry could see it. After all, Nebojsa _was_ bisexual.

Iga was his type, too—confident, quick-witted, and practical—and they'd probably gotten close as competitive duelers. On top of it all, they seemed to genuinely care for each other. Harry couldn’t figure out if that affection was platonic, or something more. He only new Nebojsa and Dima together, and hadn’t the faintest idea what it looked like when Nebojsa had feelings for someone which he didn’t have to hide or risk being murdered for his heart. 

Iga and Dima were on excellent terms. The stiffly-dressed Prince gave her a kiss on each cheek in greeting before she complimented him on his threads. Harry could tell Dima was caught between good manners dictating he accept the compliment, and his desire to smack her arm or land a swat on her butt for needling him about something she would know better. 

Harry only knew Dima and Sia with their male friends—but that war-torn band of underground warriors weren't their only mates, merely the ones who got away from the warfront and were able to get word out, finding each other again. Harry wondered what Iga had done during those two years, how she'd survived on her own. Because she was obviously a part of Dima and Nebojsa's inner circle; the Luna Lovegood of their friend-group, crossed with Ginny Weasley. She was athletic and assertive like Gin, but also quirky, intuitive and accepting like Luna. Iga wouldn't be touching Nebojsa right now if she wasn't sure he'd be okay with it—and from the relaxed, happy expression on his face, this was... normal.

Of course. Half the time they’d known each other had been spent pretending to be a couple—from age fourteen up until sixteen when Durmstrang fell. To Harry, their connection didn't seem fake at all. Their affection struck him as very real, down to Iga's fingers lingering over the collar of Nebojsa's shirt, twirling a bit of his silky hair around her finger as she grinned up at him, genuinely happy to see him safe and healthy and back in her life again. 

A prickly monster in Harry’s chest gave a growl of warning. He did not like the way Iga touched Sia. She shouldn’t be on him like that—adjusting his clothes, playing with his hair, skin on skin. It was wrong, those little gestures of care and physical intimacy between them. She ought not to because… Harry wanted to do those things. With Sia. 

It took a minute to unscramble: the angry vibration in his chest was jealousy. If Harry couldn’t do those things, then Iga shouldn’t, either. 

He was standing in the kitchen, staring hotly, not initiating conversation with anyone. He was acting like a reclusive, socially-awkward jackass. There was a bottle of wine nearby; for something to do with his hands, Harry poured himself a glass. Maybe if he had a drink, he’d calm the fuck down? He buried his nose in the wine glass. It kept his eyes off Iga and Sia together. 

Nebojsa always tried to feed you when you came in the door. It might’ve been his parenting instincts, or a Serbian hospitality thing. It was only a matter of time before he guided Iga into the kitchen, trying to feed her as much as giving her a chance to say hello to Harry—the weirdo standing by himself, next to the food but not eating anything, attempting to become one with the furniture and avoid notice until he could find some way to get his emotions under control. 

Harry knew Iga from training. But they’d never hung out before, never been social. She joined Harry in the kitchen as Sia excused himself to use the loo. 

Very cool and easy, Iga bumped her shoulder against Harry’s arm in greeting, standing beside him without a hint of awkwardness, helping herself to the spread of food. She popped a grape in her mouth and chewed, looking him over. Whatever she saw pleased her. 

“Did you do something with your hair?” she asked in Russian. 

Harry had been provided a Translation Charm to make the evening easier. He shook his head ‘no.’ 

Her eyebrows lifted, an approving smile turning her lips. “Well… whatever it is, it looks good.” 

 _You_ _look good_ would’ve been flirting, Harry supposed. Telling him his hair looked nice was platonic. For once, a compliment about his appearance didn’t feel that strange.

He tied his hair back at the office, whereas tonight it was down covering his ears. He hadn’t done anything to his hair. Except… Nebojsa’s shampoo. Apparently, somehow, Harry had managed to use the wrong hair product for the last eighteen years. Because—as soon as Iga pointed it out—he realized he hadn’t stuffed his hand through his hair once since taking a shower, hadn’t pushed his hair off of his face or gotten his fingers caught in a snarl. His loose curls sat in place of their own volition, a smooth and pleasant weight against the back of his neck. And when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the darkened window… yeah, his hair looked thick, shiny—attractive, something people might want to reach out and touch. 

“Uh… thanks?” He tried to return her smile, ever-awkward around girls. That might never go away. He had to embrace it.  

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Their party assembled, they took the tube north. 

In the bright, sterile carriage lights, Iga held Nebojsa's waist rather than grab the bar on the ceiling. She used his tall frame for balance, leaning into him like a girlfriend would; entertaining him, lifting his spirits, making sure he enjoyed his night out. She knew him so well that she sensed the frustration and unease he kept hidden; and because she cared, she wanted to draw that out and release it. So she laughed a lot, pulled Nebojsa against her body and held him until he felt the joy in her, letting it transfer into him. 

With them for the show were Galina and her girlfriend Mandy Brocklehurst. Sia also convinced Yuri Batushansky to tag along. Lina teased him a bit—apparently this was the first time he’d taken a night off from his job as Hogwarts' new Game Keeper. 

Sia stopped the teasing at once. Yuri took his job seriously, and was responsible for the safety of the students when he cared for the castle grounds. He was getting away from the castle for a night to indulge in something he felt passionate about. 

Yuri loved folk music. He wouldn't have left his voluntary seclusion for anything else. 

Harry gulped, regretting having been roped into whatever this was. 'Folk music' didn't sound like something he would enjoy. He went along to be polite... and because he didn't want to be secluded in their flat, alone with his thoughts. 

After a half-hour tube ride to Harringay in North London, they had a ways to walk through the industrial buildings—mostly factories and manufacturing, with some spaces converted into flats. 

Nebojsa appeared to have memorized the way, naturally taking the lead to guide them all. He was good with directions, having grown up in a large city. Lina and Mandy trotted behind him, holding hands. Yuri brought up the rear, ready to glare at anyone who might give the lesbian couple trouble. The Warehouse District at this hour wasn’t crowded and most of those they passed were other young people, so Harry at least didn’t anticipate any problems. But as the oldest of their group, somewhere around twenty-four, Yuri felt rather like a big brother watching out for them all. 

Sia stopped at an especially wide alleyway, the sort of space where large trucks might come in and out from the factories. 

“This is the spot,” he said, guiding them in. 

It seemed more the kind of place one might go to buy car parts or have an appliance fixed. Most of the nearby buildings were machinery shops, with large garage bays and elephant-sized equipment looming inside the darkened manufacturing floor, obscured by dirty windows. 

Then Harry heard music—drums, stringed instruments he couldn’t make out, and many voices singing. Around the corner was a machine shop with its lights on. The shipping and receiving bays were wide open. Parked in the lot were several caravans bearing the band’s equipment, as well as food trucks with their windows open to a line of waiting people. The smell of roasted meat hit Harry along with drums pounding through the air. Inside the shop was a ripping party. 

Working the door were several Irish Travelers, which explained the presence of so many caravans. They spoke Shelta to one another, smoking, accepting tenners from each person before marking their hand with a rubber stamp—proof of payment to get back in. Everyone around the food trucks had the same stamp on their hands. 

Inside, the huge industrial machines had been moved to the edges of the warehouse and covered with tarps to create an informal dance floor. There was no stage, no delineation or separation between performers and audience. The band was a part of the crowd. Anyone with a non-stationary instrument was walking about, dancing. 

When Sia said ‘folk music,’ Harry hadn't been expecting bongo drums, electrified violins, and a sea of excited, dancing, cheering people. There were all kinds of horns, wind instruments Harry couldn’t name, an upright bass, and… an accordion? He’d never heard such excited noise. It was like a marching band from the east, the sort of music that made people want to celebrate, to jump around a fire at night and shout up at the stars. The lyrics were barks and chants, wild pips and clicks mixed with traditional harmonies. People in the crowd sang along, only distinguishable from the band because they weren’t carrying instruments. The band would call and the audience echoed them back, a tribal rhythm of clapping hands and stomping feet as they all moved together. 

It was… like the parties they used to throw at the palace. It was the same energy, even without magic. 

Yuri caught Iga’s hand, a rare smile beneath his bushy beard, sweeping her into the crowd to dance. Lina swung Mandy around, and the English witch nearly lost her purse off her shoulder, laughing as her girlfriend twirled her. They threw their coats at a rather trusting communal pile in one corner. Mandy adjusted her purse strap to sit across her body, and the witches disappeared into the sea of bodies. It took a second before Harry could pick out a couple of Traveler women keeping an eye on the coat pile—keeping everyone honest. 

Harry realized his Translation Charm was only functioning on certain words or phrases within the music. He shouted to Sia, “What’re they speaking?”

“Ukrainian.”  

And Sia had his eyes closed, his chin weaving with the bow-strokes of the violins. He didn’t need to see them to keep up—he just knew. 

This was his music. Or at least what he grew up listening to. Everything else came later—metal, rock, pop. This was nostalgic. It wasn’t quite home to any of them. Galina was Latvian, Iga Polish, and Yuri hailed all the way from Siberia. But in England, so far away from home, it must’ve been close enough.

 

 

 

 

Lina and Mandy came to stand by Harry. Mandy had decided against going back to Hogwarts, and waited tables at a restaurant in muggle London. Working on her feet all day, she needed to lean against the wall and rest a bit. Harry bet her feet hurt. If he could’ve, he’d have conjured a chair for her to sit down. Mandy leaned against the wall rather than sit on the dusty floor. 

Galina ended up entertaining her English company with stories about Durmstrang. Mandy had a Translation Charm like Harry, but Lina kept her voice down just the same whenever she mentioned something magical in nature. 

They used to have a big folk band of their own back at school. Lina became their drummer after a wizard called Miroslav graduated. Her brother Czeslaw played the balalaika, and knew every song by heart. Nebojsa played violin, and sometimes Dima would join them on his cello. Yuri played the upright bass and accordion, though he was entirely self-taught and shy about it. The first few times they had to get him ripping drunk before he’d play in front of anyone. And Yuri was a great singer, a true bass and oktavist capable of subharmonic pitches. 

They would to play informally like this, as friends, spawning impromptu dance parties which Karkaroff was constantly trying to break up. They'd meet in secret in classrooms charmed doubly-large, pack the room, and party ‘til dawn. A few times they took over the chapel in the forest; it was secluded, the teachers rarely went out there, and the acoustics were phenomenal. Throwing a rave in a chapel was… something Dima and Sia would do. 

Harry could tell there were many parts Galina was editing out; other band members who hadn’t made it through the war, or the authoritarian punishments handed down by teachers like Tihomir when they got caught partying. Lina wanted to remember the good times, and it wasn’t worth bringing up the unpleasant moments in-between.

“Seems like music was a major part of the Durmstrang experience,” Harry proposed. 

“ _Da!_ ” Lina nodded emphatically. “Hogwarts was eerily quiet by comparison.” 

“That was the war,” offered Mandy. “We were all terrified.” 

Galina pushed off the wall, positioning herself in front of Mandy. She put a hand to the wall beside her girlfriend’s head, bending her elbow in order to lean closer. She got right in Mandy’s face. Their lips nearly touched, but Lina kept that teasing distance. “When things are tough,” she advised, “that is not the time to be quiet. That is when you scream the loudest, so everyone can hear you. At Durmstrang, if someone did you wrong, you never close your mouth. We never stop. We are worth more. Never let fear make you silent.” 

That was Galina. Harry remembered her during the battle—fighting her way through the dungeons full of Death Eaters, insisting she had to find her brother. She wouldn’t shut up, even as she was fighting for her life. She loved her brother too much to give up on him, too much to ever stop looking for him. She kept yelling at anyone who would listen that she was going to find her brother or die trying. 

Czeslaw didn’t make it. He was killed in Slytherin Common Room, protecting his fellow students. He sacrificed himself so dozens of young witches and wizards could escape and live. 

Lina kept fighting in his name. So in a way, he lived on in her.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The band moved around the crowd, keeping the energy at a frenetic high, encouraging everyone to dance and have a good time. They had the garage bays wide open despite the cold outside. With so many people packed in the warehouse, the cool breeze became refreshing against hot skin. Out in the alley were a few large delivery-type trucks selling food, soft drinks, and beer. Harry ducked out for some shawarma and fresh air. 

The air wasn't so fresh as he'd hoped. It seemed a lot of the band's fans smoked. The alley was full of people with lit cigarettes, chatting. He picked out some Romanian, Russian, Croatian... and more Shelta. The crowd was half Traveler, half Eastern European. 

Harry was used to smoke in their air now—he could breathe it. Last summer it had stung his eyes. These days, he associated the smell of tobacco with Draco. 

Yuri came to stand with him, carrying two beers… which were apparently both for himself. Six-foot-something Yuri stood quietly with Harry, drinking while The Boy Who Lived ate his roasted meat. Yura was naturally quiet; he stood there casting a shadow, comfortable not speaking a word. Harry could appreciate that ease with silence. 

Harry’s eyes kept going to the crowd inside the warehouse, watching Iga and Nebojsa dance together. The two of them stood out… in a good way; long limbs, the beauty of their faces, and a fervency to their movements which was pure passion, since neither of them had anything to drink since leaving the flat. They were dancing, holding hands, singing along, singing to other. They looked... joyful. Like when he and Nebojsa dueled, the fellow's face lit up, making Harry realize how much of their friendship had been spent under constant threat, with a frown of mortal concentration etched into Nebojsa's long, feminine features. 

His smile was so rare. But apparently not with Iga. He'd been smiling since she showed up at the flat. 

Harry asked a clumsy question into the silence. "Hey Yuri? Did Nebojsa and Iga ever... date?" 

He knew they’d pretended as much but perhaps amongst friends it was known to be a cover story? Having been one of the Ionescue brothers’ closest friends, Yuri would know the truth. 

The burly wizard swallowed a mouthful of beer, his black eyes widening. Harry's sudden and very intimate question had startled him. 

"Uh, yeah," he answered, shrugging thick shoulders under his flannel shirt. Yuri didn’t think it was cold compared to Siberia: he wasn’t wearing a coat. "Those two were a thing back at school, pretty sure they've slept together. Not now, of course, being co-workers." 

Harry found that particularly hard to swallow—the idea of Sia not just pretending but actually having _been with_ anyone but Dima. In Harry’s head, those two belonged together, end-of-story. Nebojsa loved Dima. The idea of Sia having an ex seemed absurd.

He knew Draco had plenty of exes; his husband had gotten around, and had a long list of previous partners, but that was in the past. His husband wasn't dancing with any of his exes at a concert, or holding their hands—because Draco's exes were mostly terrible people, and the rest were like him, pureblood kids who'd been miserable with their perceived lot in life. Most of Draco's past partners were dead now, Harry realized with a jolt. Draco had never had a close, emotional relationship with any of his sex partners. He'd only found closeness with Harry. 

The thought of former partners wasn’t something Harry had much experience with, and the concept made him uncomfortable. 

More than anything, it was the easy closeness of the relationship between Iga and Nebojsa which Harry found so striking. He’d never seen two people who were supposedly exes get on so charmingly well. Obviously they had more than simple sexual chemistry; even now, a few years later, they still sincerely liked being around each other. They concealed it in the office but, going out like this… it startled Harry all over again. 

He rarely saw Nebojsa be _that_ happy. Iga brought it out in him—his playful side, away from his kin, the men whose lives and well-being he considered himself responsible for. 

Harry stumbled to put his thoughts into words. "How... how does Dima feel about that?" 

Yuri shrugged again. "They've never been monogamous. Honestly, I don't know many double-testosterone partnerships who _are_ exclusive." 

'Double-testosterone' was a phrase Harry had never heard before. It struck him. It was definitely an apt way to describe his own relationship with his husband—on a certain level, he and Draco were often in competition with one another. Draco would take shots at Harry to provoke his temper, turned on by the aggressive side to his personality just like when they were kids taking cheap shots at each other in the corridors. Sometimes Draco preferred Harry’s hard, authoritative and angry side more-so than his affectionate and romantic self, the softer of which Draco repeatedly turned his nose up at. Not to mention how athletic and frequent the sex had been last year—definitely testosterone-fueled. Being with Draco was a quidditch match that never stopped, changing lines like a hockey team to maintain a constant presence on the ice. Draco didn’t care for it when Harry let up on that pressure even for a second. 

Certainly Harry's testosterone had been elevated thanks to the war. Now that things had calmed down and Harry was no longer a powder keg with a short fuse, maybe Draco found him less attractive? Or saw Harry as less manly now because he wanted to be better in-touch with his emotions. On some level, Draco might've seen their marriage dynamic as a kind of contest; when Harry stopped competing, wanting instead to be loving and treat his husband as a teammate rather than his opponent, the drop in tension meant Draco lost his ever-present boner. 

There was so much external pressure surrounding their relationship at first—Harry's friends being against it, which only fueled Draco's desire. Then the backlash to their wedding, with many in the magical world showing their true colors when Harry came out as not-as-straight-as-he-thought. All that animosity from exterior forces activated Draco's survival instincts, which was probably a big reason why he stuck so tightly to Harry. Draco was a fighter. He wanted to give himself the best chance for survival, which meant staying by Harry's side and fending off every last threat together. He and Draco hadn’t been in many battles together, but their relationship definitely had a 'brothers-in-arms' dynamic. Both of them were fighting something. No matter what, they always had each other's backs when the bullets started flying. 

Now that the war was over, their marriage didn't have that extreme external pressure which had forced them to work together and operate as a team against a common enemy. Now Draco missed that tension. With nothing to fight against, no immediate outlet for his considerable rage, he'd eventually turned his aggression on their marriage... and on himself. Draco didn’t feel like a man if he wasn’t angry at something. 

That was likely a part of why Draco always snapped at Harry when he tried to pay a compliment. Draco needed the tension, the rush. He probably never realized that he was hurting his husband's feelings, how hard it was for Harry to persist and push through Draco's walls when he was so mean all the fucking time. Harry had lost count of the number of times Draco responded to affection by telling him to fuck off. 

Testosterone was a major component of their relationship. It was testosterone which drove Draco to fuck. And Draco used to fuck a lot—so much so that he’d never had a monogamous relationship. 

Harry was left wondering whether the preference for non-monogamy was a testosterone thing, a gay thing, a pureblood thing, or a combination of all three. Even Draco had questioned early in their relationship whether Harry would be interested in having sex with other people... and whether or not Draco would be permitted to step out when someone he was interested in crossed his path. Someone like Dima. 

In the back of his mind, Harry suspected his husband was more interested in Dmitry than anything he’d felt for Vukasin. Draco and Vuk had gotten drunk and had a casual three-way with Chereshko on the Durmstrang ship: they were fast friends with a rebellious streak in common, but Draco hadn't let either of those guys get under his armor. Draco’s relationships could never grow beyond surface sexual attraction because he never let them, claiming he didn’t want anyone to have hurt feelings once he accepted an inevitable arranged marriage. 

That line about not wanting to leave a trail of jilted lovers was a complete lie, an excuse Draco used to disguise the fact that he didn’t know _how_ to get close, _how_ to share feelings or fall in love. He’d never let himself feel much of anything. Feelings weren’t manly. Feelings made you weak, open to manipulation. Feelings were only acknowledged when they were of use; anything else Draco shredded and burned, denying their existence. That was a suffocating way to live. 

Maybe Draco saw in Dima some of the brute masculinity and quick temper he'd once found so attractive in his husband. Dima's hair-trigger, his deceitfulness and questionable morals would be incredibly attractive to Draco... especially when his own husband wasn't embodying those fighter’s qualities as much as he used to. Harry could understand why Draco’s silver eyes occasionally strayed, why he and Dima bonded so tightly, so quickly. Dima embodied everything Draco missed about war-time Harry. Dima was Harry without his conscience—a feature Draco sometimes viewed as more of a hindrance than an asset. 

Harry turned his attention away from his spouse, picking up the conversation with Yura who’d passively gone back to his beer. 

"You don't think Nebojsa and Iga are together anymore, right? Because of work. Or...?" 

Maybe Nebojsa had changed a lot in the war. Or perhaps Iga had found someone else. A lot had happened in two and a half years, and Harry figured he only knew a fraction of all that had gone on between the fall of Durmstrang and now. There was a good chance that both Nebojsa and Iga were different people than when they'd been ‘together’ in their schooldays. 

Yuri's lips were pressed, gathering his thoughts. "Relationships are... much more than the physical," he said sagely. "We can be intimate without having sex." 

"Of course," Harry understood that. After all, he was about as close with Nebojsa as two people who hadn't fucked could be... though, granted, they'd kissed once. And that just proved the point he was trying to make now. Even his own relationship with Nebojsa wasn’t completely without sexual history. Sia was religious, but he was also an intensely sensual person. Harry only knew one way to voice that concept. "But, when you're _that close_ with someone, and you care about them, and you're attracted to them… isn't it inevitable that the relationship tips over into something sexual?" 

Yuri frowned at Harry over his beer. "We are conscious beings, not rutting animals. I don't believe my friends are the way we are because none of us can keep our clothes on. The opposite—I’ve seen each of them turn down opportunities to get laid because the timing was off, or it wasn’t for the best. Rather, we sometimes have sex other people because we know our own short-comings, we know where we fall short of being there for our partner and maybe can't fulfill certain needs. So we turn to others when it can be done in a healthy way, and encourage our partners to do the same and have their own needs tended to, fantasies indulged, so that we come back to each other satisfied."

Harry got the impression Yuri wasn't strictly talking about Dima and Nebojsa’s lack of monogamy. There was too much ‘we’ in his statements. "Were you and Darya like that?" 

Yura finished the first of his beers. He didn't say anything, making Harry wonder if he'd royally put his foot in his mouth by bringing up sad memories. Apparently Yuri was just thirsty, his voice level when he answered, "Dari liked women, too. So we practiced polyfidelity.” 

Harry didn’t know what that word meant. He couldn’t help but notice that after two years Yuri had finally made the transition to talking about his _fiancée_ in the past tense. 

There was a smile beneath Yuri’s beard—the memories were good ones. “We used to have threesomes with her girlfriends. They liked my toys." 

Harry's eyes bugged out.

"What? You thought I only made wands?" the big wizard snorted. "If you’ve seen Nebojsa's floggers? All my work." His smile broadened, chest lifting, proud of himself. 

Harry thought there might've been something wrong with his Translation Charm. "...Floggers?" he repeated lamely. 

Yuri saw the look on his face—complete confusion. The burly wizard quickly back-pedaled. "Oh, sorry. I'd just assumed you were, you know... in the scene. Because you married Draco. With that guy's reputation...." Yuri raised his thick eyebrows, beer to his lips and drinking, as though his meaning should've been obvious.

Harry felt his face heat. He wasn't upset with Yuri but... his husband had a reputation? "Reputation for what?" 

Yuri spoke blandly. "He’s a bruiser—a really aggressive top. The kinda guy who'll beat the shit out of his partner while he fucks their brains out ‘til they cry." 

That left Harry blinking rapidly, stunned. He had no idea that was what people at Durmstrang thought of his spouse. Then again… it wasn’t exactly _un_ true. So what did others assume about _him_ being married to Draco? That Harry was the punching bag in their marriage?

Harry stopped his train of thought abruptly. It didn't matter what people thought; worrying about other people’s opinions was one of the stupidist, most self-defeating things the Dursleys had ever pushed into his head. He didn’t care what anyone thought about his sex life. The fact that he and Draco sometimes hit each other was taboo, but no more so than two chaps being together. What went on in their bedroom was their own business. 

People at Durmstrang knew about Draco’s preferences because he’d been an object of interest during the TriWizard—had rebuffed more advances than he accepted because he was a top who fancied hitting his partners, which wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Draco informed potential fuck-buddies about his kinks—getting their consent before he unleashed himself. And some of those spurned suitors likely turned around to alert their mates, sharing pertinent information so that other interested parties could make an informed decision before approaching Draco. 

It wasn’t exactly gossip. Gossip was negative or hurtful in some way, or revealed information that wasn’t yours to tell. Queer blokes at Durmstrang telling each other that Draco was a ‘bruiser’—an aggressive, sadistic top—was more like a public service announcement. Like telling each other, “Don’t go on that roller-coaster unless you’re prepared to chunder your guts out afterwards.” Sex with Draco _was_ a roller-coaster in need of a warning sign. Just because Harry loved it didn’t mean other people would. They deserved to know before they developed a crush on Draco, only to find out that sexual preferences were incompatible. 

Yuri was still talking. "Consensually, of course. I never heard anything bad. Just that he's a heavy sadist." The way Yuri said it, so calm, as though he were stating that Draco was a natural blond in addition to punching people whilst he was inside them; both were just facts. Russians were so dry—which Harry could appreciate. 

Yuri might've heard these things from Vuk and Chereshko, his friends, guys closer to his age who'd spent time with Draco during that darker period of his life. Draco had acted out a good deal during his school years. Sex was one of his best outlets. Sex and exercise were the only things keeping Draco's manic and occasionally psychotic episodes under control. Denied those outlets the following school year, he'd come awfully close to getting people killed when his manic side took over once under pressure from the Death Eaters. 

Somehow the two of them had managed to fall into a group of friends with common sexual interests—blokes who did what they did in bed, who understood the techniques and safety involved as well as the mind-bending pleasure. 

Harry had to wonder how much the guys had really seen in the alley that strange, magical, alcohol-fuelled night they met. More than seeing Harry with his cock out, they’d witnessed that hidden sexual dynamic Harry and Draco were still developing at the time. They’d recognized it, knew what the Potters were from day one. They knew before Harry did. 

Of course they’d trusted him after that. Draco knew what he was doing, getting Harry far enough out of his head to have sex in front of strangers. Drunk and high, Harry was able to put aside his shyness and fuck in public. Draco wanted to show that they were a part of the same underground, had the same secrets… exposing themselves so that Dima and Sia and the rest would know their own sexual identities were shared and safe. Draco knew Chereshko, knew that anyone the Moldavian wizard rolled with were men he in turn could trust. Draco built that bridge, so that when the time came Harry would have it to cross—an access point to other dominants, tops, and sexually open people he could talk with, learn from, compare notes with, the same way Draco learned from Vuk and Chern when he first started. 

Draco knew Harry would protect these guys, shield them, as soon as he saw they were vulnerable _because_ of their sexuality. Harry could always be counted on to look after his own—the outcasts, the queers and the freaks. Draco knew Harry would open his heart again, just as he’d done for his husband.

“Um… what do people say about me, then?” 

Yuri finished his beer, tipping the plastic cup back to get the last of it. By now, Harry understood the chap wasn’t stalling—he just liked to drink, and wasn’t about to rush an act which brought him pleasure. 

“I hear _nothing_ , actually. I think, maybe, this is because of everything you did in the war,” he proposed, thinking out loud. “You’re everyone’s hero. They look up to you… like a parent. And nobody wants to talk about their parents fucking. I’m sure many people think about it, of course. You are young, powerful, and good-looking. But I haven’t heard anything at all about you.” 

Maybe Yuri was right. Or maybe those who knew—who’d seen him and Draco going at it in the Room of Requirement last winter—found Harry’s preferences so incomprehensible, so repulsive, that they didn’t want to bring it up for fear others would assume they were into the same things. It was a risk for the person considering wagging their chin about what The Great Harry Potter liked to do with his knob. They might get labeled as a freak just for bringing it up. English propriety demanded that, even if they knew, they keep their ruddy mouths shut about it. 

Harry didn’t exactly like the idea that people went around blathering about his sex life—that Gin might’ve told her mum about seeing Harry tied up getting a blowjob, or that Luna and Neville and more than a dozen other classmates had seen Harry blow a load in Draco’s arse with a hand around his throat, hitting him. But the truth about Harry’s sexual preferences _was_ out there, the same as Draco’s. He could only guess that some latent stiff upper lips, mixed with a good amount of personal turmoil, kept people from talking openly about what half of magical England seemed aware of and determined to ignore. 

Harry Potter was a freak in bed. A lot of people knew that. But it scared them, so they weren’t about to bring it up in conversation, let alone say anything to his face about it. 

The culture at Hogwarts taught witches and wizards to be secretive, to keep their mouths shut at all costs. Durmstrang kids learned how to talk, how to shout. They valued sharing their thoughts, just as Lina had encouraged Mandy. It was a totally different mindset, and the reason so many Durmstrang kids survived the war while the UK and Hogwarts were decimated. 

“Anything I should transmit back to the scene?” asked Yuri. He had that spirit of openness about him, ready to broadcast Harry’s words out into the world if he wished. 

Harry didn’t want to think about that—dating, finding someone else. It horrified him. And… as he was now, he had no business being in a romantic relationship. Not until he rooted out and conquered the parts of himself which caused so much hurt to the people around him. It wasn’t smart to invite anyone close until he was confident he could do right by them. 

Harry shook his head. “Nope. I’m permanently off the market so… nothing to report.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Back inside, the band played an especially beautiful song—moonless night slow, mournful, cries in their voices. They chanted, one long and hurting sound. Harry felt the pain, the bewilderment and anger behind their voices.   

And he wasn’t in that dusty Harringay warehouse anymore. He was at Hogwarts, the castle coming down around him as Death Eaters streamed in, killing everyone around him. Everywhere, kids were screaming. The night burned. At the center of it all was Draco, bloodied and screaming too, believing he was going to die with a sword in his hands. 

“Harry? _Ty v poryadke?_ ” 

Everything was black. He couldn’t breathe. 

“Harry?!” 

A tender hand touched his elbow—a woman, one of the witches, like a ghost reaching through a solid wall to grab at him. Harry shook her off. He knew where he was. He could hear the music in his ears. It was only music. But the flames were yet around him, blood on his clothes, a gun in his hand. He was between worlds, between time, trapped. He couldn’t breathe. 

Magic sprung up from his hands. That much he could see, the light under his skin about to break free. _Shit. Shit_. He still couldn’t catch a breath. And he couldn’t stop the light forming around his fingers, sparking blue power coming to his aid, his magic bubbling up inside him to match the lump in his throat. His body knew he had to protect himself from whatever was stopping the air denied to his lungs. 

He couldn’t expose magic. There was no coming back from that. So he stuffed his hands in his armpits beneath his coat, hoping no one would see the magic trying to escape him as he made a desperate run for the loo.

 

 

 

 

Nebojsa followed—to make sure he was okay. The Serb knocked on the stall door where Harry was holed up. Harry recognized the rap of those knuckles, and the toes of his brown boots on the other side of the door. 

“I…” Harry murmured, staring at the sparks flying around his hands. They were mesmerizing, beautiful, and so bloody dangerous. “I can’t breathe. Sia, I can’t breathe!” 

“You can breathe,” Nebojsa reassured him in his native tongue—his voice was deeper, calming, when he spoke Serbian. “I promise. You’re having a panic attack.” He went to open the stall door but Harry had locked it. Nebojsa’s magic could unlock it in a heartbeat, but he wouldn’t do that. Harry wanted it locked: Nebojsa wouldn’t force it unless Harry were actually in danger. 

" _Don't come in!_ " Harry hissed, glaring at his hands. " _I can’t control the sorcery_. _I don't wanna hurt you_." 

It was embarrassing—all of it. Not having control of his powers. Running off to hide in the fucking loo. Losing his mind because of some music. Music he _fancied_. It was otherworldly. It transported him. Unfortunately it took him back where he wasn’t ready to go. 

“ _Alright,_ ” Sia hissed, converting to Parseltongue too. “ _I’ll be right here. Issssss that alright?_ ” 

Harry nodded, then realized Nebojsa couldn’t see that. 

“Yeah.” 

Sia stayed with him, leaning against the wall—being there, waiting. He didn’t need to say anything more. Just the fact he was there was enough. 

Harry pulled his first real breath, his lungs screaming. Sia was right; he could breathe, it just hurt like hell. 

Once he could breathe, his eyes decided it was time he started to cry.

Harry pushed up his borrowed sleeve, looking at the tattoo on his arm, viewing it in the swirling star-like light of his own sorcery and the watery wave of first tears. _Draco_ , bold letters inked into his skin… his statement that he didn’t want to hide how he felt. He’d always wanted to be open, out, to have their relationship be public. He wasn’t afraid or embarrassed, hadn’t cared what other people thought when it came to his love for Draco. He was in love for the first time in his life: he’d wanted to shout it from the tallest tower. Draco had convinced him it was for the best to hide. And Draco was right in the end. He was usually right… smug git. 

Harry wanted Draco here, with him. He wanted Draco to hold him and tell him everything would be okay—and that he was being a giant baby, causing everyone else worry about him, ruining a perfectly good evening. That was what Draco would say. Harry could hear his husband’s voice in his head, down to the last huff and accompanying eye-roll. 

Through his tattoo, he could call out to his husband no matter how far apart they might be. It was the same magic by which Tom Riddle summoned his followers; except that when Harry reached out to his husband through the Dark Mark it was never painful. He never, ever wanted to hurt Draco… which made it that much harder, that much worse, when he inevitably messed up his first real relationship, when his mistakes caused pain to the one he loved most in the entire world. 

He could call for Draco right here and now. But he didn’t expect Draco to respond. And he didn’t want to risk activating the Mark only to make Draco’s current mania or psychosis worse by bringing up old, even-less-pleasant memories. Any activity in the Mark would freak Draco out, reminding him of Voldemort. Not to mention reaching out through that blood-and-ink connection was in direct violation of Draco’s request that Harry fuck right off. 

Draco didn’t want him. Draco didn’t want to be here. Maybe he would care that Harry was crying in a loo stall—bawling, missing him, wanting him back. Maybe Draco didn’t give a shit. Maybe Draco would think his ex was pathetic if he knew. 

 _Ex Husband_. That was a label he’d never expected. It was a possibility, though. People got divorced all the time—especially head-strong idiots who married young. And wouldn’t the critics and the nay-sayers be delighted? He could hear their taunting in his head, could hear the speculation and gossip like there was a Wizarding Wireless talk-show broadcast straight to his head. 

He wouldn’t be a laughing stock… the public would support their Chosen One and turn on Draco. They would hate him. Because they didn’t know the truth. Draco who was so strong, Draco who had risked everything, Draco who saved them all… and they’d say he wasn’t worthy of Harry—his lying, deceitful, criminal, piece-of-shit husband. 

Harry could still hear the music; their wails, the screeches and yips and slow, deep drumming. Rather than hurt anyone else, he threw his shoulder against the wall and let himself cry.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry cleaned himself up. He felt like shit and probably looked wrecked, or stoned—red-eyed and rubbing at his nose coming out of the bathroom, but he managed to catch the last few minutes of the show. 

The music was as beautiful as ever. He couldn’t close his eyes, that was all. If he closed them, he’d leave his body and go back in time again. 

These muggles… they had a power of their own. 

After the last song, as the crowd started picking through the mountain of coats and ambling towards the exists, Galina and Mandy did a fair impression of being tired, saying they ought to be getting back to their flat. Harry knew the look of two people in love who wanted to go home and screw. Wishing the couple goodbye, Iga offered to the remaining lads that they might Apparate back to her place for a nightcap. 

As Yuri accepted, Sia silently checked in with Harry—fully ready to bail The Chosen One out with some excuse if he wasn’t feeling up for it. 

Harry surprised himself, shrugging. “You know? Sure, why not.” 

Iga was pleasant company, as was Yuri. More than anything, Harry agreed because he wasn’t sure whether Dmitry and Misha would be back at the flat yet, and he didn’t want to lay down in bed tonight next to Nebojsa… alone… together. He didn’t want to cry himself to sleep in that bed, in Sia’s arms. Getting drunk with friends, having a laugh, and passing out a few hours before dawn sounded better for all of them.

 

 

 

 

Iga Side-Along’ed the four of them into what was the main room of a skinny, brick-walled townhouse. It was remodeled in a clean, contemporary style, all of the interior walls knocked out to create an open living space, the bricks of one long wall exposed as a focal feature. There was a floating-style staircase against that wall, and a very tidy kitchen with flat-front cabinets painted black and new muggle appliances all in shiny chrome. The house was long and narrow, the shape reminding Harry of a bus.

The walls were white, the floors a dark-stained wood which made the room feel even longer. Iga's furniture was simple but expensive-looking, mostly metal and leather. Her round coffee table had a black marble top to match the kitchen counters. There was no television like a muggle would have, but she had a radio to listen to the Wizarding Wireless, a CD player with speakers, and a large bookshelf built into the living room wall stacked mostly with leather-bound spellbooks. Harry recognized jars of potion ingredients like salamander tails and pickled fluxweed in the kitchen, a small cauldron waiting on top of the gas stove. Obviously Iga was quite proficient with potions since she'd kept brewing after Durmstrang. 

It occurred to Harry that he hadn’t thought to ask where precisely Iga lived. Wherever they were, her home was beautiful, like something out of a fashion magazine—a modern gothic spread. 

Harry leaned into Sia. “Uh… where are we, by the way?” 

Nebojsa wasn’t about to laugh at Harry—but he did smile gently, whispering, “Amsterdam, muggle-side.” 

Iga went to her kitchen, pulling a bottle of vodka from the freezer, encouraging her guests over her shoulder to make themselves at home. She flipped her wand, silently summoning a few short whisky-type glasses from a nearby cabinet, assuming they’d be drinking more than single shots. She dug back into the freezer. "Anybody take ice?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, me." 

His tolerance for drinking had come a long way in the last year and a half, but knew he might never reach Draco's level of desire to pound straight alcohol until he lost his mind… nor did he necessarily want to. His continental friends had built up a tolerance for alcohol over time; in their cultures, even school-age children were given a swallow of liquor with meals. Harry hadn't touched the stuff until he started hanging out with Draco last year. 

Some ice melting in his drink was like patience—a little bit went a long way towards making his life better. 

The blokes stood around the kitchen’s black marble-top island—Sia and Yuri being too old-world polite to take a seat so long as Iga was on her feet, and Harry mirroring their behavior because that was what he did in group settings. Harry tossed his leather jacket on the nearby couch and then folded his hands, resting his elbows and forearms against the chilled, smooth marble island—adopting a casual leaning body language to disguise the fact he felt a little nervous. 

Iga’s home was a dramatic play of black and white, and very grown-up; Harry didn’t feel he belonged in spaces like this, as though there ought to be a kids’ table somewhere in the corner where he would be banished while the grown-ups drank and talked about things that mattered. 

His friends were infinitely cooler than him. He felt like the baby brother tagging along, more of a nuisance than a true member of the gang. He was their Peter Pettigrew, nipping at their heels, wanting to be like them. 

He couldn't help but wonder what Draco would think of this space. It was vaguely what he imagined Blaise Zabini's flat in Italy might look like—uncomplicated, refined, twenty-first-century elegance. He hoped Draco was getting on with Blaise, that he wasn't nearly as miserable as Harry. He didn’t think Blaise would be quite so understanding about the crying as Nebojsa was; then again, Draco was more likely to break things than shed a tear. After all, it was mostly Harry’s fault. 

He tried to put on a good-spirited face for his mates, not wanting to ruin their evening with his own melancholy mood. 

"You have a beautiful home," Harry commented. 

Iga’s smile didn’t show her teeth, but he could tell it was genuine. She put a bowl of ice on the island before pouring each of them a generous shot. “ _Spasiba_.” 

He was trying not to stare at her beautiful house. At least now his eyes were on something more polite than her big boobs. Judging by her luxurious furnishings, and this impressive townhouse apparently all to herself... Iga had significant means. Somehow, absent her family, she was loaded. He found it unlikely that she could afford this much house on a Hit Witch's salary. And by the looks of it she'd lived here for a while longer than the four months since she became his co-worker. There were a few mementos and non-moving photos on the walls along with her cubist taste in art. Harry had watched her move around the kitchen in such a way that belied more than a few months' familiarity. This was the place she'd called home for a while... possibly acquired during the war. This was her hide-out, the bunker she’d built to ride out the storm whilst he, Yuri and Sia were out there doing battle. 

Harry couldn’t blame her one bit. When Durmstrang fell, Iga would’ve been roughly sixteen and completely on her own—her parents died early in the fighting, and her sister went missing, killed while hiding in a safe house with her muggle-born boyfriend. In the span of two years, Iga had built all of this from nothing. Harry was that much more impressed. 

Iga could hug Sia or play with his hair all she wanted: Harry hadn’t seen it before because Iga wasn’t flashy, but the two of them were equals. Beneath her bright exterior, Iga was frightening—stubborn, powerful, and determined to get whatever she wanted. 

She wanted to be safe, to have a better life, and that was precisely what she made for herself. 

"Thanks for having us over," said Harry as he dropped two ice cubes in his drink. 

A light laugh left her lips, setting down the bottle where everyone could help themselves to a refill. "It's no problem at all! Slave was over this afternoon to clean." 

Nebojsa and Yuri were drinking. Harry's glass stopped short of his mouth. He froze. Was his Translation Charm broken? "Slave?" he repeated. 

Nope, not broken: he was about to enter a truly strange conversation. 

Yuri was giving Iga a look, too; not confused like Harry's, more like he was happy for her and wanted to know more—as though she’d just announced she had a boy-or-girlfriend. Harry didn’t exactly know how Iga identified. Yuri was smiling at her under his thick beard.

"Not like that," she chided Yura with a devious turn to her smile. "Just a tribute." 

Harry was officially lost. Iga saw his face and quickly started backpedaling. 

"Oh, Aidas... did my big mouth just out all of us? I'm sorry boys." Her lips pressed anxiously, lines across her brow. She turned her attention on Harry. "I... I thought you were in the scene." There was that phrase again— _in the scene_. It was gibberish to him. A telling flash of her eyes in Sia's direction: she assumed something because of Harry’s closeness with Nebojsa? 

Sia set down his glass, his eyes falling shut briefly. For Harry's information, the Serb dropped the Occlumens Shield he’d maintained all night, allowing Harry to hear thoughts meant for him—Nebojsa wouldn’t further embarrassing Harry by explaining out loud. 

 _‘_ _The scene’ means... people like us, who practice BDSM, are ‘in the scene.’ Dominants are the Masters and Mistresses. Many submissives, but not all, are called slaves_. 

Deep down, Harry had always known his friend was like him in the bedroom. After the way they'd met, that night they'd gotten wasted, been blown in an alley and kissed so... so… he still didn’t have a word to describe that moment burned into his brain. He hadn't known what to call it then, and still struggled to accurately name their connection. The information that Nebojsa was sexually dominant hadn't been relevant to anything at the time. Harry knew. He never had time or much of a reason to think about it. Then the war picked up, and he buried that detail for later. 

Harry had a big sack of recently-dug-up thoughts and feelings to comb through. The fact that Nebojsa consensually beat the tar out of Dima in their bedroom was mixed somewhere in that bag. Harry knew: Nebojsa was like him, like Draco. Nebojsa shared many of the same sexual preferences—kinks, perversions… fetishes. It had never come up before, that was all. 

Iga looked so distraught. This was her house, she’d invited him and been so nice. Now she was upset for having potentially outed Sia and Yuri without their consent. She wasn’t outing anyone: Harry already knew. 

"It's fine," said Harry, driven to a rare declaration by his desire to ease her mind. "I'm Dominant." 

The word felt strange in his mouth—almost like lying but… it was a kind of truth. That was the word other people used to describe the things he fancied, what he was into, what he did to Draco, what he preferred when getting off. 

He was still missing a lot. Most conversations about BDSM went over his head; just like discussions about gay culture, he didn't follow the terms or phrases used by others ‘in the scene.’ Those words had nothing to do with him, so he never bothered to learn to speak this particular foreign language. No one ever taught him how to talk about what turned him on. He usually just hissed at Draco, or sent images directly from his brain to his husband’s. He had to learn the words, though. He had to learn how to talk about himself in a way that other people could understand. 

He was married: it wasn’t as though he’d ever need to go out and find himself another partner. Except, with Draco gone and maybe never coming back…. He wasn’t ready to think about that. Considering a life without Draco felt too much like giving up. He wasn’t gonna call it quits; not even if Draco tried to kill him again. He was in this. He loved Draco, belonged to Draco. The only way that love would ever die was if he did, too. 

Now Yuri was looking at Harry, wondering why he hadn't said anything when they’d talked earlier. Yuri never _asked_ if Harry went that way, so Harry never volunteered his status. He only mentioned it because Iga felt bad and Harry had wanted to ease her mind. She wasn’t exposing them to an outsider because Harry was one of them—albeit on the fringe. He wasn’t _in the scene_ , but Harry did sit at the kinky kids’ table.

People from Durmstrang took outing very seriously; for them, getting outed at the wrong time or place or to the wrong people could get them arrested, even killed. That same attitude surrounding the protection of someone's sexual orientation naturally extended to include their kinks and fetishes as well. Personal information was sacred. They didn't hand it out willy-nilly. It was private, and it could be used against them if it fell into the wrong hands. At Durmstrang, the students protected each other against persecution. Sometimes that persecution came from the professors, or their own families. They protected their own… especially the perverts, the outcasts, and the freaks like him. 

Iga had spoken freely because she thought they were all on the same team... and, more or less, they were. Harry's simple statement let Iga know he too was a part of the pervy sex club.   

Iga was relieved. She raised her glass to Harry in a silent ‘cheers’ before taking her liquor in one mouthful. 

For being within a year of each other’s age, Iga was the more experienced drinker. Harry sipped, giving his ice some time to melt; like the ice, he too needed some time before he could blend comfortably into new surroundings. It had nothing to do with Iga or Yuri… it was Harry’s problem. _He_ needed time to know them better before he could relax. Getting a drink in his system might help quiet his mind. 

Iga refilled her drink, keeping her attention on Harry. "In that case, would you care for a tour of my dungeon?" 

In wizard-speak, Harry knew that was an _entendre_ , sexual banter: 'dungeon' being slang for between someone's legs. The way Iga said it, he figured she wasn't hitting on him. He didn't know exactly _what_ she meant, but he was confident she wasn’t making a pass at him.

"It's still a work in progress," she told him bracingly, an attempt to manage his expectations. 

Harry shrugged. At worst, she wanted to show him where she kept the rest of her potion ingredients, or the cellar of her pretty house. She was one of Nebojsa’s closest friends, and their co-worker. As awkward as he felt, Harry knew nothing bad could happen by saying _yes_. So he did. 

"Sure. Lead the way." 

The other two picked up their drinks, Iga beckoning them to follow her up the stairs to the second level. Yuri was considering Harry's back with a black gaze he could feel—reassessing everything he'd presumed true about The Chosen One. Yuri knew Draco was a bruiser, and Harry had just identified as dominant, too, so he was probably wondering how that double-testosterone, double-dominant combination worked out in their bedroom. Just because a bloke was dominant didn’t mean he was a top. Dominants could catch: Harry did. 

On the staircase, Harry felt Yuri’s eyes drop, for a split second assessing his bum. Harry knew he had a decent ass. Yuri’s moment of consideration wasn’t sexual, but intellectual. With Harry identifying himself as dominant, Yuri had to be thinking there was a fifty-fifty shot that The Chosen One—war hero and Hit Wizard—was also a bottom. That messed with most people’s internalized concept of masculinity. 

Yuri stopped looking at Harry’s butt. He would probably continue wrestling with the idea in his head. 

Sia wasn't saying anything, mentally or out loud, letting things unfold at Harry's pace without his intervention. 

They went up the minimalist floating staircase to the second floor; Harry realizing there were three floors in total, similar to Grimmauld except that Iga's home was much narrower. He'd never been to the Netherlands before so he couldn't say if that was common of Dutch houses or not. There was a small balcony overlooking the alley behind the house, and the front windows had a view of the famous canals. 

There was a small landing with a single door leading to a room which occupied the entirety of the second floor. With a flourish, Iga threw open the door, beaming. She was proud of her project and wanted her friends to see, valuing their opinion. 

Stepping inside, the first thing Harry noticed was the blood-red walls. Almost like Gryffindor Common Room except a deeper shade, closer to burgundy. Iga had shutters over the windows for privacy—those were black like the strange furniture, which was the second thing Harry noticed. 

BDSM furniture? Harry couldn’t make out the purpose behind most of it. One object looked like a devotional bench from a muggle church, with a padded leather strip to put your knees on and a shelf to rest your arms while you prayed. Except the bench faced a wall display of... yes, those were whips. Harry had never seen one in person—the leather, Indiana Jones variety. He'd had the skin peeled off his back by a lash of magic conjured by Bellatrix Lestrange, so he could fairly imagine what it might feel like to get hit by the muggle version. It didn't strike him as pleasant... then again, he hadn't fancied the prospect of Draco's prick up his ass, either. Sometimes the experience was nothing like what you imagined it would be. 

Still, he didn't care much for the idea of getting whipped. It was the opposite of arousing—making him feel all-the-more out of place in this space. Its contents had nothing to do with him. 

In one corner was what appeared to be an oversized dog crate—a metal cage with a door at the front, a bowl for food or water tucked inside but no pillow or dog bed for comfort. A person could fit in there, though a man over six feet might be rather cramped. 

There were two long tables, one metal which wouldn’t have looked out of place in a veterinarian’s office, and the other padded in soft leather—the kind a masseuse would have for people to lay comfortably on. One punishment, the other pleasurable. 

Three large wooden beams ran the shorter width of the ceiling. They were old, seeming original to the house. Secured to each beam was a metal ring not quite large enough for Harry to put his fist through, surrounded by a metal bracket which wrapped the beam, holding the ring in place. Harry had no earthly idea what purpose an anchor in the ceiling might serve—let alone three of them. 

Most familiar to him were a collection of straight-backed chairs against one wall, almost like a viewing gallery, and a long leather sectional sofa which would seat at least five. A large armoire against one wall had many cubbies and drawers, each with a label stuck to it, identifying its contents. Wearing his glasses, Harry could read a few of them: towels, batteries, condoms, rope, restraints.

Nebojsa was poking around a curious piece of furniture which looked like two lacquered, seven-foot-long planks of wood screwed together to form an X. It leaned against the wall with a wide berth, nothing else nearby. The wood had no adornments save for the smooth metal covers secured over the screw holes. The slippery finish meant whoever leaned against it, presumably without any clothes on, wouldn't get splinters. The smooth, shiny finish on the wood was also non-porous, making it possible to sanitize with muggle cleaning products. 

It was an ancient muggle torture device, an alternative to crucifixion—Harry dug through his memory for the name: a saltire, or St. Andrew’s cross. Ancient wizards used to strip their enemies of magic after defeating them in battle, then crucify them on saltires, so it had significance in magical culture as well as muggle. He recalled pictures in his History of Magic textbooks. 

Harry swirled the mixture of vodka and ice water in his glass, blending it a bit before he shot it down in one gulp, crunching on the ice. Maybe a bit more vodka might help him relax in this strange new space. 

It was like his first day at Hogwarts all over again. He felt like an outsider, not knowing what anything was, what things were for, what he was supposed to do or be. Everything was strange, yet the people around him all understood. They’d been waiting all their lives for this while he walked in blind and unknowing what trouble he might be getting himself into. So he stood still as Iga came over, smiling at him, kindly refilling his glass, a flip of her wand conjuring him some more ice. 

Sia poked around the St. Andrew’s cross which was at least a foot taller than he was, ducking his head through the top of the X to get a closer look at something behind it. 

"You bolted the restraint anchors on the back?" he asked, continuing to speak in Russian. 

Iga nodded. " _Da_. It looks cleaner. And I can secure the cross to the wall that way, so it can’t slip. No magic necessary. Just a bit of engineering, and power tools."

"It's easier with magic," Yuri chuckled. 

Iga laughed back, joking, "Sure it's easier! But the sound of a nail gun or power drill scares the living daylights out of a blindfolded tribute. I spent sessions building my play room." 

Harry thought about that—it would be terrifying to be blind and naked, chained up in the corner of this big room or locked in the dog cage whilst Iga operated machinery. It wasn't for him, nor would he ever want to do that to another person. Probably because he'd been tortured for real, been locked in a tiny cupboard for weeks at a time: Harry had real violence and degradation used as an attempt to control him. For people who had never experienced actual mortal danger and didn't have the psychological baggage that came with it, Iga's methods were perhaps exciting. 

If anything, Iga's 'slaves' were in even less danger because she was a witch. If something went seriously wrong, she had magical means of intervention in addition to muggle. 

"This is amazing," said Yuri, surveying the room, vaguely nodding as he took everything in. "Well done, _Gospozha_. Your slaves are very lucky." 

Iga beamed at the compliment. Since Yuri practiced, too, and made his own implements, his praise meant a lot to her. 

Harry wondered out loud, "Since they're muggles in your house, what do you tell them about the potion ingredients and spell books downstairs?"

Iga’s big smile turned devious. "I tell them I'm a witch. Which makes them think I'm absolutely crazy! I couldn't ask for a better gimmick."

"Gimmick?" 

To Harry's surprise, it was Sia who explained that one aloud. "Tributaries respond best to an archetype, a kind of story you tell with your appearance and what's known about you." He gestured to Yuri, "Farm boy working his way up." His hand went to Iga, "Unhinged wanna-be witch obsessed with the occult." Then he tapped his own chest, "Seminarian, fallen from grace." 

Harry felt a bit left out, expecting Nebojsa to point to him and assign a label, too. Only the three shots of vodka in his system made him ask, "What would I be, then?" 

Beside him, Iga chuckled happily. "Too easy! Military Daddy-Dom." 

Harry knew he was certified as two of those three things. He worked as a Hit Wizard, and he’d told Iga he was dominant. 

He had to assume ‘Daddy’ meant a man possessing paternal energy—warmer, more lenient and affectionate while enforcing rules. ‘Daddy’ must’ve been a gay thing, too. He remembered a couple of drunk Americans calling Dima by that particular appellation late-night-drunk and flirting in a liquor store. And Dima denied it, rejected the label—because he might present himself like a stereotypical straight guy, might come off as the commanding-but-nurturing type, but inside his heavily guarded heart… Dmitry was submissive. 

Nebojsa was Dima’s Daddy: the powerful, stable, benevolent male figure who looked after him, not just physically taking care of him but protecting him, teaching him, challenging him, punishing him when he screwed up, always encouraging him to learn from his mistakes and do better next time. Nebojsa wasn’t just Dima’s boyfriend. Nebojsa was his role model, too… the man he looked up to, respected, and wanted to emulate. Nebojsa was more of a father than Tihomir had ever been. 

Iga recognized Harry as a natural father figure, just like Sia. Except… that wasn’t entirely true. Harry only pretended at being a role model. He wanted to be a good man, and that how he preferred others to think of him but… his behavior said otherwise. The man he actually was demonstrated a surprising amount of cruelty and deceit.

" _Nyet_. Not Daddy." As though reading Harry’s thoughts, Sia shook his head. His lips pressed, black piercing wiggling. That label wasn’t quite right. He had something more accurate. The words snuck past his lips. "Secretly dirty cop." 

Harry couldn't breathe. How did... how _could_ Sia know? Harry hadn't said a word about Taylor and yet... of course the man who'd nearly become a priest could read Harry's guilty conscience from a mile away! The way Harry advocated for others. His push for transparency in government. His quest for self-improvement. To Sia, it must have been obvious that Harry was compensating, trying to bury his own mistakes in an avalanche of good deeds—a faulty mechanism for scrubbing his conscience clean after committing a crime against an innocent person.

Maybe Nebojsa could see straight through him because, some days, Sia felt the same way? They were both the sinner archetype, dirty and fallen, learning one day at a time how to pick themselves up. Except Sia was doing a much better job at keeping his nose clean than Harry. The Boy Who Lived couldn’t stop fucking up his second chance at life. 

"Oh, that's good!" Iga approved, lifting her glass in salute. "Handcuffs, a muggle constable's uniform, smoking a cigarette... yeah, perfect!" She raised her eyebrows hintingly at Harry, smirking up at him. "Let me know if you're taking tribute. I could get a line around the block for your services." 

Harry's continued confusion must've been on his face because Sia came over to speak in his ear.

" _Tribute is a client paying you to indulge their fantasies_ ," he explained in whispered Serbian. “ _In your case, corporal punishment from a paragon of virtue gone dark_.” 

Finally, Nebojsa’s use of the word ‘client’ allowed everything else to click in Harry’s brain. 

Iga wasn’t merely dominant with her significant others—she charged money for it, made her living as a Professional Dominatrix. She wasn’t just concerned over being outed as kinky… she’d exposed herself as a sex worker; which was legal here in Amsterdam and in Poland where Iga grew up, but illegal back in the UK where she now worked. 

Iga was pureblood, like Draco. And like Harry's husband, she occupied a moral space wherein exchanging sex or other intimate services for gold or gain was the norm. It was not something Harry wanted to participate in for himself but... he wouldn't look down on anyone who did, or think differently of them. It was a second job; Yuri made and sold sex toys in addition to wands, and Iga used those types of implements on willing people. And by all appearances Iga was very good at what she did. Professional BDSM was how she paid for this house… how she rode out the war.

She was, politely, offering to be Harry’s madam if he ever felt like selling himself. 

" _Then why not call it payment?_ " Harry hissed back. Talking about sex made his words come out in Parseltongue—that was his instinct, something he couldn’t help. " _Seems overly complicated_."

Sex and snake language were forever linked in his brain. Nebojsa didn’t seem to mind slipping between languages. They still understood one another. It was just… one more forbidden thing they had in common. 

Iga was watching them, listening to their secretive hissing, assuming they were clarifying amongst themselves or deciding how much to reveal. Sia and Iga went way back—had probably bonded during puberty when they both realized they were dominant—but Harry didn't know her that well, didn’t share that type of history. He could bring questions to Nebojsa which he wouldn’t ask of Iga.

" _No one payssss a God_ ," Sia quipped. " _Tribute impliesss a certain ssssssacrifice isss necessssssary_." 

And, with that simple statement, Harry had that much more to unpack regarding just how far his friends had gone in the name of survival. Sia—and Dima, too—had at some point in the last two and a half years been... Harry didn't know what to respectfully call the BDSM flavor of prostitution. What was a male dominatrix for hire? Or in Dima's case, a Prince you could pay to pretend he was your sex slave? That could be… lucrative. It was how Dima got his family home back, how they survived until Harry came along and stuck his own money in the way. Dmitry sold himself until Harry forcibly replaced his clients. And Sia’s tributaries, too; the people who paid a wizard-monk to dominate them, to punish them and, presumably, to fuck them. 

No wonder Dima was so happy to pay Harry back—in a round-about way, Harry had been Dima’s John for the summer. Dima didn’t fuck him for the loan but… it must’ve hung over his head, like he owed Harry something more than mere money. That gave Harry power over Dima. He hadn’t seen that aspect before. Having been a whore at the time, Dima couldn’t help but see it that way. 

 _Are you… okay?_ For the first time, Sia sounded tentative, reaching out to Harry through their mental connection. What he meant was, “Are _we_ okay? You and me?” Harry could feel his friend’s heart stuttering like they shared a chest. He was asking about their relationship, what Harry thought now that he knew his best friends had been prostitutes. Whether they could still _be_ friends. Because, not unlike coming out, Dima and Sia probably lost friends because of this. There were a lot of reasons to keep it a secret. Legality was just one. The social stigma… the way people would treat them if it were ever exposed publicly….

 _We’re good,_ Harry reassured him. His answer was immediate, emotion pouring out of him. _I wish you’d have told me_ _right away_ _. I’d have put my foot down a lot harder. But I kinda understand why you didn’t say. I’m not mad at you for omitting something_ _so_ _private. It’s really hard for me to believe you did that. But I accepted you sold drugs to survive,_ _so why wouldn’t you sell yourselves if there was demand?_ _Drug trafficking kills people; so does overdosing._ _At least sex for money didn’t hurt anyone._

Nebojsa bowed his head—relieved. Harry wasn’t breaking up with him. They could still be best mates. _Thank you._

Harry slammed the rest of his drink. _I’m gonna need some time to wrap my head around this. Maybe we can talk about it_ _some other time_ _? Alone?_

 _Of course._  

Harry still had to answer Iga. "Not taking tributes," he managed with a tight, very forced smile. "Sorry. Monogamous." 

Her expression went toward surprise. "Really?! Wow, that's intense." 

Harry didn't feel like commenting further. Thinking about Draco in this space was strange—it was exactly the type of playground where Draco would've gone nuts with every past partner; reminding Harry of his own insecurities, the ways in which he and Draco remained very different men. Draco wanted to beat people, hurt them, provided he had their consent: it turned him on. Harry only roughed up his husband _because_ they were turned on, because it drove them higher. He could never start things off with his fists... only in the throes of passion would he let his hands loose, a punctuation at the height of ecstasy. Violence happened as a byproduct of passion. It was a form of expression between them. 

Harry would always need emotion behind the action. To hit someone for the sake of hitting them... he didn't have that drive. His morality held him back—as a dominant husband the same as a law enforcement officer. He wouldn’t hit someone unless it was wanted, or as a last resort to keep others safe. He would never be the type of dom, nor the type of man, who could grab a weapon off the shelf and lay into another person, no matter how much they might want it or how much they paid him to do it. As a dominant, he had to feel it—a deep sexual drive and connection which he’d only encountered one time and with one person in his life. So he married that person, because it would never get any better than Draco. 

"What would Draco's gimmick be?" Iga pondered out loud. 

Harry’s guts dropped. Hearing his husband’s name in a dungeon… he hadn’t been prepared for that. Of course Iga wanted to include Harry’s spouse in the conversation—this was very much his world. She had no idea the Potters were on a break. 

Yura laughed, tipping his drink up. "Oh, come on! Draco’s the same type as Dima: angry and overcompensating because they're still mad at their dead fathers who never loved them." 

The mirth of the room dropped like a stone. Iga stared at Yuri. Nebojsa actually let out a low growl—he didn't find it funny at all to make fun of someone for being in pain, to mock a person prone to acting out because they were hurt. Nebojsa’s instincts in this room were deeply parental: to comfort, to console, to uplift. Pointing out Harry’s deceitful nature was fine; speaking truth to power no matter the consequences was something Nebojsa had been doing for years. But going after Draco or Dima, making a joke of their response to the abuse they suffered at the hands of their now-dead fathers, was in no way acceptable. 

"Hey," Harry cautioned, his voice like a slap on the air. 

Leaking out of Sia’s head was a palpable anger, disbelief and disappointment that Yuri had broken the highest rule of the sex room, the core of the BDSM scene: that you didn’t hand out any variety of pain without consent. Draco and Dima weren’t present to have their feelings hurt, but Harry and Nebojsa were their dominants, their representatives. A strike against the submissive was the same as a strike at their Master. Picking on Dima and Draco meant Yuri had effectively gone after Harry and Nebojsa by proxy.   

Yuri put his hands up, working his way through a mumbled apology. "It was a read. But I punched down instead of up. Sorry." 

As was becoming the trend, Harry didn't understand half of what Yura said, working to unscramble the words in his head. He did know enough to discern that it was an apology—Yura recognizing that he made a joke in bad taste, making fun of Dima and Draco for their symptoms arising from being victims of abuse; their anger, their pride, their oscillating sense of self-worth… all things they had no control over. 

People could be teased for their own freely-made choices, as Sia had done to Harry. But you didn’t kick a victim while they were down. Dima and Draco had horrible fathers who really fucked them up. There was plenty to be angry about. Making fun of victims for being angry was the opposite of helpful—that put blame on the victims rather than holding the ones who hurt them accountable. If their horrible fathers were constantly revisited, held over their heads even after they were dead, the sons could never start to heal. 

Iga glanced around, looking for a way to cut the tension. Harry didn’t think any of the implements of pain decorating the walls were going to work. 

She lifted her vodka bottle instead. It was nearly empty. "Four Dominants in my dungeon and not one of us brought a slave to serve us drinks? What kind of fetish failures are we?" 

"I'm a switch," Yura murmured a complaint at being mislabeled. That was valid—you didn’t call somebody by the wrong label if you knew better. So maybe Iga didn’t know? She must’ve assumed Yuri was dominant, or maybe just kinky and a top.

"You still didn't bring anyone to pour the drinks, Switchy," Iga returned. 

"Touché," Yuri conceded. "I'm not serving as punishment." 

Iga teased him—using a pet name which Harry had never heard before. Her body shifted as she became another person, purring at him in her dominatrix voice; confident, sensual, taking command of a man twice her size. "Yurick… it's only a _real_ punishment if you're not into it." 

Suddenly, Harry saw it; an unspoken element of the evening which had been hiding in plain sight, obscured by his own asexuality, inexperience and hyper-internal focus—Yuri might be interested in Iga! After all, she was rather like his presumed-dead _fiancée_ , kinky and adventurous with a good sense of humor. Yuri was thinking about moving on with his life. And Iga could be a good partner to him; a witch he’d known in passing for a long time, a friend-of-a-friend who would be sensitive to his history without bringing up too many sad memories. A relationship could be rather a fresh start for both of them.

Harry had totally missed the two of them flirting back and forth, distracted as he was by Iga’s close relationship with Sia. In retrospect, Harry must’ve seemed like a real clueless asshole asking Yuri if the woman he liked had something going on with Sia instead! Now that he saw Iga actively flirting with Yuri, Harry was forced to reconsider. Iga wasn’t flirting with Sia before—that affection was platonic, intimate but not sexual. Because Iga’s sexuality was rooted in her identity as a dominant woman. She would never act that way towards Nebojsa because he was dominant, too. Ergo, their affection for each other was deep, but not sexual. 

Iga had invited them all back to her flat in part to have a buffer between herself and Yuri as they got to know each other again. They hadn’t been around one another for years, and Yuri was more-or-less single now, if broken-hearted. They needed to feel each other out. If the pair of them didn’t have chemistry, Harry and Sia were there to keep their nightcap friendly. If she and Yura _did_ hit it off, then… maybe that cage in the corner might have a hundred kilo wand-and-whip-maker stuffed inside sometime in the future? 

Making a joke in poor taste definitely hurt Yuri’s chances. At least he’d recognized his mistake and apologized. Maybe humility counted for something in a submissive? Harry couldn’t get a read off of Iga as to what she was thinking or feeling regarding Yuri as a potential playmate… and that was precisely what Harry would’ve expected from a Hit Witch. Or a Professional Dominatrix. 

Whatever fiendish acts Iga might be considering, she wasn’t about to let on. Like Nebojsa, she didn’t come off as someone capable of putting a partner on their knees in agony… which was probably why it was so arousing for a submissive person to see them flip over into that intensely powerful persona. Even Harry looked at Iga a little differently after hearing her talk that way, and he was more-or-less dominant, too. He did fall into that controlling, domineering mindset himself sometimes—mostly when he and Draco fucked. But he didn’t have as much control over it as Iga or Sia. He couldn’t flip it like a damn light switch the way Iga had. 

Back to normal, she looked between Sia and Harry, an idea taking shape in her head. "You both like women. I have a bitch in training who would come to serve us." Okay, maybe not _that_ normal. Harry was definitely not at Hogwarts anymore. 

" _Fetching drinkssss_ ," Sia added for Harry’s benefit; his explanations were becoming automatic, wanting Harry to comprehend what was being said so that he could make informed decisions and express if there was anything he wasn’t comfortable with. Sia understood that Harry was still learning what his own boundaries were, sometimes on the fly. So he reassured Harry, " _Nothing more. Nothing ssssssexual_."

" _Like a waitress?_ "

Sia raised one shoulder, half of a shrug. " _More like a human housssse elf, but yessss_." 

Harry consented. He was in a dungeon with two fellow dominants and a switch: why not add a submissive to the mix? It was a night of trying new things. After all, Harry Potter was nothing if not famous for saying ‘yes’ to all kinds of things he oughtn’t. 

"Sure."

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Sia's mobile rang. He fished it out of his tight pocket and answered. 

Harry immediately recognized Dima on the line speaking Romanian. Harry didn't need a translation to know what he was saying: he'd just come home to an empty apartment. He was probably wondering where Sia was, where he'd gone after the concert, and if Harry was still with him. 

It took Sia a moment to decide how he wanted to answer. He settled on the complete truth, speaking in English for Harry's benefit. "I'm in Iga's dungeon. Vith Harry." Dima made a wild spluttering sound. "Not like zhat, _srce moje_. _Calm down_." 

Nebojsa always called Dima _my heart_ in Serbian, even when he was mad at the guy. That was where Harry learned not to call Draco mean names when he was upset—name-calling degraded their relationship, and took away from the pleasure they felt in using inappropriate names for each other when they were happy. He didn’t want those same pet names to become twisted by real anger. Saying something like ‘sweetheart’ or ‘my love’ when he was upset reminded Harry that he was often mad at something Draco had no control over, and that it wasn’t Draco he was upset with so much as his illness, or his past trauma, or the people who manipulated and molded Draco to be that way. Harry suspected Nebojsa used nicknames for Dima much the same—to extend his patience and remind his partner that he was loved even when they were disagreeing or in different places emotionally. 

It was a subtle expression of dominance. Harry couldn’t think of another person on Earth who could get away with calling Dmitry “sweetheart.” 

"Give me five minutes to change," Harry heard Dima’s voice, excited, over the line. "Presuming I’m invited?" 

Sia looked to Iga, who nodded emphatically that _yes_ , Dima should join them. It was her house, her dungeon, so the invitation needed to come from her first before Sia could extend it. 

Nebojsa had one condition. “You’re invited. But uninvited if you change your clothes.” 

They could all hear Dima’s mighty groan. Nebojsa had made the most unimaginable predicament for his boyfriend. On the one hand, getting drunk with Harry Potter in a sex dungeon was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity Dmitry would _not_ want to pass up. On the other hand, Dima really hated his tuxedo; it was probably the last thing he’d ever want to be wearing while getting drunk with Harry Potter in a sex dungeon. 

Now that Harry knew what he was looking for… of course Nebojsa was dominant. It had been there all along. Harry was just willfully blind, refusing to see that his best friends’ arousal operated so similarly to his own marriage. Draco had tried to put Harry in uncomfortable situations and he’d just laughed it off. Draco had no real leverage because Harry could always walk away from sex if it crossed his boundaries. He had leverage when he turned around and did it to Draco. His husband, just like Dima, craved sex. So their dominants could make them jump through fiery hoops to get it. 

Nebojsa hung up, knowing Dmitry would turn up in his tuxedo or risk… Harry didn’t even know. Dima didn’t either. The possible punishments for disobeying instructions were endless. And that probably turned his crank.

 

 

 

 

They made themselves comfortable, waiting for Iga’s submissive and Dmitry to arrive. 

"Oh, be careful Harry," Iga pointed to the throne-like chair where Harry was about to sit. "That's a Queening chair." 

Once more, Nebojsa had to play tour-guide and explain to Harry what that meant. " _The ssssseat cushion liftsss off, and there issss a hole in the bottom sssssso that a ssslave on the floor can lick your assssssshole_."

It was kinda unusual to hear Sia say 'asshole.' Especially as the body part and not in the context of scolding Dima. That mild swear word actually threw Harry off more than the fact he was about to park his bum on sex furniture and get drunk. More drunk. 

"Noted. _Spasiba_." And he sat down, mindful of why the chair's seat seemed a bit wobbly. It forced him to sit up straight, his forearms on the arm-rests, sliding himself back in such a way that secured the seat beneath his bum. His weight—four stone more than Iga, its intended occupant—kept everything beneath him still so long as he didn't shift around much.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The muggle woman who arrived at Iga’s beck-and-call was not what Harry was expecting. Somehow, he thought a person who called themselves a slave might be… more alternative in their style, noticeably different. Artistic. Out. 

This woman could’ve been any professional thirty-something who worked in an office. She had long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She’d obviously scrubbed off her makeup for the day before Iga summoned her—her peach-tone skin was clean and shiny, with fresh mascara and plum-colored lipstick re-applied. That must’ve been something Iga preferred, a part of her uniform when she served. She wore a plain black dress, short, showing off her legs. Knickers might’ve been slightly visible if she bent over. She was heavier, the curves of her body exaggerated by a shorter stature. 

Harry couldn’t believe this woman was a slave. She looked like a bank teller, or the manager of a shop. She was extraordinarily normal.

Iga called her Lieke, “LEE-kah,” a pretty Dutch name.

Lieke entered the room holding a round silver tray—her body language not like that of a waitress but a house elf, just as Sia suggested—adopting a kind of meekness, a desire to go unnoticed. She kept her eyes down while balancing a fresh bottle of vodka purchased and brought to the dungeon for them, along with ice and clean glasses.

“Good,” was Iga’s reaction, a blandness to her voice. “About time you showed up.” She spoke English, snapping her fingers and pointing to the metal exam table as the place she wanted the bottle to go. 

Lieke crossed the room, eyes downcast. She surely noticed the three strange men keeping her Mistress company. Yuri—a six-and-a-half-foot-tall Russian who hunted wild animals for a living—was enough to scare the crap out of grown men. Sia’s many tattoos, piercings, and tight clothes gave the impression of an obscure goth rock star lounging on the leather sofa. Harry supposed that a muggle who looked at him would take note of his tremendously fit body and assume he was some sort of pro athlete; with his need for glasses, notable scars, and long nose broken a fair few times, perhaps a middleweight boxer? He had the fists for it, and the instincts. Having been hit as a kid gave him a rapid return-fire. 

Lieke seemed to know she was safe; Iga was there, her partner in power-play, someone she trusted implicitly. The men she didn’t know were no threat to her. Iga wouldn’t allow trouble into her sanctuary. 

The muggle woman returned to Iga with something like an ornate cigar box retrieved from the armoire. Lieke got down on her knees in front of Iga, offering the box. 

Iga opened it. Inside was… a leather collar, like a dog would wear. It had a ring at the front with a small silver lock. Iga took it up like the crown jewels, fastening it around Lieke’s neck, flipping her ponytail out of the way with the same familiarity with which she’d moved about her kitchen. This was an operation she went about many times, and like offering a drink to her guests, Iga took enjoyment in it. She was the sort of woman who took pleasure in looking after other people. Harry was the same way: he’d bend over backwards or get himself killed if it meant a better life for his loved ones. 

Lieke’s eyes drifted shut—as though she were receiving a massage, or had taken a sip of hot tea after being out in the cold. That collar meant something. Whatever it was, it made her happy. 

With their ritual out of the way, Iga closed the box. “These are my friends,” she explained to the woman still on her knees. “From my schooldays. Take good care of them. We’ll be speaking Russian. _She won’t understand a word_ ,” Iga added for the wizards in the room. “ _So we can speak freely_.” 

Harry would have to focus, to make sure his words came out under translation magic. He sincerely didn’t want Lieke to be Obliviated. 

After rising from her knees and opening the bottle of top-shelf vodka, Lieke made a trip around the room, replacing used glasses with fresh ones, pouring for each of them. She saw to Iga first—precedence, the same way Dmitry came before Misha as a matter of rank. A subtle flick of Iga’s eyes informed the order of service: Iga first, Harry, then Sia, and Yuri last… because he was a switch? Or as punishment, some latent ill-will for his insult earlier? Iga didn’t let go easily. Her good opinion was something earned, and tender; bruised like fruit, she could still show some sweetness. She could’ve told Lieke not to serve Yuri at all. 

Yura accepted his place at the bottom of the pack. He knew he’d fucked up and had remained quiet since. 

They toasted, and drank.

“Some music?” Iga suggested. Lieke scuttled off to retrieve her Mistress’ laptop, connecting it to a sound system wired into the room. Harry spotted a few black speakers no larger than take-away containers mounted in each corner. Iga really had thought of everything in constructing her sexual paradise, including a capability for mood music.

 

 

 

 

Dima arrived via the front door. Harry faintly detected the doorbell over the music—Iga’s preference ran parallel to Dima’s, with less screaming death metal and more glamorous, operatic goth rock. Her playlist so far hadn’t included The Weird Sisters. They were a bit conventional for her taste.   

Lieke acted as butler, fetching Dmitry and showing him upstairs to the dungeon. Harry could tell the muggle woman was trying very hard not to react to Dima’s wardrobe. To her, Dmitry must’ve looked like the prince that the heroine got to marry at the end of a fairytale. She was looking at a real-life Prince. She was blushing, and more than once her eyes lifted, skittering along his broad shoulders, the sash of medals across his broad chest, landing on the color in his cheeks—his lips notably red from walking outside in the cold. He was a very handsome man. Harry couldn’t blame Lieke for looking. 

Like Yuri, Dima didn’t think the winter weather warranted a coat. He might’ve walked a few city blocks—wherever there was a Public Apparition Point nearby, since Iga kept her home tightly shielded. 

Dima didn’t so much as glance at Lieke in return. He treated her as he would a potted plant: if she was in his way he’d react, moving around her, but she didn’t matter to him. It wasn’t because she was a woman, or because she was in a serving role. It was the collar around her throat. That meant something. It was an indication that everyone but Iga ought to ignore her. 

Sia was off the couch, pleased to see Dima had stayed in his tux. He propelled himself right into Dima, chest-to-chest, long arm wrapping his shoulders, and a kiss laid to his forehead. Dima blinked rapidly, his only reaction to the warm welcome. Sia started at his bowtie—a concession. Dima wore the outfit he hated to please his dominant partner, so Sia was willing to let him ditch his tie. They were in a dungeon, after all. Compared to everyone else, Dima was wildly overdressed. He’d feel more comfortable without a bowtie around his throat. 

Yuri hadn’t seen Dima earlier; he and Misha had to leave before Yura showed up. Taking in the sight, Yuri put his huge hands together, slow-clapping. “Looking good, Your Highness!” 

“I’ll bloody your mouth so thoroughly that you can lick my asshole with the taste of your own blood and tears on your tongue,” Dima shot back. He immediately understood that he needed to speak in Russian so the muggle present wouldn’t know what they were saying, suggesting they’d done this sort of mixed-company service before. 

Swearing in Russian was an art form, and Dmitry was especially talented. Yuri just laughed—it was a good come-back. 

Nebojsa was about to say something when his lips clamped shut. He’d released the careful knot of white satin and undone the tab holding Dima’s collar in place. Thin fingers slipped under the wing, seeking contact with Dima’s perpetually hot skin. Something drove Nebojsa to touch, that need for contact taking over, forgetting what he might’ve had on his tongue to fire back at Yuri. Dima mattered more. 

They were staring at each other. Not for the first time, Harry wondered if they practiced Legilimency with each other, if they were exchanging notes on their respective evening’s events or just talking amongst themselves. Dima didn’t blink, staring the few inches up into Sia’s moon-blue eyes. 

Iga sighed at their rare display of affection, her chin rested in the palm of her hand, watching the two of them with a fondness gentling her. “There’s something about two men being tender with each other,” she opined. “The… forbidden-ness of it. Breaking from social expectation. Vulnerability. Gets me every time.” 

Sia’s hand moved from Dima’s throat to cup his square jaw, fingertips in the hair behind his ear. Harry did that to Draco, rubbing at the often neglected spot where tension built. His husband clenched his jaw most of the time, biting back on words as much as feeling. Dima was the same way. Sia wasn’t trying to calm him down. He was checking something. Harry couldn’t tell what. 

“Where are my manners?” Iga scolded herself, offering to Dmitry: “Drink?” 

“ _Nyet_.” Nebojsa refused on his boyfriend’s behalf. Harry figured that with Sia’s hand on him like that, Dima might not be able to talk. When Harry did it, Draco either turned to mush or popped a boner. With Dima, Harry couldn’t tell. The next words from Nebojsa’s mouth changed everything. “No alcohol tonight. But he’ll take a Standard Blood Replenishing Potion if you have one.” 

Sia removing Dima’s tie, loving fingers tracing his neck… he’d been checking his partner for vampire bites. 

“That motherfucker _bit_ you?!” Harry spluttered. Thankfully his outrage came in Russian. Raising his voice frightened Lieke—in the corner, glass rattled as she nearly dropped her tray, saving it. Had she not, someone with a wand might’ve instinctively intervened with a Stasis Spell. No one in this room wanted good alcohol wasted, nor would they want smashed glassware to potentially cut Lieke’s bare legs. She might be playing the role of a slave but she was still a person. No one would let her get hurt. 

Dima’s head turned to Harry, making Sia’s fingers fork through his hair to hold the back of his head. 

“I’m fine,” the Prince insisted, quelling. He didn’t want Harry to worry. “It’s… vampire manners. When you make a deal, you shake on it.” 

“You _let him_ bite you?” Harry amended, not impressed. “You’re related. And you’re creature-bonded. I thought vampires could only feed on human blood.” Dmitry wasn’t totally human. Anyone who saw him work out with his shirt off could agree on that. Human men didn’t look like Dima, couldn’t lift as heavy or maintain such low body fat without consequences to their health. There was creature magic flowing through his veins. 

Dima attempted what he thought was a better explanation, something to douse Harry’s obvious anger. “Lucien is Thestral. And Dhampir. Doubly carnivorous. Drinking our blood increases his shielding abilities for something like a decade. Our genetic similarity doesn’t factor. I asked him for a favor: he wanted a favor in return. _Quid pro quo._ That’s just business.” 

Except Dima and Draco came from a world where selling your teenage child for sex was ‘just business.’ As an adult, Dima sold his body for sex without a second thought. He did whatever he needed to—for his own survival, and for his family. Harry couldn’t help but feel there was something Dima wasn’t telling him—because of present company, or because he didn’t want to share, Harry wasn’t sure. 

Maybe it was none of Harry’s fucking business. Dmitry wasn’t _his_ boyfriend. He forced himself to take a deep breath and back the fuck off. 

Dmitry giving his blood away scared Harry so much because Voldemort had been after his own blood for most of his life. There was power in blood. And like Harry, Dima carried something unique in his veins. It could get him into trouble if anyone got hold of his blood and used it to figure out what he could do—what his family did to their boys. Someone could potentially reverse-engineer the process and repeat the ritual on other unwilling subjects. Dima needed to keep his blood in his body, to keep his secrets safe. 

Harry intrinsically understood that powerful wizards ought not to give away their blood. People could do awful things with it. He was just being protective, reacting based on his own experience… projecting onto Dima. 

“ _Dobro_ ,” Harry agreed, rather huffy but standing down. He didn’t realize he was gripping the arms of his chair, about to go to his feet, until his hands unclenched and his back returned to the cushion. He folded his arms over his chest, instead; still on-edge, not entirely comfortable, but ready to let this one pass. His words came out in Russian, making his voice deeper than usual. “You know what you’re doing. I’m not questioning your judgment. Just… sounded unsafe for a second. Thanks for clarifying.” 

Iga apologized, too. “I’m sorry. I don’t keep standard potion in the house, only tailored.” 

Witches who were good at the art would brew Blood Replenishing Potion customized to themselves for when they got their period. Hermione had learned from Molly, something magical mums taught their daughters—or their muggle-born future daughters-in-law. Draco had tailor-made Blood Replenishing Potion for Harry, back when his healing powers were new and he feared he might not be adequate to heal Harry’s wounds after they destroyed Philippe Didier’s spying device. There were advantages to having skill with a cauldron. Draco might’ve brewed the potion for past affairs, too, given his proclivities. 

Blood Replenishing Potion was harder to come by lately. The price of the necessary algae had skyrocketed, nearly quadrupling in the last year. They’d used a ton of it in the war, and Iceland struggled to produce enough to meet demand. Harry was working on fixing that. A lot of people were. 

“It’s alright,” said Dima, taking Sia’s hand from his head as a signal that he was okay and it really was nothing to worry about. He’d lost some blood, but in the end he’d also gotten what he wanted. Lucien had agreed to impersonate Tihomir publically, with the cooperation of the Romanian Ministry. For ten years, Dima was covered. He wouldn’t be expected to act as Duke. He could keep living his life the way he wanted—in the closet, with Sia, in places like this. 

Dima seemed more at home in a sex dungeon than out in the real world. At least here, he held onto Nebojsa’s fingers—not quite holding his hand, but wrapping himself around the smallest of his fingers, the way a child’s hand would fit around their father’s pinky, holding on, taking up that small space for themselves.

 

 

 

 

Iga snapped her fingers, and Lieke knelt down beside her chair; head bowed, like a dog told to lie down and wait patiently. By the look on the muggle woman's face—blissful, contented—being on the ground had some deeper meaning for her. 

Harry thought about all the times he'd seen Dima sit on the floor when there was a perfectly good chair nearby. When Dima sketched, it was from the floor. When he practiced guitar, or maintenanced a broom, or cleaned their leather boots… he seemed more comfortable doing so on the floor. Apparently there was some subliminal submissive meaning to being on the ground which Harry had missed up until that moment. 

Come to think of it, he’d rarely seen Dima sitting while Sia was on his feet; as though Nebojsa was the Queen of England, outranking him, Dima didn’t sit until his dominant sat. That was how Dmitry demonstrated respect for his partner. And when Sia sat, Dima wanted to be lower, or on the floor if possible. He always offered the most comfortable place to Sia, too. Harry remembered a time in Draco’s room at Hogwarts where Dima made sure all of his mates had a place to sit, an armchair or on the sofa, before he took the plain wooden piano bench for himself and played for them; peaceful music from Draco’s muggle songbook, a welcome distraction from the war raging outside.

That was how Dima expressed his submission day-to-day. It was a way for him to speak to Sia and reinforce that strict hierarchy they chose for themselves… without anyone else noticing or knowing what they were about.

There was plenty of room on the sofa between Sia and Yuri. Dima could’ve made himself comfortable. He chose to sit on the floor, to park his bum beside Nebojsa’s feet even when he was wearing a tuxedo which surely cost as much as most people’s cars. That was where he was comfortable, where his soul wanted to be.

They had a lively debate going—about food. Yuri said it was blasphemy to put anything other than boiled, mashed, and buttered potato inside a pierogi, a kind of dumpling eaten across their cultures. Some pierogi were boiled, others fried in butter, served with caramelized onions, or apple sauce, or dipped in sour cream. The preparations and servings weren’t hot topics. Yuri took issue with the stuffing. Potato was traditional and anything else was simply wrong. 

To Harry, it was like listening to old British people argue over bangers and mash, or bubble and squeak.

Dima liked his dumplings filled with ground venison or pork. He’d grown up with an army of house elves preparing his meals, ingredients sourced from the grounds of the palace. They used to raise hogs as one of the estate’s many sources of income, so that was the flavor which brought him back to his childhood. 

“It’s a peasant dish,” Sia reminded them all. “When you replace the potato with meat or cheese, it becomes quite rich. It’s meant to be filling, but also humble.”

Iga informed darkly, “There’s a restaurant here that has the audacity to serve pierogi stuffed with yam.” 

Yuri shook his head violently. “No!” As though they were murdering children instead of screwing up his favorite food as a child. Harry couldn’t help but laugh into his vodka. 

The background music shifted. Iga’s collection was comprised of professionally produced, studio-quality recordings. The next song was different, sounding more like a live album. Harry heard voices—speaking Romanian. Two of those voices were oddly familiar. 

The song started. A industrial, grungy, thrash-metal style, hovering on the same note, heavy drums under it all. The lead singer growled, like a scream trapped in his throat. 

Every magical head snapped to the nearest speaker. It was a creature sound, inhuman. And Harry recognized it. That was Dima’s dead brother, Vukasin, screeching half-way between Thestral and a human metal-head. 

“I’m _so_ sorry!” Iga shot up, running to her computer to shut it off. She kept apologizing as she moved. “I forgot I had—” 

Dmitry cut her off. “Don’t.” He had his eyes shut, listening. “I lost all of his originals when….” When he and Misha ran for their lives, after Vuk was murdered. It had been more than two years since Dima heard his older brother’s voice. 

Harry understood. He’d give anything to hear his mum and dad’s voices again. He’d only heard them once, some glimmer of who they’d been forced from Voldemort’s wand when they dueled in a graveyard over Cedric Diggory’s body. 

This song was like a piece of Dima’s brother brought back from beyond the veil. 

Iga looked back at him, wanting to be sure. Sia had a hand on Dima’s head, tattooed fingers in his hair stroking, just in case it turned out to be too much. The shielding charms in Sia’s ink couldn’t protect Dima from his emotions. But Dima wanted her to let it play. 

The song could only be an original composition. It was everything Dima seemed to love about metal—the darkness, the aggression, permission to explore everything forbidden and taboo. Dima loved metal so much because it reminded him of his brother. It was a way to connect with his memory, the same way quidditch helped Harry understand and remember his father. 

Vuk sounded like Dima. He died when he was seventeen or eighteen. So Dima was already older than his brother had been when he recorded this. The quality wasn’t as good as a professional album, but it was enough. Dmitry’s voice was now just a shade deeper than his brother’s, older and more developed than Vuk ever got to be. 

The other voice was Chereshko Toleanu. Another dead wizard coming back through muggle speakers. Harry had heard Chern scream like that on the battlefield, killing Death Eaters with a knife and brass knuckles at Ravenwood. Harry wasn’t exactly surprised that two men with as much pent-up anger as Vuk and Chern had started a metal band together back at school. The two were unofficially an item; Chern nursed a crush on Vuk which was reciprocated physically, but not intimately. They slept together casually but still saw other people. Unrequited feelings made for tense music. 

Russian songs were often allegorical, story-telling bordering on nonsensical. More often than not, lyrics rambled on about natural surroundings; trees and bushes, animals, and the weather. 

Harry had long stopped expecting the lyrics of any Slavic song to make sense. He was able to piece together what Vukasin was screaming about through Translation Charm and his own experience. 

“ _A dark night on a still sea. Wave as the world passes you by_ ….” The Durmstrang ship, moored in Hogwarts’ Great Lake—that was the still sea—during the TriWizard. Durmstrang kids used to wave at the giant squid, attempting to train the wild lake monster to wave back. Vuk and Chern would’ve felt left out of the action, forced to watch Viktor Krum compete in the tournament—both musicians just a few months too young to have entered their names in the goblet.   

Vuk wrote this song during or just after the tournament, making it one of the last songs he ever recorded, shortly before his death when school resumed in the fall. 

Everyone was looking at Dima, making sure he was okay. Except for Yuri, whose black eyes were fixed to Harry, wanting to see _his_ reaction as the song picked up. 

The chorus was all power-chords, slammed into their instruments from Drop-D. They all sang in one voice, at the top of their lungs, a kind of battle cry.

 

 

“ _The Dragon's fire_

_burns everything he touches._

_He will burn you alive._

_And the cinders which rise_

_will be the smoke of you,_

_your soul lost to the flames._

_He'll breathe fire over that, too._

_Until there's nothing left_.”

 

 

This metal anthem was about Draco—that drunken night on the ship when Draco bent Vuk over and fucked him, egging him on until he blew Chereshko tied helpless to the mast as they made him watch. The fellow son of a Death Eater general, a Prince and a future Duke: Draco didn’t care about any of that. He’d bugger a Prince without an ounce of guilt. He had the gall to insist on buggering Harry Potter! In Draco, Vuk saw an unstoppable creature. More than himself, Draco was a force of nature. 

Yuri was mouthing the words. As their friend, he knew this song, knew what it was about. This song was part of Draco’s reputation, the legacy he left with the men he met on that ship. Vuk expended that lore, making Draco infamous with this song in his honor. Yuri was watching to see what Harry thought. 

It was a haunting noise, full of emotion. There was regret there, and a desire to go back and get burned again, to beg for more. 

“Holy shit…” Harry whispered when it was over. 

Iga paused the music, seeing that everyone would need to recover. Lieke stood at her shoulder, hovering, ready should she need anything. 

Lieke had made the connection. Dima sounded exactly like the man in the recording. She could tell they were family. 

“His brother,” Iga confirmed for her in English. “He was murdered. Will you give us a few minutes?”

Lieke bobbed a kind of curtsey. She left her tray with them before ducking out of the dungeon, leaving the magical people to themselves.  

They were waiting on Dima—to see if he fell apart, if he needed silence or comfort or to pretend like they’d heard nothing at all. 

“It… needs a bridge,” he said contemplatively, criticizing the composition. “Some type of break, shift to a minor chord, otherwise it’s a bit relentless. And the harmonies—those need work, too.” Golden eyes went to Iga standing guard over her laptop. She’d started selecting the songs she had of Vuk’s, making sure nothing else would play tonight. She didn’t want to trigger Dima again, rightly judging he’d had enough of his emotions disturbed for one night. “Would you email me whatever you have?” 

Dima wanted to have the recordings, to listen to on his own. Maybe with time, he’d feel comfortable playing some of his brother’s songs, making changes, improving them with his own comparative maturity. 

“I don’t think they’d all fit in an attachment,” she frowned with regret. “But I could burn you a CD?”

“That would be perfect,” Sia nodded, taking over. “ _Spasiba_.” He squeezed Dima’s shoulder. “And you’re right—it needs a bridge.” 

Nebojsa was the only one who could get away with saying anything critical about Vuk right now. Dima would lose it if anyone else said a word about his brother. With the war, and having Sia ripped away from him by the Death Eaters, he hadn’t had time to grieve.

Harry understood that, too. His parents had been gone for seventeen years and he still wasn’t done missing them.  

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Iga saved them. Weed was legal in Amsterdam, and she had a lot of it. 

They were all smoked up—except for Yuri, because it turned out he had heart arrhythmia, and smoking directly made him faint. He kept reassuring them all that the contact high was more than enough, each statement a bit less lucid than the last. Twice, Nebojsa reached over to touch his neck… checking his pulse, making sure his heart was still beating within a normal range. He checked on Dmitry, too. Harry couldn’t guess how smoking interacted with moderate blood loss, but psychologically it was helping Dima get out of his head and feel a bit more normal. 

Lieke had a contact high, too. Like Dima she wanted to be on the floor whenever possible. Iga had taken over the throne-like chair where Harry previously sat, the lads all piled on the sofa facing the women. Every now and then, Iga’s hand drifted down to rest on top of Lieke’s head. Once Iga even adjusted her ponytail. The more she smoked, the more affectionate her manners turned towards her submissive. 

Harry had worked up the courage to ask a question which had been growing at the back of his mind. 

“Do you think it’s a bad idea to have power-relationships with muggles?” His Translation Charm was holding, though he had to speak more slowly. It was harder to enunciate in Russian when his lips were slightly tingling. 

Iga raised her eyebrows at him. She had her legs thrown over one of the chair arms, sitting sideways, draped over the throne, a blunt between her fingers to gesticulate with.

"I have no problems treating a muggle like my own personal house elf," she opined, the blunt in letting off a curl of smoke from the cherry, leaving a trail in the air as her hand moved. "Providing that muggle is into it. If it makes them happy or gets them off. Consent is the difference. House elves are bound to service by magic; once entered, they can’t leave. My slaves choose me,” and she rubbed absently at the top of Lieke’s head, mussing her hair. She allowed it, and she didn’t go to fix her appearance after, assuming that if her Mistress wanted her that way it wasn’t right to intervene. Her obedience stunned Harry. “There’s nothing holding them but their own word, given to me. They offer themselves to serve me; and then it's up to me to choose them back, to accept their service and begin training them, teaching them. If they ever didn't want to be here, I'd release them. 

"I acknowledge that the balance of power is tipped highly in my favor. Because we've agreed, they and I, that it should be so. We are not equals in this house—but we are _in balance_. It takes a thousand feathers to equal the weight of a galleon. I’m not worth more because I have magic and they do not; but because they recognize me as dominant, and choose to serve. We agree to that structure, that evaluation of the self which has nothing to do with magic or skills or abilities. They don't come to me because I'm as good of an impact artist as Nebojsa—I’m not. They don't come to me because I'm as good at controlling and restraining them as you might be, Harry. They're here because I accept them for who they are. I don't judge them for liking what they like, or wanting what they want, no matter how odd or depraved. I support them in their exploration of both their kinks and themselves.” 

She toked, holding her breath while she twirled the pot-filled miniature cigar between her fingers, deciding what else needed to be said on her next smoky exhale. 

"In many ways, Dominance is a gift. It is my gift to give as I see fit. There are submissive people out there who crave this right here," she pointed to the woman at her feet, then to Dima with his head leaned against Nebojsa's knee, listening, nodding because he agreed with everything she was saying. "They wish to surrender themselves, to cede control for a few hours and exist in servitude to a person they respect and trust. I provide them with the opportunity to do so, to explore, in a way which is physically safe, psychologically sane, and utterly consensual. They're too afraid to ask their partners to act out these fantasies. Or they want something very specific which requires experience, education and equipment. Or they have no one they can trust, no one else to turn to.” Harry understood the feeling of not being able to tell anyone what was going o with you, what was eating you from the inside. Having someone to turn to, someone he could trust and talk to… had saved his life. Without his friends, without Draco, he wouldn’t have survived.

“I can provide that. In turn, they tribute me: money, services, gifts. Their tribute is miniscule in comparison to the value of _me_ —my time, my knowledge, my artistry and expression, my existence, and my faith in them to enter my home, belonging to me and wearing my collar." 

That was a concept Harry was still working to wrap his head around… valuing yourself. He was instructed at every turn that he was only important because of what he could do for other people, how he might serve as a soldier and a sacrificial lamb when the time came. Being dominant was about valuing yourself, knowing that what you brought to the exchange was precious, priceless, and deserving of every adoration. Dominance meant loving yourself. Harry was still trying to get there.

Years ago, this was how Harry pictured Bellatrix Lestrange—lounging, spouting off her world view as her muggle slaves were forced to sit around her, waiting on her whims, listening and agreeing or they'd be killed. That was blood purity in Harry's mind, a world like ancient Egypt with a ruling class comprised of magical people, and the rest deemed sub-human property. 

The image Iga presented was certainly how Death Eaters were always portrayed to Harry... he was told Death Eaters were full of themselves, as charismatic as they were sociopathic; that they wanted to enslave all non-magical people, that they were immoral and couldn't be reasoned with. And the image supplied, what he was to fear most, was exactly what was before him now: a pureblood witch, drunk, smoking, breaking at least a dozen laws, announcing her beliefs without fear, with a muggle servant at her feet, wearing a collar, not saying a word. 

But in actuality, it was people like Iga who were the closest to Harry's ideal world. Iga accepted people for who they were. She wanted them to be safe and happy, to follow their dreams, to have like-minded company and not be judged for things they couldn’t help, like sexual preferences, or inclination towards the extreme power-structures of BDSM. And for everything Iga did which might be considered unusual, distasteful, or sexually unorthodox, she never did anything without the expressed permission of her recipient—which was more than anyone like Dumbledore could claim. By her own stated philosophy, Iga would never leave a baby with abusive relatives. Iga wouldn't condone a twelve-year-old boy taking on a solo rescue mission. Iga wouldn't allow an underage person to risk their lives in a dangerous fighting tournament. Iga wouldn't encourage someone to date or have sex before they felt ready. 

And yet Iga would be vilified in the magical community if others found out what she was doing. Those with conservative muggle-like views would hate her for being a sex worker, accepting payment for what others gave away freely. As Harry’s question hinted at, many might argue that it was unethical to even pretend that a muggle was your slave—that playing out the fantasy was too close to idolizing Death Eater blood-purity culture. There would even be a small set to complain that Iga did this with muggles, that she ought to be focused on finding a partner within the magical world to settle down with and have kids, boosting the population. 

The people who said those sorts of things didn't see the value of a healthy sexual outlet... probably because they'd never had a fantasy or a kink of their own indulged. If they knew how good it felt, how relieving and empowering it was to have a person in your life who accepted your preferences and liked the same odd sexy things that you liked, they'd understand why what Iga did was so bloody important. 

Iga took a long pull, gazing up at the ceiling… her bare feet intermittently kicking. 

“So, to answer your question: no. I think we all could benefit from having more consensual power exchange in our lives. BDSM teaches communication. It forces you to be honest about what you need, what you expect, what you value most. I’ll do this with our kind. And I’ll do it with muggles, too, because this is my gift, this is the thing I do best, and they need it as much as any of us.” 

And with that she tapped Lieke on the side of the head, signaling she wanted to ash her blunt. Her willing slave held up an ash tray for her Mistress, glad to be of use. 

Harry took a long look at Nebojsa—sitting beside him in a sex dungeon, perfectly at-home, stroking Dima’s head on his knee. The look on Dima’s face was… the same as Draco when Harry beat him; something like a trance which allowed him to disappear into his head, to have his world reduced to the pleasure of that hand against his hair—for that hand and that small affection to become his entire existence. He was lost to it, lost in it. 

 _This_ was the side Harry didn’t know about, the final piece of themselves which they kept hidden. He needed it in order to understand his mates… and perhaps, if he was ever going to understand himself.

They were letting Harry into their world. So were Iga and Yuri. They wanted him to know this piece of themselves which they couldn’t show to just anyone. They knew he was someone safe. Harry would keep their secret, and they would keep his. They were Durmstrang’s underground society, the sexual equivalent of Dumbledore’s Army, learning from each other how to protect themselves and do the things they fancied safely. They taught one another, supported one another, helped each other connect with partners who enjoyed the same things, all while hiding themselves from the persecution of the outside world. 

"Is this what Durmstrang was like?" asked Harry, not aimed at anyone in particular. 

Sia tipped his head to the side, a silent 'sort of.' Iga shrugged. "On a good night." 

Yuri chimed in. "It's difficult to find partners you really connect with in such a confined population. Out in the world is better. You find people whom you like, who like exactly what you like, who are available and might be interested in you in return. You can be more free." 

Harry understood that. He'd hardly found anyone attractive at Hogwarts; it was only once he started venturing out into the world that he realized how small his community was, and that there might be people outside of his social circles whom he felt strong attraction to on a physical level. Still not enough to do anything about it—his persistent borderline-asexuality saw to that. But there was a comfort in knowing he had _some_ sexual desires, as compared to thinking he had none at all.

He'd managed to find his soul mate among his classmates, which made him and Draco very lucky. It wasn't realistic to expect that to be the case for everyone—especially when uncommon sexual predilections were a part of the equation. He and Draco were a statistical anomaly, a one-in-a-million perfect fit. Couples like Galina and Mandy, Bill and Fleur, or Yuri and Darya who'd gone to Koldovstoretz were the majority—different ages, different schools, more varied backgrounds. That was a part of why it was so important to re-establish school exchange programs; not only did it break down social barriers and foster cultural exchange, it literally had a positive impact on marriage and birth rates. If it weren’t for the TriWizard Tournament, it was possible that none of them would be together in this room right now. 

Magic people needed ways to meet each other, the same as muggles. Sending kids to boarding school wasn't enough—it propagated the magical habit of social isolation. Breaking that habit benefited everyone.

Harry was… exactly where he needed to be. 

In the dungeons of Hogwarts he’d learned about magic. Here in this dungeon, there were more important lessons to be learned—things he couldn’t pick up in school, things he’d fallen behind on, things he’d never cared about before. He had a lot to learn about BDSM, this thing he’d been fooling with like a curse jar unknowingly dug up in his backyard. He was playing with fire—toying with his husband’s psyche and deepest emotions without ever knowing what he was doing. 

Of course he fucked up. Of course he made mistakes. That was what happened when he ran into situations half-cocked and blindfolded. This time, instead of breaking his arm or his broomstick, he’d broken Draco’s heart.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Back at Dima and Sia's flat, Harry was engaged in the kitchen making himself something between a late snack and a too-early breakfast. 

He cut into the loaf of bread Nebojsa made earlier that day and—maybe because he was tired, or his glasses were a bit smudged, or perhaps he was a smidge still-stoned and not paying attention—he accidentally sliced his finger. Fairly deeply. 

"FUUUUCK!" he screamed, dropping the knife to clamp his good hand around the wound. He held his clasped hands to his chest, doubling over. When hurt, his deepest instinct remained to curl up into as small of a shape as possible and protect his vital organs from attack. Dudley and Uncle Vernon taught him that. It was still amazing to him that after a year and a half of military training, his body could yet revert back to its oldest knowledge in a blind instant. 

Sia came sprinting out of the bathroom. He had his shirt off—had been washing his face, little reverse rivers of water dripping off his elbows from bending over the sink, splashing water over his eyes to remove the light makeup he wore. His breath smelled like toothpaste. Dima was in the shower or he'd have come running, too.

Nebojsa was beside him in a heartbeat, reaching out for Harry's shoulders. He reached but didn't touch—a wise move when Harry's emotion-based magic could potentially kill him. 

"What's wrong, dear?" Speaking Serbian, the endearment was reflexive: Harry barely noticed. 

"Cut my hand on the fuckin'... sorry," Harry ended in a mumble, breathing through his clenched teeth. His hand hurt and he was mad, but that was no reason to swear at his friend who, for all his taboo sexual preferences and risqué company, still thought it was offensive to God when someone _swore_. "It's not that bad," Harry offered instead. "I can heal it." 

Then he happened to look at the counter. Hell, that was an awful lot of his blood splashed about for a small cut. No wonder Sia saw the blood and came running. With pressure on his finger, it didn't feel terrible. But, seeing a string of red on the counter—dripping onto the concrete floor to make a gory puddle increasing in circumference with each drip—he second-guessed the safety of removing his hand from the wound. That pressure was keeping his precious blood inside his body. It would require magic to heal properly. 

“I…I…” Harry stammered. _I need you or Misha or somebody to heal this_ , he managed in his head. Words were difficult when there was a great splash of his own blood on the floor. 

“ _Da_ ,” Sia agreed. “Stay calm and keep pressure on it.” 

“I…” Harry could only repeat himself—eyes dashing between the blood on the counter, dripping onto the floor…. 

He couldn’t manage to do anything right. Everything he touched was invariably fucked no matter how hard he tried. He was a cursed man. 

He didn't know how to start talking about what he was feeling, and he was feeling a lot. His day had been, perhaps, too much: Taylor and Fred first thing in the morning, bumping into Jana and her fiancée with a bribe-diamond in his pocket, seeing Ivan at Dr. Beasley's office, seeing Iga and Sia together, his panic attack in the bathroom, learning about Iga’s second job, learning Dima and Sia were whores too, hearing Vukasin’s voice for the first time singing about sex with Draco, and feeling a bit like an outsider even amongst his own people… finally knowing others who were into what he and Draco were into. Missing Draco… ever, always, missing Draco; wanting to go through this with his husband by his side. He and Draco were supposed to do these things together. Harry never meant to come back if it meant going through life alone, without the important half of his soul. 

He wasn't sure what he was supposed to be feeling. But cutting his fucking finger open was the last straw. No... standing here in front of Nebojsa, bleeding, with nothing to say while his friend was shirtless and so damn worried for him... _that_ was the final nail in the coffin. 

Harry leaned his forehead onto Nebojsa's shoulder and just let himself go. Whatever it was, he couldn't keep it in a second longer. Like vomit, the tears demanded a path out of him, and his tightly-shut eyes were the surest available path. 

Only surprised for a moment, Nebojsa’s long arms wrapped around his shoulders the same way he’d held Dima in the dungeon—tentative at first, the lightest possible contact to give Harry the opportunity to change his mind about hugging without their shirts on. Fuck it. He needed human contact, and so far neither the press of his knotted fingers nor the tears streaming ugly down his face were killing Nebojsa. He’d survive. Whether or not Harry would was debatable. 

Harry fastened his lips shut and screamed. 

Draco should’ve been the one to come running out of the bathroom, fretting over his hand, calling him an uncoordinated cousin of a mountain troll before deploying that soft pinkish light around his wound—holding Harry’s hands, holding _him_ , healing him. It should’ve been Draco. But Draco wasn’t here. Draco didn’t want him. And it fucking _hurt_. 

He screwed up his face and let the tears take him over. Hiccupping, twitching, misery-tears. 

Sia rocked him, skinny arms around him, a hand to the back of his head softly weaving through his hair. Nebojsa held him as he bawled his eyes out. 

It was only his second break-down that night. Three crying fits in twenty-four hours. He wasn't sure how many emotional collapses he was allowed before he became truly pathetic. 

"I'm zorry I called you a dirty cop," Nebojsa whispered. "Zhat vos unkind." 

Harry had to swallow his own snot in order to speak. "It's not ‘unkind’ when you're pointing out what's true." Because Harry did throw around the weight of his job and social position position when it benefited him. Hell, he'd used his trappings of authority before he'd ever become a Hit Wizard. He was so desperate to get his way that he'd walked over others to do it. 

Most people hero-worshiped him, or were rightly afraid of him once they saw what he was capable of. There were perhaps a handful of people in the world who might stand up to him when they didn’t agree with his decisions… and those were the people Harry spent the last year pushing away because he didn’t like the version of himself they were reflecting back at him. Rather than fix himself, Harry broke the mirrors. That had to stop. 

“Call me out,” Harry insisted, sniffling. “Keep calling me out. Please. It’s the only way I’m ever gonna learn.” 

“ _Dobro_ ,” Nebojsa readily agreed. “Now, please, let me fix your hand _._ ”

He needed people like Nebojsa and Draco to catch him when he fucked up—no one else had the balls to stand up to him, fearing his power. Draco and Nebojsa were his equals; they had nothing to fear because together they could overpower Harry. They could _make him_ listen. He needed both of them, united, working on him. 

The problem wasn't going to fix itself, and Harry had to see it before he could do anything to dig himself out of this hole he'd made. The same way Draco didn't recognize his Bipolar, Harry had been ignoring his own very serious, very dangerous habits. 

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Hermione got an invitation from Nebojsa Radić to meet him for a cup of tea. He suggested quite a nice place—a cozy Russian-themed tea room not too far from her house. His owl said there was something he needed to talk to her about. 

She worried it could be something to do with Harry—he'd been silent since they'd had drinks with his Salem friends. She usually got short updates from him when he was abroad—because he knew she worried, after the war. He started dashing off an owl every few days, or leaving her a voicemail. "We're fine," he would say, chipper and false-bright. "Don't worry about us, 'Mione." She hadn't received a "don't worry about us" voicemail in the five days since they'd last seen each other, which caused her to fret. If she didn’t see him in the office come Monday, she’d ring him up, and damn him if that made him feel smothered because he’d made her worry. 

A meeting request from Nebojsa Radić could only be about Harry. 

Radić showed up at the tea room ahead of her—waiting at the restaurant door in dark trousers, a fitted blazer, shirt and tie, all of his piercings removed and his tattoos mostly covered as though he'd been to church beforehand. Except for those body modifications, he was nearly unrecognizable from the skeletal monk of a man she’d met a year ago. His bleached eyes hadn’t changed, either. He’d managed to recover from his war injuries; a once gaunt face of severe angles brought back to a surprisingly feminine beauty. His skin was so colorless and smooth, sometimes she caught herself looking closer, curious if he might be wearing foundation and powder. She’d spotted him in eyeliner on more than one occasion. Today he wore no makeup, presenting himself as traditionally and as masculine as he could with a face like that.   

He stood waiting for her under the awning with an umbrella in-hand. It was foggy and sleeting, the morning haze hanging tenuously on even though it was half-ten. The roads were quiet: only people going to morning services and such. Not many Londoners wanted to go out in the icy rain for Sunday brunch, meaning Hermione had no trouble getting a cab. 

Radić popped his umbrella over her taxi and walked her inside, holding the door for her. He had a reservation, a secluded table in one of the rear rooms overlooking a private garden which was all evergreens and dry brown branches this time of year. And day now, it would snow. She missed the great while piles of it they had in Scotland. London winters weren’t nearly as romantic as those at Hogwarts. It was the muggleness of London. The city lacked Hogwarts’ magic. 

The _maitre de_ got her chair for her. Radić stood straight-backed and tall on his side of the table: he wouldn't sit until she was seated, her napkin draped over her lap.

Hermione was in some circumstances accustomed to these manners—it was how her father and uncle catered to her grandmother, and how muggle boys were told to behave during school dances. She had a taste of being on the receiving end of it when she'd dated Viktor, for whom this behavior was instructed from a very young age, and not limited to formal occasions or as a courtesy to the elderly. 

With Radić, she'd always seen him behave casually... because he was around Harry, and took his social queues from The Boy Who Lived, not wanting Harry to feel like a heathen just because they had different ideas about how men and women should interact with one another. Harry treated everyone the same—he was quiet and withdrawn for a long period before he warmed up, started cracking jokes, then let you hug him (though he rarely initiated). Eventually if you were lucky enough to be counted a close friend, you got to see his dark and increasingly filthy sense of humor, and he might even hug you on his own. But there was no great difference in how Harry behaved around genders… except perhaps for some residual reservations with girls after getting burned by Cho Chang their fifth year. Harry was casual with everyone, and utterly informal. Formality made him feel jumpy and queasy at the same time.

Without Harry around, this was how Nebojsa Radić preferred to behave towards the opposite sex in public spaces. It was how he showed respect and deference. It was a part of his culture, something which he believed she deserved as a woman. 

They ordered two pots of tea and a sampling of finger foods, Nebojsa allowing Hermione to make the usual English banter about the fog and the rain, then traffic, then the health of her family, things at work, and so-forth. Working in an English office, he seemed to understand their need to settle in a bit. The inconsequential chatter also gave their server an opportunity to deliver their order and back out of the way. 

Tea poured, Radić looked grave. She felt a knot building in her stomach, and wondered whether she'd be able to eat the tiny, lovely-looking, buttered and sugar-dusted pastries on the tiered tray between them.

He shocked her, confessing directly that while at Hogwarts, he and Dmitry had sex whilst his partner was under the influence of Polyjuice, looking like her.  

It was wrong, and they shouldn't have done it. "Yoo are owed an explanation, and my apology." 

She slapped him. Hard. 

Her rear end actually left her chair, knocking the tops of her thighs against the table as the back of her hand, knuckles and all, cracked him across his pretty face as hard as she possibly could. Her hand stung something fierce—she hoped his face burned for hours. The blow knocked his hair over his face. His mouth dropped open, black lashes blinking fast, suggesting that she'd rung his ears. 

There was no one in the restaurant to see. Not that she cared. A rage came up inside her and she acted on it. 

Then she sat back down, replacing her napkin on her lap. Once the violence was out of her system, she actually felt a lot better. That moment of action, a sort of reciprocation of hurt, was precisely what she needed. Radić the trained Hit Wizard could have easily stopped her, but he didn't. He believed he deserved to be smacked. He _did_ deserve to be smacked, and a whole lot more. 

"I trusted you!" she seethed.

"And ve betrayed zhat trust. Ve sinned against yoo and against God. I'm zorry," he offered. 

Hermione kicked his shin under the table. Once more, he didn't fight back. Being a Hit Wizard, he barely reacted—her kick was like a smack with a rolled-up newspaper, which was not satisfying at all. She wanted him to at least flinch.

"I destroyed all of our Polyjuice," he told her. "And I hex every cauldron ve own. If Dima or Misha ever try to make Polyjuice again, zhey vill be turned into..." he paused, looking up, searching for words. "I do not remember zhe animal in English: small, green or brown, slimy, has varts, it hops—" 

"Frog?" supplied Hermione. “Toad?”

"Yes, toad. Zhey vill become toad." He sighed a long breath, slumping back in his chair a moment before years of good manners reminded him he ought not to slouch, and he corrected his posture out of respect for her presence and the seriousness of their conversation. He didn't think it was enough to curse his family to prevent it from happening again. He wanted his partner to feel the actual remorse present in his own heart. The fact that he was here to apologize alone spoke volumes. 

Hermione understood it was impossible to force the wizard you loved to change his morality to match yours. Ron still believed outrageous things were perfectly acceptable. The differences between muggle behavioral standards and wizarding customs were hundreds of years apart; for a muggle-born or half-blood, being in a relationship with a pureblood was often like dating someone from the early eighteenth century. Magical morality had stagnated since the Statute of Secrecy was enacted. Falling behind was a natural bi-product of their intense isolation from the rest of the world. The concepts of feminism, civil rights, bodily autonomy, even consent were drastically underdeveloped in the magical world, and in some cases non-existent. 

Culture shock was something she and Ron continued to deal with on a daily basis. You loved the wizard, flaws and all; whilst working every day to show him that slavery was wrong, that muggles and magical creatures had rights too, that women were the equal of men, and that everyone deserved the same dignity regardless of the color of their skin or the composition of their blood. 

These pureblood people in her life... they meant well and their intentions were mostly good, but the standards and culture in which they'd been raised put them at a disadvantage which might very well take their entire lives to overcome. If they didn't overcome it, if purebloods wouldn't drag themselves into the twenty-first century... they were doomed to repeat the nightmare of the Death Eaters over and over again. Their refusal to adapt caused the war, and would cause it again if things didn’t change. 

Nebojsa had succumb to his very human desires. He'd given in to his boyfriend's culture, the pureblood definitions of right and wrong. The two of them had access to Hermione's appearance, and they took that access as right to do as they wished, disregarding what were—for Hermione—perfectly natural and normal boundaries. Those boundaries existed in Nebojsa, too—a religious believer, a man who wanted to show respect for women in all his actions. He'd abandoned his faith as much as his common sense. He messed up. It was a moment of extreme weakness, of heightened emotion, and he let his beliefs slide out of his grasp for a fleeting physical release. 

Now he was taking ownership of that sin. He didn't have to tell her—there was no axe hanging over his head. Had he not set this meeting and told her the truth, she never would have known. He decided, perhaps out of a guilty conscience or coming to his senses, that he needed to confess for the sake of his own soul. 

"It zhould never have happened," he offered with true remorse. She could see the frozen color of his eyes fighting back red at the rims, not wanting to cry because this was about _her_ , and he didn't want his crying to take away from the sincere apology she was owed. "It vill not happen again. Ever. I am deeply, truly zorry." 

She nodded, accepting his confession. At least he had the guts to tell her about it: nor was he dumb enough to ask for her forgiveness. He said he was sorry, and explained the steps he’d taken to prevent it happening again. 

"I... was it... good?" she asked; stilted and awkward, surprising herself. 

It was the first thought to spring to her mind. Perhaps that was magical culture rubbing off on _her_ —the idea that someone else could take a perfect clone of her body for a ride and let her know how it performed before she got to the act herself. Too many months spent under a Time-Turner gave her a warped sense of self; she had looped the equivalent of three years attending all those classes, and consciously she could remember it all while her body hadn't aged a day. The concept of severance between body and consciousness—the mind and the flesh being two separate things—was something she'd physically lived, seen time and time again, her friends disguising themselves under Polyjuice for years. Not many people had experienced what she had. 

In a way, those experiences helped her understand a wizard like Dmitry's pureblood perspective on the use of a person's appearance when separated from the actual person's mind and spirit. She hadn't been there when the sex happened, just as Harry and Ron had walked the halls of Hogwarts as Crabbe and Goyle years ago and their actions while in disguise had no effect on the Slytherin goons they'd locked in a closet. A magical person could disguise themselves using the appearance of another _real_ person, and with that ability came a whole host of new questions about consent which muggles would never know, and her studied philosophy barely began to touch. 

They'd broken her trust in fooling around with her image, which she'd entrusted to them for their safety. Worse, nobody asked _her_ about what was off limits when walking around appearing to be her. No one—not Harry, and not the couple—thought to bring up that Nebojsa was bisexual and might at some point feel attracted to his partner in her appearance. They _ought_ to have talked things over in detail. _She_ ought to have set some ground rules before agreeing to Harry's scheme... and yet she was so excited to be included, to be back in his life again, a part of the team, that she jumped in with both feet, naively assuming Harry would've set some rules for his friends; naively assuming those two held something similar to her own morality in regards to sex. She ought to have known better. 

Each of them played some role in this terrible business. But in committing their sin, the couple never intended her any harm. That much she could tell.  

Frozen blue eyes widened. "I beg your pardon?" 

"Was it good?" she asked, clarifying her meaning. "The sex. Was I...?" 

His mouth opened. His long, feminine features further softened, a line appearing in his forehead, his lips parted and slack. It was an emotion she couldn't read. She didn't know him well enough. She was still on the fence about getting to know him, or being around him going forward. A lot depended on his answers. 

"Yoo are… beyond beautiful," he told her, his voice a shade deeper than usual. Slavic men had a way of telling you you were beautiful as though they were speaking to a goddess seated within a shrine; that they weren't worthy to open their mouths in front of you and this was their one chance to speak worshipful words to a deity on Earth. Nebojsa might've been a monk once, but he had that honey-sweet, thick romantic magic about him. He knew how to make a woman feel like a supernatural force. "Talented. Powerful. Full of heart, and passion." 

She heard the words, the sincere compliments he paid her, and all she could think of was what it would be like to hear Ron talk that way someday. 

"I vos vith Dmitry, but a part of me imagined I vos vith yoo." He glanced away, looking out the window. "I vould appreciate it very much if yoo hit me again," he muttered. 

He didn't want to have feelings for her... but he did. Physical attraction for certain, and maybe something like a crush; the kind of feelings other girls at school got for Harry, seeing his actions and knowing his past, but never having been close enough to experience his personality or develop enough intimacy with him to have anything more than surface feelings. 

It was that surface aspect which seemed to eat at Nebojsa the most. He didn't want to be the shallow bloke who was only interested in her for her looks. He'd seen glimpses of her over the last year—speaking up during meetings of the Order, fighting in the fields of snow around Malfoy Manor, or helping Harry unscramble the magic of horcruxes. Those parts of her were intriguing to him. And maybe, to a devout fellow like Nebojsa, even that intrigue towards her was enough that he felt he was slighting his boyfriend in the process. 

She didn't want to slap or kick him again. Hitting him wasn't going to make either of them feel any better. And, to be honest... her hand _really_ hurt. The last person she’d back-handed like that had been Harry, about a year ago, after she overheard him and Malfoy having sex… which meant a portion of the Gryffindor girls’ dormitory had heard them, too. 

These boys in her vicinity listened to their pricks more than reason—and sometimes she had to slap them to get their attention back where it belonged. Sometimes she was the only one left breathing and standing, with sufficient wits about her to do what needed to be done. 

"I'm disgusted," she admitted in as even a tone as she could muster. "And… weirdly flattered. I'm angry. And I'm not surprised, because this is the kind of cruelty you pricks have been getting away with for centuries. I don't want to hit you again—I’m satisfied you've been punished enough. More than anything, I'm...” she swallowed, then sighed. “I’m disappointed. You were shaping up to be one of the good guys." 

He shook his head. "I uzed to be." 

"What happened?" She wanted to know what could warp a man who'd nearly become a priest into someone who would lose their grip on morality, abandon self-control and respect and rational thought, to the point he would get himself off with her body after she trusted him with it, to keep his boyfriend safe. What caused him to lose sight of that line, to forget that her body and her image didn't exist for _their_ gratification? 

He had to think a long minute. Totally incongruous to the severity of their subject, he reached across the table to refresh her cup. The man poured her tea, thinking hard before he said, "Prison. Infinitely-looped years of torture and death. Persecution. Mizery. Loneliness. Months spent running; living in hotels, or on zhe streets, hunted for sport like animals. Strangers trying to kill me. Selling sex to zurvive." He couldn't look her in the eye; admitting he’d been a whore on the street just to have something to eat, to keep going, to get to where he was now. "Prezervation of zhe self took over our thoughts. Selfishness became our lives. For a time, I lost my compassion. I went mad. I thought I vos protecting myzelf. But in truth, I vos leading all of us straight to hell." 

There was no appropriate response. So she lifted her cup to her lips, drinking the tea he'd poured her—taking the liquid into her body as muggles took the sacraments, a physical display of accepting his words and his apology. 

She could never understand what he'd been through, or what that did to a person who survived such terrible things. She’d seen it in Harry, how the horrible things he went through began to warp his personality and change his behavior. This man’s experiences weren't an excuse for his hurtful actions, and he didn't appear to be using them that way. He knew what he did was wrong. He regretted it, and he was sorry for betraying her, hurting her, treating her as less than his equal. He'd stepped on her in his struggle for survival, the way a drowning person sometimes hurt the lifeguard trying to rescue them because they were flailing so hard they didn't know help was right next to them. 

Nebojsa and Dmitry had been drowning, and in their dying gasps they'd let go of their dignity, let go of their principles and religion, and in their desperation they'd accidently struck her, the witch trying to save them. 

That he'd acted out of terror and a very human need for companionship at what he thought was the end of his life made it harder for her to be furious with him. 

What she felt was sorry for him. The Death Eaters took strong, good people like Nebojsa Radić and isolated them, broke them down until they felt they had no other choice. Nebojsa might have gotten out of their evil clutches, but they still had claws and poison barbs under his skin, the same as they did in Dmitry, and Draco, and Harry too. They were fighting the poison, and sometimes that fight got disturbing before it got better.

What happened with the Polyjuice was a symptom of a greater issue, which it appeared Nebojsa was now aware of and working to correct. 

She was able to eat a bit. He didn't, keeping to the dark tea in his cup. 

After a few _petit fours_ and a baklava, she stated stiffly, "I would prefer that no one else know about this. Especially, I don't want Ron to know." 

She couldn't know precisely how Ronald might respond. Anger, undoubtedly. But because her trust had been broken? Or because her body, her virginity, in some prehistoric, misogynistic kind of way _belonged_ to him in his mind? Ron might be inclined to think that something had been stolen from _him_ , rather than see how Hermione had been wronged. 

It was her likeness, her betrayed trust, her business. She didn't want Ron involved. She'd had quite enough of pureblood men telling her what to do, how to think, what to feel. She wanted this to be her own, to be dealt with as _she_ saw fit. Ron was her boyfriend, and she loved him, but this had nothing to do with him. And if they got married someday, her intimate sexual details remained her own, and she might not tell him even then. Ron would need to be a more evolved and enlightened man, would need to dig himself out from many backwards ways of thinking before she could trust him with this sort of personal information. Especially as it involved Dmitry, a wizard Ron looked up to. She simply didn’t trust his reaction. 

So much of her life was Ron-adjacent, or Harry-adjacent. For once, this needed to be hers. Just hers. No matter how unpleasant or distasteful. Nebojsa was apologizing to _her_ , because it was _her_ he had hurt—not Ron's girlfriend or Harry's friend, but _her_ , Hermione Granger. The fact that he understood that meant there was some fleck of decency left in him, something salvageable. 

He bowed his head, agreeing to complete discretion. "Your rules, Miss Granger."

She fixed him with a strained, narrow look. "You've been inside me by proxy. Under normal conditions I guess you could call me by my first name but...."

Lips pressed, he shook his head. He gave a pause, to be sure she wasn't going to say more, before he spoke. He didn't want to cut her off. "I zhink 'Miss Granger' iz best. And I vill not speak of zhis to anyvone but yoo and Dmitry. Yoo have my vord, if it has any meaning to yoo." 

"Thank you." 

She wasn't sure what his promise was worth. But he did seem like an honest person, or someone who strove to be honest as best he could when he was the holder of so many people's intimate secrets. Because she saw the way he was treated in the office, especially by others of his religion. He was, unofficially but for all practical purposes, their resident chaplain. All of the Orthodox witches and wizards went to him for advice, or perhaps confession. Random gifts appeared on his desk—a tin of tea, a fine set of quills, and someone brought him flowers at least once a month. 

The honorific behavior reminded her of how people were always pressing small tokens of their appreciation into Harry's hands. With Harry, it was obvious why they did it: with Nebojsa... it didn't make as much sense. There was a lot about him she didn't know—details not to be found in newspapers or books, but buried in the minds and memories of those who knew him better. 

He didn’t speak again, giving her that control. He waited, suspecting she might have more to say after some tea to wet her throat. She found there was more to discuss. 

"As a woman who's... waiting until my relationship is more committed to have sex," she conceded. Nebojsa knew she was a virgin. She wasn't waiting for marriage necessarily, but would prefer to be engaged before that happened. It was what she wanted, what made her feel secure before exploring that part of herself. "It does, oddly, give me a sense of confidence knowing that, when the time arrives and I choose to do so, my body will be..." she didn't know what to say, except, "functional and pleasant?" 

She worried about that—the mechanics of intercourse. Whether or not she would fancy it. How the choreography might go. Or how it could fail. 

Ron could be rather fumbly, but was also stunningly athletic for all his lack of grace day-to-day. He might be clumsy in bed, or he may be the powerhouse she saw on the pitch—and she wouldn't know until they tried. She wasn’t about to go ask Lavender Brown whether Ron was good in bed! So she would have to wait and see. 

She was certainly not a Hit Witch's body type and harbored no delusions of keeping up with Ron physically. She fretted over how they would work together in the bedroom. The fact that a tall, deceptively strong bloke like Nebojsa found a way to have sex with her meant that Ron stood a fair shot at finding a comfortable way forward, too. And—not to make unfair judgments—Nebojsa was a bit taller than Ron, though not nearly so broad, but perhaps… their equipment was within the same margin of error? If Nebojsa could manage the act without her form being uncomfortable, then she could probably do it with Ron, too, and have the experience be alright.

Nebojsa wouldn't be apologizing quite so profusely and sincerely, she thought, had the sex been _bad_. 

The foreign wizard looked firmly at the tablecloth. "Your future husband vill be a lucky man, to have a voman like you by his side. Vhile a sex life is a vonderful thing, it iz only one possible piece of a revarding relationship." 

She countered, deadpan, "Says the chap who couldn't keep his pants on around me."

"Touché." He twiddled with his tea cup. "Yoo know... yoor zense of humor. I am ztarting to see how yoo and Harry became friends." 

"War makes us all grow up faster than we'd like," she observed sagely. It was hard to believe that the wizard sitting across from her in his Sunday best was only nineteen. She herself felt about forty if the measuring stick was to be the levels of stress and terror she'd survived. Proximity to Harry Potter had its draw-backs. But there were benefits, too. She learned very quickly how to be in uncomfortable situations, how to find a way through proximity to people she didn't care for, how to understand the perspective of others whether she respected their worldview or not. 

She wasn't about to become pals with Draco Potter _or_ Nebojsa Radić. They were Harry’s people, _not_ hers. And for now, she wanted nothing to do with Dmitry Ionescue—not until he was ready to genuinely apologize... and even then, she'd need to be feeling particularly generous. She had no problem with his little brother, Misha. From Ginny's owls, the younger Ionescue was a perfect gentleman—a knee-knocking romantic who raced home after every game to owl his girlfriend whether he won or lost—and the best kisser of her life. 

Hermione needed more information if she was to unravel how the older brother could be such an unfeeling, self-centered human being, while the younger was everything kind and loving. Nebojsa Radić sat between the brothers in a kind of personality tug-of-war. By the look of him, it was an exhausting endeavor. His appearance said he wasn’t getting enough sleep lately. 

She changed the subject, poking around his awful boyfriend. "What do you think about Ron and Dmitry being partners?" 

Ron talked about the Romanian prince _all_ the time—was starting to look up to him as much as he did Bill or Charlie or the twins. Ron was aware of Dmitry being gay, so working together and thinking well of him was a step in the right direction. The Weasley boys had been quite homophobic growing up: it took Charlie coming out—and then moving away when his brothers were horrible about it, which broke Mrs. Weasley's heart—before things started changing. Charlie’s coming out, and then Harry being whatever in-denial flavor of bisexual he was, paved the path for Ron to become comfortable thinking of a gay bloke as a role model, to spend hours together every day and trust the man to have his back. 

Ron idolized hyper-masculine qualities. He looked up to men who were extremely muscular, who were good at sports, who ignored their emotions and bottled everything for later. That was a part of why he and Harry got on so well back at school. They only times they fought were when Harry's condensed and suppressed emotions exploded like a bomb. When the dust settled, they usually worked it out; because Harry went back to being surly and eating his feelings which made Ron comfortable again. Hermione didn't want Ron getting close to yet another guy who would inevitably blow up on him; she didn't want Ron emulating that kind of behavior, thinking it was normal or acceptable. 

Dmitry _wasn’t_ a good role model. But he could be, someday, if he kept working on himself. He had the potential to be like his little brother… a genuinely good man. He'd overcome quite a bit, but he had a long ways yet to go and much to prove before anyone decent could think well of him. 

Nebojsa tucked his hair behind his ear before putting a few pieces of dried fruit on his plate. "I... have my concerns. Dmitry vears emotional armor—too much, most of zhe time. Zhis iz not healthy for him, and hiz behavior feeds ozher insecure men, like Ronald and Draco." Hermione let her eyes go wide, signaling her agreement and shared frustration. "Dima iz playful even vhen he iz in pain. He pretends notzhing can hurt him. I vatch zhem closely because of zhis. Harry iz trying to unlearn zhis self-suppressive behavior; vhen I can, I encourage Ron to learn from Harry, or ozher men in zhe office who have more..." he searched for the word he wanted amongst the bits of fruit on his plate. "Centered emotional health, and good expression." 

Hermione had to bite back a judgmental reaction. Sure, there were a lot of men in Law Enforcement. For the number of wizards there were, she processed surprisingly few issues relating to workplace harassment, inappropriate conduct, excessive force, or anything else along those lines. She'd had to fire a recruit for looking at pornography on a Ministry computer, which had been idiocy on his part. And there was one case of a male Auror using a phrase which he appeared to legitimately not understand was a racial slur; when taken to HR and informed, he was mortified and volunteered to write an apology to the witch he'd said it to, his supervisor, and his department. Two minor issues in four months was astonishing. 

There were remarkably good men at Fenchurch for Ron to know and model himself after. Which was why she didn't like his cozying up to Dmitry Ionescue, possibly the worst option among so many sterling ones. It was something she kept a close eye on, too, wanting to be sure Ron learned what he could without taking away too many bad habits along the way. 

There was one last point she wanted to clarify regarding their truce. She took a fortifying sip of tea.

"Does Harry know? About what happened last year." 

Nebojsa was abruptly honest, though his words came with the usual softness of his Serbian-accented speech pattern. "Harry suspects. He iz... hesitant to zay. I believe he feels himzelf responsible for _our_ miztakes." 

She almost sorted. "That's Harry. He blames himself for everything, whether he was involved or not. Mighty Atlas with the weight of the world on his shoulders."

"Zhey programmed him zhat vay. To be zheir martyr," observed Nebojsa. He didn't show much emotion, but she was fairly sure he was extremely angry on the inside, though neither his steady voice nor his still body language showed it. Perhaps his spine got a little stiffer, sitting up very straight, bristling. 

"Yoor Headmaster. Yoor Order. Zhey vanted him to feel a personal responsibility for zhe sins of our entire vorld, zo zhat he vould comply, zo zhat he vould go out and fight for zhem vithout having to be asked—because Harry vould feel it vos hiz fault, hiz duty to fix. Zhey took advantage of hiz deep love for ozhers, took advantage of hiz good heart, to put him between zhemselves and danger, and convince him _he likes it_.” His eyes took on a hardness which made their blue depths like a frozen lake. He was truly, righteously furious at authorities like Dumbledore and past Ministers who’d leaned their weight on Harry, influencing him at such a young age… pushing him towards the soldier’s life he’d eventually taken on, thinking the choice was entirely his own. 

“Vhen zhe final hour came, zhey knew he vould sacrifice himzelf for us. Zhey did _notzhing_ to stop him from marching to hiz death. He haz been trained for years; zhe perfect lamb who valks to hiz slaughter vith head held high, believing hiz death vill save everyone. Because of vot zhey did to him, how zhey teach him to zhink, he vill keep killing himzelf until zhe vorld is right again." 

Nebojsa had the measure of Harry—so much so that it frightened her, how well this relative stranger understood how her best friend thought and felt, the motives behind his actions. Nebojsa Radić made as much sense of Harry in five minutes as Hermione had been able to unscramble in seven and a half years. That was because Harry showed more of himself to Radić—a fellow bisexual wizard in love with a Death Eater's son—than he'd ever revealed to his friends out of fear they wouldn't love him anymore. She saw that now, how Harry's deep insecurities had always kept him at arms-length and perpetually running away from the people trying to love him. 

Harry didn’t know how to accept love. On some level, maybe he didn’t think he deserved to be loved. 

"I am zorry," Radić murmured, adjusting his napkin on his knee. "I... feel very much, for Harry's situation." 

She had to make sure: "You don't think he's contemplating—"

He took her meaning right away, assuring her, "No! No, Harry haz no intention of suicide. My meaning vos... metaphor; zhat Harry zhrows himzelf into hiz vork. Zhat he gives great amounts to charity vhile hiz own house iz vot yoo English call a rubbish bin." Hermione laughed softly, because that was very true. Grimmauld Place was still depressingly awful, and she had no earthly idea how the Potters could live there. Visiting the place made her feel melancholic, which was why they always met somewhere about town for drinks or meals. 

Nebojsa had one culminating point to make. "Harry gives every fiber of himzelf into hiz marriage, to zhe Dragon's happiness, zhat zhere iz barely enough for hiz own needs. He only sleeps four or five hours each night, yoo know." Hermione didn't know that. "Harry does everyzhing for Draco—cooking, cleaning, finances, zetting up schedules, socializing and entertainment. Everyzhing."

To Hermione, it sounded more like Harry had a child than a husband. He did everything short of carrying Draco around in his arms... because Draco would hate that.

There had been a night during the early months of the war when Harry fell asleep in the Prefect's Bath after defending Hogwarts in a major skirmish, and Draco carried a sleeping Harry on his back all the way to their bedroom—that was two flights of stairs, and nearly the opposite side of the castle, after having been up for hours tending to the needs of two dozen children. As much as everyone saw Harry as their hero, there was something in Draco capable of rescuing Harry right back… carrying Harry, the one person The Chosen One allowed himself to lean on. Draco probably couldn't physically carry Harry anymore—The Boy Who Lived was too tall and hit the gym for a living, while everything Nebojsa said made Draco sound rather sedentary these days. She wondered what had happened to the part of Draco holding Harry upright through the worst experiences of their lives.

"Are they really doing okay?" 

Nebojsa looked away, none-too-subtly ducking her question. 

He wasn't going to say one way or another; realizing that maybe he’d said too much already, his concern getting the better of his discretion. As the priest who took Harry's confessions—and possibly Draco's, too—he wouldn't break their trust by talking about the problems in their relationship revealed to him in confidence. Everything he'd said were things he himself observed directly, house-sharing with the other couple over the summer before getting a place of their own. 

Whatever else he might’ve known weren't his secrets to tell. Which meant Nebojsa was getting better, strengthening his ability to hold the line and do right by others. He did right by Dmitry at least, isolating him from Harry and Draco's home-life. A guy like Dmitry would only trigger Harry's saving-people complex, and he'd start dumping his mental and emotional resources into the broken prince, too, trying to reach in and humanize him the way he managed with Draco. 

What Nebojsa was willing to say was: "Every partnership haz... vaxing and vaning, like zhe moon. Zhings may not always appear even, especially vhen viewed during its cycle, vhen one side eclipses zhe ozher. But zhe days of light and dark become balanced, vhen given time. Vhen ve understand how zhese movements effect zhe tide inside us, ve can start to be our best vithin zhe light, and rest easier vithin zhe darkness." 

Hermione gave him a very long look. Eventually she quipped, "Well… when Snape retires as headmaster, we know who'll be replacing him." 

His straight black eyebrows pinched together. "Vot do yoo mean?" 

So she spoke plainly. "No wonder Harry likes you. You sound like Albus Dumbledore." 

Nebojsa seemed to abhor the old Headmaster for how he'd treated Harry. If they weren't in such a posh restaurant, she got the feeling the Serbian would've thrown a bit of baklava at her... or at least kicked her back under the table. 

Of everything he was or wasn’t to Harry, the very last thing he’d ever want to be was another Dumbledore.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry woke with Misha’s warm, capable hand on his shoulder, offering a cup of strong cherry-scented tea and inquiring if he wanted to go for a jog before it rained. 

Misha hated doing things alone. Having company made him feel better, which was why he did so well on a professional team. He naturally made friends with everyone. Misha was so easy to be around that others unconsciously gravitated towards him. The war was perhaps the loneliest he’d ever been, isolated with a small band of mates on the run. Harry was seeing more of Misha’s personality as he settled into his new life. 

Nebojsa was already at church and had an appointment after, Misha informed, so they weren’t waiting on him. And Dima was functionally comatose in bed beside Harry; snoring, having knocked himself out with a Sleeping Draught. There was no chance he’d want to join them, anyway—Dima loathed cardio. He’d rather throw around the heaviest objects he could find if he was going to get himself out of breath. 

Harry had the sneaking suspicion that Sia specifically asked Misha to look after him, to make sure Harry wasn’t alone today; to distract him, keep his mind off of everything… and maybe keep him out of trouble, too. Nebojsa bore witness yesterday that every time Harry walked out of the flat on his own, he always came back in worse shape. So today Nebojsa arranged that Harry would have the ever-chipper Misha glued to his side like some proximital mood-elevator. 

“Okay,” Harry groaned, hauling his dehydrated and hung-over self out of bed—feeling like the days when he’d first started running, back when his body ached and every morning was a kind of inner battle, forcing his physical form to obey his mind, convincing himself that one day he’d be thankful for the discipline he was building. 

Today he _was_ thankful: for his own stubbornness, for Misha and Dima and Sia looking out for him… for Taylor and for Draco, forcing him to get back on the right path when they caught him straying. He needed them all, because unlike his old self, Harry knew now that there was no fucking way he could get through this alone.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

That afternoon, Harry received a response from Blaise Zabini. A large brown-and-black plumed Eurasian Eagle Owl tapped at the flat’s windows, begging to get inside out of the icy rain. Harry raced to unlatch a window and let it inside. He gave the bird a few of Hedwig’s treats in exchange for the letter. 

The eagle owl and his snowy were immediately chummy. Blaise’s owl even pushed a treat Hedwig’s way, sharing his bounty. The great tufted feathers over his eyes looked like eyebrows, especially when he wiggled them at Hedwig. After his treat was accepted, the big boy tried to get closer but Hedwig snapped at him, backing away on their shared perch. 

Harry stopped in the middle of opening Blaise’s letter. He stared. Blaise’s owl had tried to _mount_ Hedwig, like a bloke in a pub asking a girl for her number. Hedwig rejected him. 

Harry didn’t exactly know how old Hedwig was. Definitely old enough to breed. He’d never before considered if Hedwig might want to hatch a few eggs now that the war was over. 

Hedwig and Blaise’s owl were different species, so that wouldn’t work. Perhaps the eagle owl had taken on some of his owner’s traits the same way Hedwig was short-tempered and slow to trust, just like Harry. Blaise’s owl seemed to make a habit of trying to copulate with strange birds. 

Keeping a close eye on the new arrival, Harry read Blaise’s letter. The Italian had been educated in his home country, his handwriting foreign to Harry; comprised of formal, tall and looping cursive.

 

 

 

> Potter, 
> 
> Thank you for the information. Bipolar Disorder makes a lot of sense given Draco's history, and I do agree with you. I also understand why you'd want to keep this hushed up for his sake. 
> 
> I've seen Draco through a few benders. Actually, I've seen him worse than this, though not by much. I'll try to keep him in check as much as I can. If anything worries me, I will be in touch. Not that I don't enjoy a visit from my mate—and I did extend an open invitation—but hearing non-stop about your marriage is not what I was expecting when Draco turned up on my doorstep last night.
> 
> Hopefully he'll snap out of it soon and go home to you. I'll help him as much as he'll listen to me... as much as Draco's ever listened to anyone.
> 
>  
> 
> \- Blaise

 

 

It sounded as though Blaise was in Harry’s corner—as much as he could be and remain Draco’s friend first. No one talked about the loyalty amongst Slytherins, but they stuck by each other the same as any other house.   

More than anything, Harry was relieved. Blaise who’d known Draco for so many years agreed that he likely had Bipolar Disorder, and was willing to help however it would be accepted. Blaise knew that Draco wasn’t about to change his behavior, so all he could do as a friend was watch over him, make sure he didn’t do anything dangerous, and reach out to Harry if things got out of hand. 

It wasn’t the Slytherin way to police your mates. Their attitude ran more along the lines of “whatever you’re up to, don’t get caught.” 

Still, Harry felt better knowing Blaise was there for Draco. 

Blaise seemed lucid in his letter, sober, put-together. He’d always struck Harry as an organized sort of man, clever and decisive, if a bit vain. Blaise had been one of the few genuinely decent people in Draco’s life. Draco didn’t have enough of those—real mates who cared about him, who wouldn’t take advantage of him when he was at less than his best. 

To Harry, a real mate would’ve stepped in during sixth year, seeing Draco under the sway of the Death Eaters and obviously conducting something in secret. If Harry had noticed all the way from Gryffindor and started following Draco to prove his suspicions, then doubtless his own housemates took note of his behavior, too. Gryffindors were chosen for their heart as much as for their aggression—a Gryffindor would put themselves in harm’s way for a friend. In Slytherin, you didn’t intervene in your housemate’s affairs unless you thought there was real danger to them or to others. Draco’s actions had been suspicious, but no one could have expected what was really going on. The Death Eaters who’d abused Draco from infancy had groomed him for this; to be a bit dramatic, a bit odd, a bit mad. If Draco was known to be a few degrees off, he could carry out orders without raising suspicion. “Draco’s just being strange again,” his housemates might’ve said that year. Or, “He’s probably in some classroom getting his prick sucked.” The _laissez-faire_ attitude in Slytherin contributed to the Death Eaters being able to sneak into the castle. Twice. 

That was why Harry had to plainly state the situation. A Slytherin like Blaise needed to understand the risks before he could make an informed decision about his own course of action. Armed with full disclosure, he could act appropriately this time around. Perhaps now Blaise would be on his guard, and Draco could have a friend to watch his back.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Iga was coming over again. She’d put every recording she had of Vukasin and his band onto CDs and insisted on delivering them by hand—she wouldn’t trust something so important, so precious, to be carried by an owl. 

Misha choked up when Dima told him why Iga was coming. The moment he found his voice again, wiping at his eyes, he demanded a trip to the local Slavic bakery. The occasion called for cake—a celebration. 

Harry went on the sweets run with Misha. On their return, they caught Nebojsa sitting on his freshly laundered bed playing an unusual guitar—a Russian type with a triangular wooden body and only three strings. Harry listened to his friend play as Misha made room for the cake in the refrigerator. His Russian Translation Charm from yesterday was wearing off, making it harder to understand the words Sia sang. He still picked up a few. 

The song was slow, and sad, with a kind of accepting resolution to it. The words transcended language, their meaning becoming one with the melody. It was a song about being glad for your memories—the experiences you had and the people you got the opportunity to love—finding a way to be happy and at-peace even when things didn’t go your way in the end. 

"You're gonna teach me that song," Harry said after Nebojsa struck the final chord. 

Sia's eyebrow arched. "Yeah? Yoo don't even know vot it means." 

True. But that didn't matter. Harry teased right back. "It's a Russian folk song, right? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say somebody gets their heart broken, then everybody dies miserable and alone." 

Sia's upper lip curled as he made a little sound of ascent, an "eugh" which meant Harry was more-or-less right. 

"It's beautiful," Harry added, less caustic and more himself. It didn't feel great to be honest, but he was working past that instinct to curl up and protect himself, wearing his dark sense of humor like a dragon's scales every time he didn't feel like showing his inner workings. "Teach it to me? Please?"

 

 

 

 

With cake and drinks, they all crowded around Nebojsa’s laptop at the kitchen table, copying the songs Iga had brought onto his hard drive. For Dima and Misha, it was like getting the tiniest piece of their brother back. From now on, they could hear his voice and his music whenever they wanted. 

Harry had to swallow back his jealousy with a bite of cake. He wanted that kind of connection to his parents, to Sirius and Remus, and everyone else he’d lost. Having something like this made the grieving process easier. You could remember them as they’d been. Otherwise the memories got hazy, and you started seeing the dead as you’d wanted them to be, rather than as they truly were, flaws and all. 

“I think,” observed Misha, “you have all of his songs except for one.” 

“Yeah?” Iga seemed sad that she’d missed one—a melody drifting out there in the universe which hadn’t been captured. 

Misha remembered the song. He seemed to know this one by heart. He threw his head back and started belting out what struck Harry as a rather pretty love song. It surprised Harry at first that Vuk had written a song in English, but as the heir to a duchy Vuk had been fluent in multiple languages. And it was easier to achieve that rhyming, sweet quality in English than in Russian. 

“ _I would give you the stars in the sky, but they’re too far away_ …” 

“ _O Doamne! No no no_ …” Nebojsa actually swore at Misha while burying his face in his hands. He was… embarrassed? Harry had never seen Nebojsa blush, but he must’ve been pink beneath his fingers, concealing his reaction by slumping his shoulders. He couldn’t get away from the song if he tried, though. Dima stood behind him with both hands fixed on his shoulders, a signal that he wanted this song sung. 

Vuk was their dead brother and they got to mourn him however they saw fit—and they wanted to sing this particular tune no matter how much Sia protested. 

Misha grabbed the nearest acoustic guitar and started strumming; he had a number of sharp notes which blended together to create a sound that was deceptively open and warm. Harry leaned forward in his own chair, interested to hear this lovely-sounding song which for some reason made Nebojsa want to hide behind his hair. 

Iga was laughing. She remembered the tune once Misha started to sing. 

Dima took the next line, singing to the back of Nebojsa’s head, smirking. “ _If you were a hooker you know I’d be happy to pay._ ”  

So… Vuk had been cool with sex work, too. Or at least friendly to the idea, enough to put it in a song. 

The brothers sang together, turning themselves on Nebojsa, the lyrics intended for him. “ _If sudde_ _n_ _ly you were a girl, I’d be suddenly straight!_ ” 

This was unraveling a bit for Harry. It was a song written by Vuk but… it wasn’t about him. He’d written it about Dima and Sia’s relationship, a kind of ode to their power-dynamic and uncommon, sometimes contrary sexual preferences. Nebojsa was a passionate lover who would give Dima the stars if he could; while Dima was the hyper-sexualized one, thinking about screwing all the time, the one who’d be concerned if he were suddenly attracted to a woman. That line might’ve been a soft dig at Sia. Before puberty, his delicate features probably made him look more like a girl than a boy. Young Dmitry might’ve questioned just how gay he really was, to be in love with a boy who looked so decidedly female even after they hit puberty. 

Clearly, Vuk wrote and performed this song in private, its existence only known to their closest friends who were “in” on the joke. That was why Iga knew it. It was never recorded because the contents were too damn sensitive, too inappropriate to risk putting down. 

The melody was startlingly pretty, like a real love song, and higher pitch. It didn’t sound like the same guy who’d written the speed-metal screaming  Harry heard last night. Vuk had been a more versatile musician than that one song let on, attempting to capture the spirit of the person or idea he composed around. This power-ballad did sound like Dmitry and Nebojsa—complex, unexpected, opposing ideas which were better together than apart. 

Maybe the song was actually meant for Nebojsa to sing? Harry got that impression as Misha and Dima started to sway, reaching the refrain. 

“ _Cause my heart belongs to you. My love is pure and true! My heart belongs to you…_ ” 

Misha’s strumming hand stilled against the strings, both brothers leaning forward, their arms extended in invitation—a clear signal that this was a song about Nebojsa and meant to be sung by him. They wanted him to have the next line, and hopefully take over from there. It was better, in their opinion, when he sang it. 

The Serb picked his head up out of his hands. He kept his eyes shut, mortified, singing because it would make them happy. “ _But my cock is community property_.” 

Harry was very lucky not to have had any cake or wine in his mouth. He’d have spit everywhere. He barely contained the splutter of surprise that begged to leave his lips. 

Misha gave Dima the guitar—urging Sia onto his feet, wanting him and Dima to sing to each other. Harry blushed as Misha got them facing, Dmitry’s hands taking over the alternating chords. 

Still looking a bit horrified that this tune had been resurrected along with Vuk’s memory, Nebojsa reprised the romantic melody. His voice was beautiful: the lyrics were filthy. “ _You’re the only_ _guy_ _that I like to screw… unless I get bored_.” 

Dima sang back. “ _When I come home my dinner’s made_ ,” a reference to how Nebojsa took care of him, even back at school. “ _And the front lawn is mowed_.” 

Harry had to think about that one for a second. Vuk hadn’t been talking about the two of them settling down in the future and having a home together. ‘Front lawn’ was a crude reference to Dima’s pubic hair—that he’d shave his bits for Sia, willing to let go of some of his more masculine aesthetic and indulge in a behavior more common among gay and bi men. Whether or not Dima shaved his pubes was a mystery: Harry never noticed before. Whether in communal showers or at the beach, Harry could will himself not to look. 

Writing a song that mentioned your brother’s bush took a special sort of twisted mind. Harry was starting to understand where Dima and Misha got their sense of humor from. And why Vuk and Draco had hit it off so well. They both wrote catchy, sometimes sarcastic, wildly improper little tunes about the people around them. Draco once penned the words, “Weasley was born in a bin.” What Vuk wrote wasn’t much further beyond the line of propriety; he was simply more refined in his lyrical shit-slinging for having been a few years older when he wrote it. 

Nebojsa’s eyes were on the ceiling. He couldn’t sing these raunchy words to his boyfriend… not with an audience, anyway. Perhaps Harry being in the room made him uncomfortable? Because everyone else knew this song. 

Sia shook his head forcefully, sealing his pierced lips shut. He flat-out refused to sing the next line. 

Misha, Dima, and Iga all obliged. Loudly. “ _I’ll kiss your mouth—even after you’ve swallowed my load!_ ” 

Nebojsa’s face was in his hands again. He bent in half, laughing his way through the humiliation. 

Everyone chimed in for the refrain—even Nebojsa by the end, pushing his hair out of his face, giving Dima and Misha looks for making him re-live this embarrassing tune years later. “ _Cause my heart belongs to you…._ ” 

A part of Harry could not believe that Dmitry’s own brother would write a song like this about him and his boyfriend. Harry could, however, imagine Draco writing something like this about his old mates in Slytherin—Blaise, maybe, or even a dirty song or two about himself. A song about Harry Potter getting buggered wouldn’t have been out of the realm of imagination. In the back of Draco’s head, a tune might exist. 

It was especially awkward to hear a sexual song about Nebojsa; a bloke whose public persona was so pious and proper, someone as respected and looked-up-to amongst his peers as Harry was. Except this song predated the war. Back when this was written, Nebojsa was just fifteen or sixteen, one of so many sexually deviant blokes at Durmstrang, faking a relationship with Iga while secretly hooking up with His Highness Dmitry. To a creative, clever, and sexually-motivated musician like Vuk or Draco, of course that seemed like great material for a song. 

Dmitry loved this. His especially dark sense of humor found it hilarious, as did Misha—the younger brother with his glass raised, encouraging Nebojsa to sing the next verse. Dima’s fingers found a jangling open B chord which was a natural compliment to Nebojsa’s effortless higher notes. 

Sia obliged them, singing the bridge: “ _I wanna make it clear, so you retain it. My dick’s a free spirit. You can’t restrain it._ ” The song was originally a rock-style; Harry figured as much when Sia let the smallest rasp sneak into his pure voice, confirmed when Misha started banging his head. This was where the massive guitar solo would go. They were playing it acoustically, so Nebojsa sang the last line more softly, leaning into Dima, getting past his nerves enough to croon a little bit. “ _No, you just can’t chain it down_.” 

Chaining each other down was a double-entendre, a reference to their BDSM practices, but also a sad acknowledgement that as things stood, they couldn’t chain each other down legally and get married, either. The fact that they were both blokes left them in limbo. 

Dima finger-picked, using blunt nails against the strings to draw out his notes, slowing down. 

Vuk had given Nebojsa a beautiful line, something real. “ _I love you so much it hurts, from my head to my feet_.” Sure, that was a reference to the head of his prick but, for Vuk, it was pretty tame.

Dima got to respond with: “ _I think of you and I can’t help but fondle my meat_.” 

Harry laughed so hard and so suddenly that he accidentally snorted, his face going bright red. That was their relationship encapsulated: Nebojsa in love, and Dima constantly converting that affection and energy into sex. 

Vuk was a nasty guy, but he understood them perfectly. 

Harry had seen his friends turn “Losing My Religion” into a love song. It had to do with how they looked at each other, the emotion they always had to keep hidden beneath the surface. They were so subtle. It was in their eyes. There was so much more than sex between them. 

So it was awkward for Harry to watch them sing to each other with that same affectionate, loving energy: “ _I see your face every time that I go out and cheat._ ” 

Misha raised his glass triumphantly, signaling that everybody sing along. The song had an anthem quality, like Aerosmith or Journey, making it easy to sway to, something you wanted to sing as a crowd in one voice. “ _Cause my heart belongs to you. My love is pure and true! My heart be_ _l_ _ongs to you—but my cock is community property!_ ” 

Harry couldn’t sing it. 

For too long, he’d willfully, purposefully and blindly ignored the core concept of the song—the idea that where Nebojsa’s prick was concerned, it was a free-for-all. He tried to brush it off it as another one of Vuk’s jokes, an exaggeration to make the song more funny and irksome. A few days ago, he’d have considered it a joke. Now… Harry knew better. Yuri said that Dima and Sia had never been monogamous, that Sia and Iga had been together for real. For Vuk to write a song about it, there had to be more than just one other woman… or man… or both. 

Faced with a bloody song about it, Harry _had_ to accept the truth. 

Like the lyrics said, Nebojsa made a habit of cheating. Sia ran around on Dima. 

Nebojsa had kissed Harry the night they met. Sia cheated on his boyfriend, in front of him, with Harry Potter, in front of Harry's future husband, and… somehow that shitstorm had turned out perfectly fine. It blew Harry's mind just thinking about it—how badly that night should’ve gone. But it didn’t. Instead of getting jealous or angry or hating each other, they were all best friends now. 

Harry only allowed himself to see the fraction of Dima and Sia’s relationship which he understood; their love and devotion to one another, how well they worked together, and their strong communication. He knew next to nothing about what actually turned them on, except that they liked getting it on in public... and that Sia knew within a few hours of their meeting that he wanted to kiss Harry, that it would be okay with Dima, and that he had permission from his partner to o ahead and do it. 

Shit. As a top, Nebojsa's dick likely _was_ community property. Dima trusted Nebojsa to go off and put it in whomever he wanted. For Dmitry, it was likely a natural expression of Nebojsa’s dominance—getting what he wanted, breaking rules, doing as he pleased. Seeing Nebojsa fuck other people appealed to Dima, reinforcing that Sia was the one in charge and could do as he liked. 

To be fair, that openness had to go both ways. Sia trusted Dima, too. If Dima wanted, he could sleep with someone else, or charge money for it if he needed to. Nebojsa trusted Dmitry to support and protect their family by whatever means necessary. 

So… it wasn’t cheating. Harry’s heart wanted to call it that, but it wasn’t. Cheating was something you did against your partners wishes, breaking your word, breaking their heart. What Dima and Nebojsa did was consensual every step of the way. They had sex with other people, as Yuri suggested, to fulfill certain desires or fantasies which the other wasn’t into. Dmitry didn’t fancy women, so Nebojsa had sex and even full-blown relationships with women like Iga. There were likely certain things Dima was into which didn’t appeal to Sia, and he was granted permission and blessing to pursue those interests with other guys, too. 

That was why it was okay for Nebojsa to kiss Harry. They’d done this for years—hooked up with other people or even other couples. They knew how to go about it without burning bridges or in the case of the Potters, destroying a potential marriage. They remained great friends with Iga to this day, and many others they might’ve slept with without Harry knowing about it. 

In this house, Harry was the weird one for practicing monogamy, expecting it of his partner. His preference was atypical. Among purebloods, and especially among queer wizards, something closer to Nebojsa and Dima's arrangement was the norm. It was so normal that Vuk wrote a silly song about how many others Sia had fucked. 

That was why Draco seemed to understand what was happening that night they hooked up. Draco knew with just a wink and the light of a cigarette. That gesture was… a signal, passed from lip to lip, taken into their bodies, shared. It was how they tested the waters with the younger, famous couple; soft gestures to gauge if they were interested in more. Dmitry lit a cigarette in his mouth, then gave it to Harry. That was acceptance number one, Dima covertly establishing himself as submissive by doing something for Harry. 

When Harry accepted the smoke, talked with Dima about his relationship, they were also conducting a kind of hurried assessment of one another, deciding whether or not they’d fit. Dima knew what he was doing, anyway—Harry had been totally clueless of the sexual aspect, his examination of Dima limited to whether or not he’d be a good candidate to join the Order. Meanwhile Sia gave Draco a nip from his flask—Sia as a practiced dominant, as a top, working things out with Draco while Harry and Dima felt each other over mentally. 

Harry didn’t know the first thing about being a dom assessing a potential sub; it all went over his head at the time. As though fearing he hadn’t been clear enough with his intentions, Dima went so far as to verbally identify himself as Nebojsa’s hand—needing Harry to understand his preferred place. Should they hook up, Dima exclusively occupied the traditionally feminine role, performing “wifely duties” for his dominant partners. 

And then Nebojsa came over and lit Harry’s second cigarette. That was the other permission they needed, Harry accepting Sia too before anything sexual would happen between them—both dominants together, setting the tone. 

He’d held eye contact when it happened, stunned, having never seen eyes that shade of palest sky blue before. Nebjosa’s eyes had a murky, moving quality like the crystal orbs they used in Divination class. Harry had trouble tearing himself away. Like Draco, Sia had a kind of magic trapped in his eyes. More than a few times, Harry had looked at the black ring pierced through Nebojsa’s lip. Before that night, he never knew anyone with facial piercings. To this day, he still found himself staring. 

Harry’s aggressive gaze came off as flirting, encouraging Sia’s attention. Harry had licked at his own lips, surprised to taste the sweetness of the cigarette paper there. To Nebojsa, that surely looked like an invitation to kiss him. 

Harry was clueless then. He knew nothing of flirting, let alone how to do it with another queer bloke outside the confines of an actual closet. He didn’t understand anything about sadomasochism either, except that he liked what Draco did it to him… which gave him ideas about what he wanted to do in retaliation. Draco had the experience and the perception to coordinate with Nebojsa, betting on Harry’s conciliatory personality, naturally dominant position, and latent homosexuality to do the rest. Drunk, horny and high, under the influence of the Imperius Curse… Draco could still play Harry, getting The Boy Who lived to rise to his bait just like their schooldays. Draco knew how to manipulate and apply constant, strategic pressure until he got his way. 

Draco wanted to get physical with Dima and Nebojsa. He’d wanted it then, and he still wanted it now. Draco was a pureblood; the only culture and morality he’d ever known stated it was perfectly acceptable to have sex with people who weren’t your spouse. Draco’s enormous prick had always been community property prior to Harry. His husband had an incredible sex drive. He put the brakes on for Harry, because he stated clearly that he expected absolute fidelity from Draco.  

He understood Draco or Dima not feeling any moral connection to monogamy; they never experienced it growing up except to be told it was some strange thing muggles did, and muggles were inferior. Having free reign to sleep with whomever, whenever, appealed to their self-indulgent personalities, later becoming a self-soothing tool as the abuse from their fathers intensified with age. With Draco, and Dima, and Vuk… their preference for open relationships made sense. 

He didn’t understand how Nebojsa could be okay with it. Even now, knowing what he did, Harry had trouble shaking his mental image of Nebojsa as a monk-in-training. He’d give it all up; the sex, the dirty songs, parties and drugs and drinking… even Dima. If Nebojsa thought it would destroy his soul, he’d stop. 

Maybe that was a dominant trait? Being flexible, a willingness to accommodate other people’s preferences, open to trying something different and seeing how it went. Harry had always been taught that power lay in rigidity—an unflinching determination, never changing course. That model lacked compassion. And if there was one thing Harry learned the hard way, it was that the surest path to losing his soul was to cut himself off from feeling… especially his sense of other people’s emotions. 

It was overwhelming at times… to open himself up and feel what those around him were feeling. Joy, excitement, arousal… loss, grief, jealousy, anger. They seemed to burn through him, a fire he didn’t know how to douse once lit. He invested so much in the people he loved that it was hard to get his head out from under that wave, a rip-tide carrying him away. He had to learn how to empathize, how to support the people in his life without taking the weight of their emotions into his own heart and getting crushed by it all. 

A hand on his arm—soft fingers, longer nails, feminine. Iga caught him lost in thought. Dima had moved on, playing something else on his guitar, Sia and Misha singing along. Iga stood beside Harry, away from the family they’d both been adopted by. She touched his arm because she wasn’t sure about the hug she really wanted to offer him, instead. 

She was grieving, too. They’d all lost their families. 

“Hey there,” she said, seeing from his eyes that he was coming back from somewhere very far away. “Feeling alright?” 

He was supposed to smile and say ‘yeah.’ That was the appropriate response, what he’d been trained to say all his life. If he spoke up, no one would care, or pay attention, or believe him. His feelings didn’t matter, weren’t important.

Harry needed to value his existence. He didn’t have to do or say or be anything to be worthy.

So, with his heart in his throat, he spoke the truth. “Depressed,” he admitted.

She lifted her eyebrows, a silent ‘go on.’ Her hand went to his back, supporting—holding him up if he needed it.

He wasn’t ready to talk. About keeping the worst parts of himself from Draco. About what he’d taken away from Taylor. About the ways he beat himself up, held himself down so he couldn’t get help. He didn’t need the Dursleys or Dumbledore to hurt him. He didn’t need Voldemort. He hurt himself all on his own, from the inside.

“Not very happy with myself right now. I’ve made bad choices, and this is the consequence of my actions.”

Iga rubbed his back, consoling him. “If you had the power to cause it, then you have the power within you to fix it, too.”

Harry closed his eyes. “I really hope that’s true. This time… I… need to be forgiven, and that’s not up to me.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry’s mobile rang quite late. He and the guys were at the bottom of a bottle of wine, a guitar in his hand as Misha tried to teach him a fingering he couldn’t get the hang of _without_ wine in his system, never mind with. 

He nearly missed the call, worming his phone out of his pocket with less than cooperative fingers, a guitar pick held between his teeth. When he saw the number, he answered quick as he could, spitting the pick to bounce off the kitchen table and skitter away. 

“Valya? What’s up?” 

His assistant was edgy, apologetic. She’d never contacted him outside of working hours before. 

Val was insistent that he come over to her flat right away. 

"It's vork," she said. Russians and their deceptive plain-speaking. She knew precisely how to pique Harry’s curiosity.

 

 

 

 

After a sobering cup of coffee, Harry Apparated to Diagon Alley, walking briskly in the cold to the flat Valya shared with her dad. They lived above the Magical Menagerie. Harry had never seen a magical rental before, and the prospect of seeing something new got his attention as he climbed the stairs leading above the shop he knew so well. 

The flat struck him as rather plain. It was once dumpy, Harry could tell, but they'd cleaned it thoroughly and spruced up a bit. Cottage-style beams in the ceiling had been sanded and re-lacquered. And Valya painted the ceiling baby blue—the exact shade of the fallen spires at Valaam, where her brother the Auror had died. Harry knew Valya and her father Vlad were Orthodox, like Nebojsa. He'd seen the little paintings of saints against golden backgrounds on her desk, and the tiny gold religious medal Vlad wore on an equally gold chain beneath his trainer’s uniform. Tonight it hung visible over his wooly jumper.

Religiosity was uncommon amongst British witches and wizards, but not-so in the east. Almost every witch and wizard Harry met who hailed from east of Berlin claimed some level of religious affiliation. He didn't know if there was some historical reason, or if it was cultural, or what. But he saw the concept of faith and belief creeping into his life with each religious person he befriended. 

He accepted a glass of water and a chair before letting the father and daughter explain themselves. 

Val had attempted to reach him by floo at Grimmauld. With no luck there, she resorted to his personal number. 

“Sorry, I was out. Band practice,” Harry lied. He didn’t want anyone at the office to know he wasn’t staying at home, or that anything was amiss. His personal life was already consumed as entertainment far too much for his liking. Val he trusted… but Vlad he wasn’t as close with and couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t talk around the office or amongst loose-lipped friends. 

They showed him a truly remarkable letter from none other than Astoria Greengrass. The letter was addressed to him directly, in care of Val—knowing that the Death Eaters would attempt to monitor Harry’s comings and goings, but perhaps not those of his secretary. He'd assumed the fluffy white Kneazle with blue eyes and that smashed-in face was theirs. But it was Astoria's faithful messenger, waiting for Harry’s reply. Her life depended on his answer. 

Astoria wanted to defect. She was only sixteen, the same age as Draco when he got out. Reading her letter, Harry could tell she was scared… terrified. She didn't like what her family was doing, what they made her do. She'd never gone against them before, didn't have a rebellious bone in her body. But her conscience was screaming that she couldn't be a party to this anymore. Harry knew that feeling, too. 

Astoria was suggesting the Hit Wizards stage a rescue mission. She and her parents were staying at a secure, Unplottable hideout with a handful of other Death Eater families on the run, tucked away in the Swiss Alps. They were leaving in two days’ time—her father, undeclared for any faction, intended to pledge himself for the Didiers and would join them wherever they were hidden. Astoria didn’t know their location, but she knew if she went under their influence she would never make it out. 

As soon as her family left the property they'd be vulnerable. She wanted the Ministry to take her into protective custody—and she would spill everything she knew, everything she’d learned and observed since being smuggled out of Hogwarts in March. 

She wrote that she understood they may have to arrest her parents and her sister with her. She knew she was signing them off to Azkaban… herself, too, if she weren’t underage. Newly enacted laws protected her from being tried as an adult. But Astoria knew what she was doing. Her letter said she wanted it to stop—the violence. She didn't want innocent people to be hurt, and she knew that her sister and her parents weren't innocent in all this. She wasn’t entirely innocent, either; though Harry quickly began to suspect there was some brainwashing and exploitation used against this girl. Her letter was shaky in places—her handwriting, not her mind. She knew with deathly certainty that all she wanted was _out_. 

Seated across from Harry and watching him as he read, Vladimir Vasnetsov’s thick eyebrows shadowed his dark eyes in a pensive, naturally distrustful glare. He was a veteran of the first war, had fought the Death Eater insurrection back in Russia. He’d lost both his sons to the fighting. To Vlad, it would always be personal after the deaths of his children—and that was why he removed himself from the Aurors and followed his daughter to safety in the UK, becoming a coach and teacher. He recognized that his bias ran too deep to be set aside. 

Vlad would never fight in the field again. He wouldn’t risk leaving his daughter alone. He wanted to be there, to see her marry Colin Creevey, to watch them settle down, and someday play with his grandchildren. 

Of Astoria’s letter, Vlad said, “I believe she iz telling zhe truth. She iz young, probably abused, and frightened. I believe zhis letter is a genuine cry for help, not some trap or trick by any lieutenant above her.”

The Greengrasses had sheltered their daughters, isolating them from “undesirable influences” as many pureblood families did, only socializing with one another. Daphne became self-absorbed and vain while Astoria was sensitive and obedient, always deferential to prefects and her house seniors. 

Valya had spent a year with Astoria in Slytherin, which was why Astoria had reached out to her. Val’s assessment was that Astoria was a quiet girl, shy, often overshadowed by her dramatic older sister, and occasionally bullied—especially by boys who thought she was pretty. Astoria played Gobstones, loved music and dancing, and made her own sweets—generous boxes of which she brought to school after each holiday to share in the Common Room. “She vos zhe vitch who noticed if yoo vere having a bad day. She vould offer to fix your hair or paint your nails to cheer yoo up. A sweet girl. Kind, but easily intimidated because of her weak hold on her emotions. She was brought up easy to wound.” 

Harry nodded. He believed Astoria’s intentions, too. Her letter could very well be bait—intended to draw Hit Wizards into a trap. Her own father might’ve stood over her shoulder, forcing her to write the letter. Even if that was true, the emotions Astoria expressed were genuine. When her hand shook, it could’ve been her father’s force over her or merely his voice in her head telling her she was betraying her family with every word she wrote. 

Harry believed her. Astoria needed to be rescued: of course she’d called out to Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived was known to never turn his back on a person in distress. 

It was late, nearly eleven o’clock. "Well then, “ he said, determined. “Let's wake some people up."

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **RANT** : Iga’s character is based on a number of dominatricies, professional and lifestyle, whom I’ve had the astounding pleasure of keeping company with over the years. To quote Jacq The Stripper, “Sex work makes the hex work,” which was the working title for Iga’s scenes.
> 
> BDSM and sex work are tangentially related. Both have undercurrents of self-exploration through taboo and fantasy. There is also exploitation and negative behaviors in sex work and BDSM, the same as one might find in any other hobby or profession. There are bad therapists, unscrupulous bankers, and crooked cops in this world. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater, but rather focus on improving our understanding and enacting reforms which actually protect people. Decriminalization, not legalization. But I digress (fucking always).
> 
> When we read about a dominatrix, especially in erotica, she’s overwhelmingly presented as a fantastic, almost un-human image. She’s wearing sexualized clothing—tight leather, high heels, carrying a whip. She’s cruel, or rude, or demeaning. She hates men. And then she’ll engage in some unusual sex act… almost as if to prove she’s dominant in the same fashion as a man. I’m over that. That’s not a person but a fetish, a character or role-play. Lifestyle dominance is a mindset. It’s not performed but a part of who you are, how you choose to live and express yourself. So Iga’s not donning an outfit or suspending anybody from the anchors in her ceiling. She doesn’t need to. Her existence as a dominant woman is radical enough, is sexual enough. There’s a charm in her repose, her comfort in herself giving us permission to do the same. I think that’s tremendously sexy, and freeing, and what BDSM is all about.
> 
> I wanted to highlight the humanity of this young woman: grieving her sister’s death, alone in the world, using her pain to build her own family based on her vision and morals, existing as her authentic self, and reaching out to effect the world around her. She is, in many ways, what Harry has been reaching for as his own ideal self. She is also his opposite—female, foreign, free-speaking, a wielder of sexuality and implements which Harry doesn’t identify with or completely understand. She has made herself from scratch, whereas Harry cobbled himself together under the influence of many, and the results have left him ragged, more confused than ever. Harry is searching for a way to take who he is now and transform as Iga has done, to embody his own beliefs and live a more balanced, honest life. He’s not the first to look at BDSM as a path to self-discovery and something like spiritual peace.
> 
> Harry has consistently followed male role models. And that’s fucked him up, because he hasn’t picked many good ones, or the ones available to him are problematic (aren’t we all tho?). It’s about time Harry looks to emotionally balanced, brave, confident women—his mother, Minerva, Molly, Akilah, Iga—to attempt modeling himself after their healthier example.
> 
> FUUUUUCK. Next chapter around September 13th-ish.


	21. Refuse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adventures in Italy. Refugees of Death Eater Culture. Lifestyle BDSM. Harry becomes a little less clueless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** noir, sex work, strippers, alcohol, illegal drug use, drug preparation, being triggered, hallucination, mental health issues, LGBT issues, an eating disorder, discussion of M-preg being impossible, discussion of abortion, reflection on failed relationships, personal responsibility, guilt, depression, disassociation, an arrest, crimes against the dead, compersion, polyamory, mamihlapinatapei, lifestyle D/s, Master/slave relationship dynamic, PTSD, emotional outbursts, reactionary object destruction, self-harm, crying, war crimes, blackmail, mob family/organized crime, making people disappear, speculation about murder and disposal of a corpse, mention of pedophilia, gaslighting, testimony regarding **rape and sexual assault of an underage person**

  **DISCLAIMERS & MUSIC**:

The song Harry sings is _The Freshmen_ by The Verve Pipe. Most people know the very popular 1996 version. I was thinking Harry would sound more along the lines of the original, stripped and tuned-down [version released in ’92](https://youtu.be/8GxlC5_VHfk) because I’m fucking old.

 

  

 

 

_Slow crash_

_Stumble over nothing on my own path_

_Runaway, I am just a nomad_

_No one ever wanted me to go back_

_I know I am anything but uncouth_

_People try to change me since my youth_

_But I refuse_

 

 

"[Refuse](https://youtu.be/jemJe5PXTUg)"

Kevin Garrett

 

 

 

 

 

It took less than twenty-four hours for Draco, in the company of Blaise, to find himself in a strip club. 

That morning, they took a leisurely brunch in muggle Genoa, then walked about and did some shopping; to the liquor store since Draco drank Blaise’s flat dry the night before, popping by the magical book shop, then Blaise showed Draco the new coffee table he’d ordered which was due to be delivered next week. It was a subtle way of asking how long Draco planned to stick around. He had no idea. 

There hadn’t been any thinking, any forethought or planning involved. He lost his temper, threatened Harry, and then left. 

He didn’t know precisely what came next. 

They started getting properly drunk over dinner in a cozy restaurant, then meandered their way through half a dozen bars, until Blaise declared he wanted to go see the dancing muggle girls. 

Blaise had a thing for prostitutes. The guy fancied paying for sex; because it made things easier for him, knowing the woman was there for the cash and not angling for some kind of relationship or proximity to his everyday life. Blaise was accustomed to buying—or in this case renting—whatever suited him. 

A talented whore was the opposite of a girlfriend, the opposite of a wife: she was charming until she got what she wanted, then she was gone and you’d never hear from her again if you didn’t look her up. Blaise had been pursued and schemed after long enough that he’d presumably lost his taste for any carnal relationship except a transaction-based one. The exchange of currency gave him a kind of security. Women would be after his wealth so long as he had two galleons to rub together: at least in trade, Blaise and his lady met with their eyes open and their motives on the table, right between the money and the condoms.

Standing in the street outside the club, Blaise stuffed some muggle money papers in Draco’s hands with a hurried explanation of one being lira, which he recognized, and the other something new called a euro. Britain hadn’t succumb to that nonsense but apparently the Italians did, using both currencies until the older was phased out. 

Draco stared at the funny papers in his hand. 

He wasn’t much different from the dancers Blaise fancied—taught to put on a show, to disguise his true thoughts and bury his feelings until he got what he wanted. He’d wanted Harry. He _got_ Harry. It was after the getting, this “staying” bit, that was giving him trouble. He’d never done it before… never wanted to. And he was fucking awful at it. 

Blaise chastised him; getting close to hiss against his temple, the lights from the club shining against his gelled-back hair. 

“Draco. If I hear you say his name _once_ in this club, I swear on my dead father’s dragon heart string Gregorovitch, you’ll be finding somewhere else to kip tonight. Am I clear?” 

“Crystalline,” he snipped back primly. Because he had been talking an awful lot about Harry; complaining, really. Whinging a bit. His husband’s name seemed to come up in every third sentence, his frame of reference to every topic of conversation. 

Something would always remind him of Harry—a story Harry’d told him, something annoying which Harry always did, a joke or a read or remark. He couldn’t help himself. Harry _was_ the last year and a half of his life, his new frame of reference in a world where he wasn’t Lucius Malfoy’s son, wasn’t a Slytherin or a Death Eater, but Draco Potter… Harry Potter’s husband. 

Outside of Harry, he might forget who he was, as Harry had remade his entire world.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

A woman spotted Blaise the moment they set foot in the club. She was clearly one of the managers—busty, artfully-drawn makeup, her body displayed by figure-hugging dress. She might’ve been a former dancer come up to manage the place. She recognized Blaise like a niffler on a sack of galleons and floated their way, plucking two glasses of champagne from the roped-off VIP bar area as she went. 

Draco blinked and she had the glass of bubbly in his hand, kissing Blaise’s cheek warmly. 

They never got to see the dancers on stage. The manager saw them past the roped-off section with a smile, inviting them through a curtain held aside by a mountainous security goon and into a private seating area where the music and lights were toned down—sophisticated, even. Beyond the main stage, it was rather a well-appointed place; padded velvet sofas, plush carpets underfoot, and a seemingly limitless supply of champagne, bottles open and ready in ice buckets on the table. 

Yes, she knew Blaise.

The elegant manager disappeared, leaving the two wizards to get drunk. 

Blaise lifted his eyebrows at Draco. “Yeah?” He meant the club as much as the treatment they received. Blaise had left some of his family’s gold here on more than one occasion—memorable to the manager’s bottom line. 

In keeping with Blaise’s preference towards all things lavish, the golden bottles made available to them on the table were Armand de Brignac. Draco forced his lips together, biting back on a memory. The last time he’d seen that gold-painted bottle had been in Harry’s hands, popping one to celebrate Summerby and Warrington’s wedding in Spain. 

He pushed away the image of his husband’s hands; it wasn’t Harry’s hands that had done him wrong, but lying lips and a reticent heart. 

Looking around to clear his head, Draco had to admit the place was tops. “Yeah,” he replied approvingly, somewhat delayed for his mental gymnastics, then drinking most of his glass so he might not be expected to say more. 

The manager returned at the head of a column of girls in lingerie. And—because she knew Blaise _very_ well—trotted out a rather tall, muscular, black-haired bloke at the end. The fellow had either been coached or simply heard tell of Blaise, knowing enough to turn, showing off a nice plump arse and his full back tattoo. 

Blaise was sold in a heartbeat. He swept up a bucket of champagne for himself, plucked the hand of a brunette-haired girl to kiss, flirting, inviting her off with him… then crooked his finger at the tattooed bloke to join them. 

Draco wasn’t invited, forgotten on the sofa as Blaise disappeared to a private room with his hired harem. 

The manager gestured for Draco, now left alone, to make his selection. 

He let his eyes move down the line. Pretty faces, different shades of lipstick and textures of hair. His review stopped on a pair of dark eyes framed in natural black waves. She held his gaze, her brows lifting. Those dark eyes assessed him in a quick, knowing flicker—well-educated, designer clothes borrowed off Blaise and re-sized with a bit of magic, little option to conceal a weapon, a few drinks in him but not blitzed, probably an introvert but a quick-and-dirty-fuck rather than the hand-holding type. He wasn’t as much of a mark as Blaise, but likely to be a good customer. Those eyes continued, taking a sly preliminary estimate of his prick in cotton trousers. By her lifting expression, she liked her odds. Her mascara-trimmed, deep-set eyes reminded him of a kneazle, detecting much more than she let on, the subtle movement of her long hair as she breathed reminiscent of a cat’s tail swishing back and forth, assessing her prey before she pounced.     

Feeling rather out of practice, Draco let himself nod. She was stunning and he hadn’t gotten below her collar bones. She held out her hand for him—narrow limbs, nails painted, reaching out to him. Who was he to say no? Especially with Blaise’s generous donation burning a hole in his pocket. 

Draco let the beautiful muggle girl tug him off behind a curtain, into her dancing den.

 

 

 

 

Maybe all clubs offered cocaine in their VIP rooms. Maybe it was just the places Blaise frequented. Because this happened in Prague, too. And Graz. And that truly odd night in Aberdeen… what he could remember, anyway. Maybe he and Blaise simply looked like the sort of blokes who fancied doing a line off a bird’s arse. Or maybe that was true of every man who walked into a strip club, the difference being that blokes like himself and Blaise could afford it anytime they pleased. 

He didn’t even have to ask. She produced a little bag of white powder out of somewhere, hopped up on the low table in front of the half-circle-shaped sofa, and offered her bum in his face, jiggling the bag with a smile. 

“Well…” Draco drawled. Blaise had provided him with a Translation Charm since his Italian was bare at best. His voice came out sounding a bit like his friend’s, a blended English-Italian accent which felt only a few degrees off on his tongue. “If you’re offering.” 

She expertly carved out a line for him, following the lacy fabric of her thong down the crack of her bum.

Draco pressed one nostril shut and sniffed. It hit him so fast he held himself off, backing away, having taken about half the hit. His eyes swam a moment, his vision taken over by her deeply tan skin. She might’ve been Turkish or perhaps Sicilian, with a glowy bronze-gold quality to her small body. Crystals in the chandelier overhead sent rainbow sparkles across her mostly naked form as he regained himself, looking at the smoothness of her skin so close to his face. 

The first thought through his head was, _She’s a bit darker than Harry, but not by much._ He about screamed at himself for comparing everyone and everything to his damn lying husband. He re-focused. Her bum in his face was spectacular, but he’d rather run his fingers through her loose black curls. He was a sucker for satin-soft hair between his fingers, and had yet to fall into bed with anyone who disliked having their hair stroked. 

“That’s all?” she teased him. Her voice was a gentle alto, just the right amount of sultry, not speaking too quickly. She wanted to be understood, and she didn’t want him to feel rushed, either. That was perfect.

“I’m… rather out of practice, if you can believe.” That didn’t stop him from snorting the rest up his other nostril, taking the moment to savor his face most of the way up her ass. 

With a pleasant blood-rush sensation throughout his entire body, he had the presence of mind to collect most of the money Blaise gave him, dropping it on the table between her feet. 

“Sit,” she suggested pleasantly, in-control of the course of events, taking his upper arms and guiding him down to the sofa. 

She slithered down to her knees in front of him—lifting one of his legs, putting his foot up on the table, then the other, making sure he was quite comfortable. Reading him perfectly, she untied his shoes and slipped them off, soliciting an unconscious groan of pleasure… his head falling back a moment against the sofa, body slipping down to a slouch. Because it felt so fucking good to be seen to, cared for, even in the little things. To be treated as a man who was important, not just desired. 

She kept one hand on his ankle, massaging, seeing how well he reacted, how much he liked it. Her place on the floor became a suggestion—on her knees, the long oval of her face level with his prick, plainly looking as he began to rise. The tease had started. She took his speed, working her hands up his legs as he drank until his glass was empty. That seemed a good enough cue for her to climb up into his lap, straddling him. And that was… especially welcome: the distinct cushion of a woman’s bum over his thighs. Her petite frame fit with his, at last leaning over him, tits creeping closer to his face as she moved to some music in the background he couldn’t hear.   

She took his hand, twining his fingers with hers, drawing him in to touch her—telling him it was alright to explore now, showing where his hands might go. She twirled her fingers with his, guiding his hot palms up her stomach to land on her tits. That was when she noticed the wedding ring on his finger. 

He’d thought—just once so far—about ripping it off and throwing it into the harbor. He ought to free himself of it. Why carry Harry’s magic around? 

It was his inner masochist, the self-flagellating sentimentalist, who kept wearing it. 

Draco saw where her dark eyes were. “Separated,” he admitted blandly. 

“But you’re so young!” she observed, gentle fingers brushing through his hair; she got to him first, stroking his hair, the heat of her hovering over his growing, soon-to-be-unmistakable erection. It was all part of the tease—her gossamer touches, the strong citrus-floral of her perfume, the promising sun-like warmth of her body, and the way the low light of the chandelier reflected off a shimmery substance rubbed on her skin.

He wondered how muggles got rid of all that shiny skin product without the use of magic… and that thought resulted in an image of this woman in the shower, scrubbing every inch of her sun-tanned, ethnically-hard-to-pin-down body. His prick responded, making him light-headed, pulse thundering in his ears loud enough to drown out the bass in the music. 

She cupped his neck, fingers still playing. She seemed to like his hair—most women did. Men too. His natural color was so rare, others couldn’t help but be intrigued. “I never would’ve guessed.” 

“I’m… older than I look,” he countered. “Good genetics.”

“ _Very_ good,” she agreed, considering his face. With the tips of her manicured nails, she lifted his chin up the way a girlfriend might re-direct her man’s face from her tits to her eyes. The familiarity was lovely. A woman hadn’t touched him like this in… he couldn’t remember off-hand, so it had surely been years. Most of the time it was just a race to get their clothes off and fuck. Sweet touches to his face—appreciation of his beauty, his body—hadn’t been considered, let alone thought necessary. Most of the witches he’d fucked wanted him for his huge prick and his family’s even larger vault at Gringotts, and that was it. Tenderness wasn’t on offer. 

He refused to admit how much he missed women. It seemed… ungrateful? 

Her top came off. Bloody perfection. He wanted to put those pert, dusky nipples in his mouth. And she knew it by the sway of her body, confident, pressing up into his face but _just_ not making contact. 

Watching her dance—hovering over his lap, finally guiding his hands over her naked breasts—reminded him of Harry’s fetish for watching; how Harry would sometimes stand at the foot of their bed and order him to toss off… licking his lips, eyes fixed, hard himself. Those moments were Harry’s. There was a power in watching—to survey as though you owned all you could see: the room, the time, the body before you. 

Fuck Harry Potter. And fuck his domineering streak. Tonight, everything laid out was _his_. 

This young woman was used to Blaise. Draco was generous with the notes on the table—perhaps overly so. She assumed he wanted to be tossed off and was done warming him up, having done so remarkably well. In his lap, her top off, full tits in his face, she went for the buttons on his trousers. Warm hands walked the length of him over the fabric, her eyebrows rising the more she felt—playfulness, then surprise, then outright wonder at a prick that size on a bloke with the body of a teenager. 

Realizing how hung he was, her mouth dropped open, shadowed eyes lighting up. 

He took her hands in his, pulling her away from the shocker in his pants. She sat back, her bum against his thighs, curious what he had to say for himself as he held her supple hands at bay. 

“ _Grazie tante_. I… it’s alright by me if you just dance.” 

She’d seen the money papers on the table. Those eyes which had flipped through him like a picture book had surely taken a rough count of the bills, understanding what was paid for in advance. 

“You’re sure?” she asked warily. Did she not believe her luck? Perhaps other blokes weren’t so generous if they weren’t guaranteed to get wanked in return. She was accustomed to being paid for favors, not for the value of her time. Draco knew that feeling all too well—being seen only for what you could do for others, never having value on your own unless you were somehow being exploited. 

He nodded. “Yes. I’m quite sure.” 

Sweetly, she touched his cheek—again that gesture of turning his face up to hers. “Really?” 

He didn’t care to discuss it any further. She was stunning, and he wanted to, and he certainly might’ve at some other point in his life. But he wouldn’t. He… wasn’t sure whether or not he could—physically, sure, but not intellectually. Because he’d been on the other side of this exchange. He knew what it was like to go along, to have sex when maybe you otherwise might not necessarily have wanted to, reasoning it out in your head. Maybe she needed the money. Maybe she enjoyed her work. It didn’t matter whether she fancied him or not; he would not transact. He wouldn’t. Not after everything he’d gone through. There was no way to assuage his conscience that she was acting completely of her own free will. Even a drop of uncertainty was too much to bear. 

It took having his virginity sold, being trafficked, being tortured and raped, for Draco to grow a conscience. He had one now. Undeniably. He could feel it screaming in his chest, burning like pitch slathered all along his insides. As hard as he was… deep down, he didn’t want this to go any further. 

“Please, do keep the money,” he reassured her plainly. “It’s my pleasure.” 

One hand holding his chin, cuddling close, her other walked over his lower body, exploratory once more; drifting down his stomach, wandering once again to his prick. Of course he was hard. Feeling him, she really smiled. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she was about to kiss him. They shared air, their faces so close. The temptation was surely there.   

She whispered against his mouth. “I want to. I want you.” Breathy. Toying, finding the head of his prick all the way up near his navel and rubbing, rubbing, until he would invariably snap and rip his own pants off. 

She was good at her job, he’d say that much. If he’d signed up to play coy in a game of No Means Talk Me Into It, he’d be inventing a way to get her knickers off right about now. As it was… he genuinely only wanted her to dance. 

A voice in his head screamed, _You’re a fucking idiot, Malfoy!_ That voice sounded like his old so-called mates, Slytherins who’d stood by for years and watched him drown in silence. The Malfoy they’d known was dead—he died that night in Slytherin Commons, next to Harry. He’d been dying by inches for a long time. 

He was never allowed a perceivable code of ethics before. There was no benefit to it, whereas seeming unpredictably violent and ruthless bought security through fear. If he showed a sense of morals, he’d cease to be interesting and become a target instead, his morality becoming a tool by which others could influence him or dictate his path. That was precisely what happened when he took up with Harry. He inherited The Chosen One’s intense moral code along with his surname—and lost the protection of his former cruelty in the process.

 _You don’t have to ‘be good’ for that twat anymore._ Their voices egged him on. _He hurt you—so hurt him back._  

No. That was the kind of emotional, vengeful thinking which got him into every mess he’d ever made. Hurting Harry didn’t matter so much. But Draco _did_ have feelings, _did_ have opinions when it came to this sort of thing. And for the first time in his life he wasn’t under some pig-headed, high-handed fucker’s thousand-kilogram thumb, forced to contort his own behavior based on the approval of the man holding his strings. He could act on what _he_ believed. Draco had never known that power before. It flooded him now, giving him the courage to decline, to speak his mind even with most of the blood in his body still flooding his cock. He didn’t have to listen to _that_ prick, either. 

“Well… I’m flattered.” He looked her steadily in the eye, slowing bringing his arms around her, being sure of the placement of his hands, eventually caging her in as her soft nod said that was exactly what she wanted—his arms around her, pulling her in tight and safe and warm. “But I only want to dance with you,” he declared, picking her up, vaulting to his feet.

A laugh bubbled up—genuine surprise turning to happiness as he held her, swinging about in a circle, her knees yet around him, holding her insignificant weight. She was nothing but laughter and La Perla in his arms. Little did she know he regularly threw a bloke thirty kilos more than her around his bed… and various broom cupboards… and the back seat of a car… and… and…. Gods, the last year-and-a-half, he’d only fucked Harry as that bastard got stronger, then bigger, then taller, then more and more powerful… then he had to go and lie, had to ruin it all. 

Draco wasn’t about to have a retaliatory go with this muggle woman but… hell if he didn’t need the distraction right now. It felt good just to be nice to her. That was new enough to intrigue him more than sex. 

He set her right on her high-heeled shoes, looking into her eyes. “Just dance with me,” he insisted. “ _That_ is what I want.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Draco was released into the general club area—with a pleasant swat to his bum, a wink, and the last of the champagne in his glass. He drained that on his way to the bar, brushing at his still-tingling nose.

Waiting for a pour of whisky, the club’s DJ feathered the lights, flashing strobes across the stage as an introduction to some new girl about to dance on one of the poles. Draco wasn’t looking, dead-set on getting pissed while he waited for Blaise to get off in his three-way. 

The lights went from clear white to bold red and blue. And the music… it had sirens. Now he knew muggle sirens. They sounded like one of the worst nights of his life. Sirens meant pulling a trigger. Sirens meant Harry fighting for both their lives. Nothing good came of that sound in his ears. They were sirens, and with that wail his mind added the rip of gunshots, spells and shouting, breaking glass, dying screams. 

Draco abandoned his quest to get pissed—dropping a few lira on the bar and heading for the exit as fast as he could without calling attention. He still felt eyes on his back as he pushed through the door to the blessed cool outside.

 

 

 

 

He put a hand to the alley wall, relieving himself in one of the myriad ancient stone alcoves. 

Strong scents reached him on the night breeze—fried seafood from nearby late-night restaurants and their inevitable rubbish awaiting pick-up in the alley, the stripper’s perfume still on his skin, and the warm, salty smack of the harbor in the distance. He heard the occasional low burst from a ship’s horn as it entered or left for the sea. Each sound echoed, thousands of narrow winding alleys and cobbled roads to bounce off of before reaching his ears. If it weren’t for the occasional taxi or gaggle of drunk people on the street, he might be able to hear the waves. 

Chilled salt air was precisely what he needed to get his head back on. He needed a moment before the remnants of his erection would cooperate, allowing him to have a slash. Finished, he buttoned his fly.

 

_There was blood on his hands._

 

He blinked. 

No, his clothes were clean. If his hands were bloodied, he’d have red fingerprints to show for it, staining his pale trousers and linen shirt he’d borrowed off of Blaise. He wasn’t smeared in anything at all, let alone blood. 

Draco stared at his hands, at twisted and scarred fingers he’d come to know against his husband’s skin. It took a while but he at last knew these hands again. 

They were covered in blood. It _looked_ real, anyway. Under a streetlight, he examined his hands assiduously. He stared at his fingers, at the blood which his eyes and his mind insisted was there—thick, about to drip there was so much of it. 

Drugs? Magic? Sadly the most logical explanation was that he was hallucinating. And when hallucination was your top pick…. 

“You alright?” asked a strange voice—some local bloke walking by had noticed Draco staring at his hands in the middle of the sidewalk, transfixed and fascinated, horrified, attempting to make sense of what only he could see. He surely must’ve looked crazy. Or intolerably drunk and contemplating vomiting into his hands. Draco was a long way from throwing up. He rarely lost the contents of his stomach from drinking; it was frights which made him vomit… and memories he’d rather forget. 

He knew he didn’t look sane. That said, he couldn’t stop himself from staring. He touched his palm… sticky, bloody, as though he’d fallen in a puddle where someone had their head cut off. And he knew first-hand how much blood that was. Headless corpses didn’t spray like a geyser; instead it burbled like a creek, quiet and deceptively deep, relentless, until the body was mostly drained. So many critical arteries in the neck, severed. 

Who had he drained of their life, their magical blood on his hands? Voldemort? His father? Aunt Bella? Theo Knott Sr? Harry? Himself? He didn’t know whose blood was on his hands now. It might as well have been his own. He had blood on his hands just like Harry every time his husband saved their lives. 

“Too much?” the stranger asked, speaking Italian. “Or not enough?” 

The bloke shuffled closer. Either he was legitimately worried, or he was a dealer looking to make a late-night sale to someone who was obviously tripping off their arse and had no right business procuring more blow. 

Who approached a mad bloke in the street near two in the morning? 

Draco blinked again, rapidly, attempting to pull his attention from his own hands. Looking at the stranger’s hands instead showed him the last thing he wanted to see: a wand, drawn and rising… soon enough it would be pointed at him. 

If this strange wizard wasn’t careful, the blood on Draco’s hands might become real. In a way, it already was. 

The sorcerer’s light around his fingers had always been an embarrassingly girlish pink color. Try as he might, pink was all he could produce. He hated it. And as though at long last clued in to his distaste, his sorcerer’s abilities appeared to have mutated. Or maybe it was the cocaine? Because his hands weren’t glowing pink but rather red as blood, not light but liquid orbiting his hands in wet gooey tendrils which defied gravity. 

Draco found his voice, sounding like a gravel pit. “Best move along. Before someone gets hurt.” 

The stranger’s eyes were on Draco’s hands now, too. He couldn’t look away either, something like fright on his face. Since there was no such thing as a shared hallucination…. 

“Fuck off,” Draco advised the random wizard, raising his hands; his blood-covered hand as a weapon, as though he were pointing another one of Harry’s guns. Some magic Harry had left behind. “Unless you fancy we find out what this does? I don’t reckon it’s friendly.” 

As though on cue, the twirls of gore around his hand reached full saturation and began to drip. Multiple drops of very real blood hit the paving stones. The stranger saw them—a swift flicker, more startled than ever. Then he stowed his wand up his sleeve, raised his own hands to show his empty palms, and began walking backwards, walking away. 

“Good choice, mate.” Draco called after him, flippant now the danger had passed. 

As the wizard disappeared around the corner, Draco let himself lean against the nearest wall, getting his breath back. The second he did so, his magic released—and a torrent of blood hit his shoes. He felt about to faint. It had been his blood all along. 

It was real then. He hadn’t imagined it… or perhaps he _had_ imagined it into existence. Without a wand, his sorcerer’s magic was all he had to defend himself. And that magic was written into his blood.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry woke in the middle of the night. There was a light on in the studio flat—he could see it from behind his eyelids, a warm reddish color suffusing his vision. 

He cracked one eye open to find Dima sitting cross-leg on a bench dragged over from beneath the window, his sketch pad over his knee. Dima held a charcoal pencil… studying him. _Them_ , he realized. Harry’s head was on Nebojsa’s chest, the man’s hand in his hair, comforting him after he cried himself to sleep again. Holding him. It was more sentiment than Harry was used to but… that didn’t mean he didn’t want it, only that he didn’t know how to ask for it without crossing some line which had been drilled into him. Admitting your weaknesses opened you up. Letting people in gave them the ammo they needed to destroy you. 

He had to keep doing it. However he could, he had to try, and to accept this kindness when it was on offer. He only became the way he was now because he refused to ask for help, because he refused to see when he was weak and let others lift him back up. He couldn’t do it all on his own. That brand of thinking would only kill him all over again. 

“Sorry,” Dmitry whispered. “I know yoo’re mizerable right now. But… yoo both looked zo beautiful.” 

Dima lifted the pad, offering to show his work to Harry. 

He was sure it was stunning, like everything Dima touched. But at that moment he didn’t want to look at himself, even rendered by Dmitry’s expert hand. 

“S’okay,” Harry sniffed, shaking his head. 

He closed his eyes again, burrowing down until it felt like he could hide beneath the sheet, feeling Nebojsa’s sleeping breath over the top of his head. 

This was different than when they’d been prisoners of the Death Eaters. Nebojsa was himself, not encased in Pavel Gregorovitch’s body. And Harry wasn’t his wife. If felt strange on some level, to be this comfortable with the love of someone else’s life. In his mind, this kind of closeness was sexual. Probably because he’d never experienced this with anyone besides Draco… and a few all too brief times with Sirius. A hug which felt like home. 

It was okay to show emotion. It was okay to be upset, to cry, to comfort each other. No line was being crossed. Dmitry didn’t seem jealous or freaked out at all. He was sitting there, sketching them intently. Dima of all people could recognize beauty in suffering: that was how he made it through the misery of his own life, why he made art in the first place. 

Harry had to remind himself this was okay. He wasn’t cheating on Draco. Receiving physical affection was a good thing. Being comforted was good, too. If he had a mum or a sister, this was exactly what she’d be doing, and it wouldn’t be strange or weird at all. His queer little family just looked different than other people’s.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

A knock on Harry’s office door pulled his attention away from his computer screen where he’d been revising his calendar for the week. It was his first morning back in the office from holiday, and already his plans had been juggled with. 

“Come in,” he called without glancing up, fingers on the keyboard, firing off an email. He trusted Valya wouldn’t have let just anyone through his door—not unless it was important. Harry sometimes took longer than others to get organized and acclimate to changes in his schedule: Val understood that and always provided him with ample time to adjust himself before he was expected to deal civilly with other people. Surprising Harry too much was a bad idea. 

Nebojsa walked in, closing the door behind him. He wore his street clothes. Like Harry, he preferred to dress more conservatively and professionally while in the office—narrow-leg wool trousers, a dark dress shirt and knit tie, topped by a cardigan with leather patches on the elbows. The conservative look covered most of his tattoos, and the only piercing he hadn’t removed was the silver stud through his nostril. Sia used his muffled elbow to close the door, his attention fixed on Harry. 

That look in his eyes… Harry froze like a rabbit. Nebojsa was mad at him—and he had no idea what-for. 

“You have a concussion,” his partner accused flatly in Serbian. 

Harry deferred, resisting the urge to shrug or look away. “Supposedly.”   

It was dumb—he’d hit his head after the second Death Eater attack. He slipped in some gore and bumped his temple on a cabinet in the Harpers’ kitchen. He saw double for approximately three seconds, then the world snapped back to normal. He barely even had a bruise. The overly-cautious Field Officer who’d taken his statement must’ve put it in their report, because Harry had been moved to administrative duty the next few days—mandatory procedure after an officer suffered a head injury. 

Nebojsa noticed because as Harry’s partner he got flipped to admin, too. Harry had seen the flag on both their calendars, preventing their being assigned any active roles until the necessary number of days passed and the injury protocol was lifted. That was one of the reasons his schedule had changed. 

Harry never had that grace in the war. He could be attacked again and again without a second to catch his breath. He was used to it in a sick way. Jumping back into the field felt normal: holding himself back to rest was unfamiliar. He’d have to re-teach his instincts, and the department’s injury protocol was there to help him do precisely that. Part of a Hit Wizard’s oath of duty was to protect yourself and your team first, because you couldn’t help anyone else if you were dead. It was Harry’s duty, now, to hold himself back after everything that had happened, to give himself time to heal and assess. It felt so long in the past, but his double skirmishes with the Death Eaters had only been Thursday night, four days ago. Draco had only been gone for three days. 

Nebojsa must’ve gotten hold of the American report and read about Harry’s minor injury. Harry had skimmed it, one of many reports in his morning messages. 

They were incredibly lucky that night: no one on the defending side had died, and those injured were expected to make full recoveries. The Death Eaters captured by the Americans were in the middle of negotiating deals for reduced sentencing—something which, had they been arrested in the UK, wouldn’t have been on the table. More supporters of the Death Eater cause were willing to join the attack _because_ it was staged in America, and the consequences for anyone caught would be more lenient. Harry hoped the American officials would be able to draw out valuable information without sacrificing too much and leaving the guilty unpunished. 

He knew too much about letting criminals skate by without punishment. He had an email from Robards on the Umbridge case, as well as a meeting of Kingsley’s Ethics Council… but that meeting Harry called himself. He didn’t have a lot of time. 

“When were you going to tell me?” Nebojsa demanded through a visibly tight jaw—upset that Harry hadn’t told him about hitting his head… thinking that Harry had lied by omission, hadn’t trusted him with important information. 

The hurt in his partner’s voice sounded enough like Draco that for a second, Harry’s heart stopped, jumping up to clog his throat. Harry choked up at the realization that he’d lied to yet another person he loved. His omissions and false truths were stacking up faster than he could account for them. He lied so much more than he realized, and nearly every lie hurt someone. This lie said to Nebojsa, _I don’t trust you. I’d rather keep you in the dark and put you at risk than tell you when I’m hurt so you can help me._  

Nebojsa seemed to know what Harry was feeling, his face softening in response to the guilt written on Harry’s face. Sia visibly unhooked his jaw, moving it around, loosening the muscles of his face before he tried again. “You drank alcohol on Saturday. And yesterday. It’s not good to drink with a concussion.” 

“I know,” Harry shrugged, dismissive. “It’s not… this is getting blown out of proportion. I just bumped my head is all. It’s not a concussion. I would know—I’ve had plenty.” He’d been hit in the head quite a bit over the years, some much worse than that little bonk he took at the Harpers. Beater’s bats to the head, falling off his broomstick, and fist fights with blokes twice his size. Harry knew what a concussion felt like: constant drowsiness, short-tempered, nauseous, sensitive to light and sound. He didn’t have any of that. He’d gone to a concert over the weekend without any problems, was looking at his computer screen just now without getting a headache, and hadn’t lost his temper at all. He was just emotional, crying all the time and making little mistakes because… Draco. 

That’s why Nebojsa was here. 

“Yoo have a concussion, Harry,” he repeated resolutely, in English this time. “Rather a nasty vone.” 

Because that was the story they were gonna tell if Harry needed to duck off for a crying fit; if he didn’t behave normally in meetings; if anyone said he seemed ‘off.’ Saying he had a concussion was preferable to letting the truth get out—that Draco had left him and The Boy Who Lived was a blubbering, shuddering, broken-hearted mess. Better to say he’d been hit in the head. Better people believed he was running to the toilets to vomit, Nebojsa following to check on him, than to know he was bawling his eyes out, held up by his best mate’s arms. 

The fact that his husband left him was private. As much as Nebojsa didn’t want to lie, he was willing to do so to protect Harry. And Draco, too. If it became public knowledge that Harry and Draco were on-the-outs, or if that news reached any of the dozens of Death Eater factions, it would put Draco in immediate danger. They had to conceal Draco’s whereabouts for as long as possible—until Harry came up with a better plan, or until Draco came back. 

“ _Da_ ,” Harry agreed slowly, cottoning on. “Sure. Concussion. Let’s go with that.” 

“ _Dobro_ ,” Nebojsa concurred—his best friend, ready to lie for him. 

Regardless, beer and wine would be taken out of Harry’s reach for the remainder of the week. It went unspoken. Nebojsa wouldn’t let a rumor get ‘round that injured Harry wasn’t taking proper care of himself. And honestly, he was probably better off sober than risk falling into liquor to numb his broken heart.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry’s office had another visitor that morning. A familiar slick black pompadour and long Portuguese features poked through the open door. 

Harry took a deep breath. He hadn’t seen Jai Cardoso since Friday—the day Draco walked out of his life. Since Jai was part of the team tailing Draco, Harry needed another calming breath before he could invite the fellow in without sounding as panicked as he felt. The fact that Jai came to speak to him in person rather than make a phone call or send an owl put Harry’s nerves on-edge. 

Jai closed the door behind him so no one would overhear Harry’s private business. His English was loads better after just a few weeks working in North America. "I was watching your husband Saturday night. I... I think he was drunk—" 

Harry interjected. "I don't need to hear that." 

Jai sighed—partly at Harry interrupting him, but mostly because he understood that Harry didn’t want to insert himself into Draco’s life any more than necessary, and the fact that Draco had been drinking didn’t strike Harry as relevant. Jai conceded, "Fine. He was leaving a bar unsteady on his feet. That much is fact. He went into an alley and I followed—to keep him in my sights, to monitor should he stumble, hurt himself, or pass out. I saw he was very drunk and didn’t think he’d be aware-enough to notice me. But he spotted me just the same. When he saw me...." 

That striking pause from Jai made the hair on the back of Harry’s neck stand up. "What?" 

Jai looked tense. "Your... sorcerer's abilities.” He wiggled his fingers like he was controlling a marionette-style puppet. He meant the blue lightning around Harry’s hands which he’d witnessed a few times in training. “Draco has it too?" 

Harry nodded. 

"Well, he was going to use it. He saw my wand but didn't draw his own. Sorcery was his go-to self-defence so… I gather his ability must be strong?" 

 _Stronger than yours_ , was implied. Even Harry still carried a wand, though Jai knew Harry didn’t always need it. No one on the Field Ops team he’d hired knew that Draco was unarmed. That information Harry kept entirely to himself, though by now Blaise probably realized. How long until Blaise got Draco a spare or replacement? Should Harry bother offering to send Draco’s wand? He still had more questions than clear answers. There was no handbook on what to do when your sorcerer husband went manic and left you. Harry was winging it, trying to do the best he could, following advice from Dr. Beasley and the Harpers, and his mates, too. 

Harry had to wonder about Draco displaying his powers to another wizard—granted, he’d revealed his sorcery to a Field Operative tailing him in disguise for his own safety. It could’ve been far worse, especially considering he was plastered at the time. 

Draco’s judgment wasn’t top-notch after he’d had a few. That was how he and Harry ended up snogging on a muggle dance-floor before they were together. Harry still didn’t remember it himself, but had some steamy pieces from Draco’s memories… and wank fantasies. Apparently Harry wasn’t half-bad, even when he was black-out drunk. Or maybe Draco only reveled in it so much at the time because he knew Harry wouldn’t remember, and Draco’s mutual attraction could remain a secret a while longer. It was one of the few times Draco had succeeded in playing Harry, getting what he wanted without those pesky consequences Harry was always hounding him about. 

Drunk, Draco was extremely horny but mostly harmless… until he gained consent from a willing partner, anyway. Then he unleashed. Draco’s drunken choices didn’t bother Harry. It was what Draco might be forced or coerced into when he was sober and scared that worried Harry. Manic-paranoid and under duress was the only way Draco might be a danger to others. So long as Draco was buzzed enough to be stumbling out of a bar, he was unlikely to suffer another psychotic break. Alcohol kept him down, closer to earth. Harry suspected that was a large part of why his husband drank so much—a readily available method of regulating his manic-leaning brain.

Draco's blood sorcery was healing. Why had he exposed it? Was he hurt? He wouldn't be able to use his soft light to defend himself. Then again, Jai wouldn’t know that—none but their closest friends knew what Draco’s power did. He didn’t like using it in front of other people—due to his naturally secretive nature together with his pride. It embarrassed Draco that the magic coming out of his hands was distinctly pink in color. The color wasn’t precisely intimidating, but that didn’t matter much with magic. Power was power, and even something pink could kill you. 

Draco could’ve been using it as a threat regardless of its actual effects. Most wizards weren’t used to seeing wandless magic manifested like that. It was enough to frighten off a stranger, a potential attacker. As a Slytherin, Draco used fear and uncertainty to defend himself. 

Harry didn't want Jai or anyone else knowing that Draco didn't have a wand... though maybe it was time Harry sent his letter, offering among other things to send on Draco's wand. Or maybe Draco didn't need it anymore? Maybe, as with Harry and Nebojsa, Draco's abilities had progressed over time and proximity. 

“So it was a false alarm?” Harry sought clarification. 

Jai raised his eyebrows. “Yeah. He was, uh….” And the Brazilian got shy for some reason. Harry could feel it more than see it on his face. He paused to pick out his words in English. “He was having a piss in the alley, and I startled him. No harm done. I think he frightened _me_ more than I did him. And he still has no idea he’s being watched. I just thought you’d want to know.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Dmitry snuck out of the office for half an hour, going down the street to a bakery they all visited sometimes. The shop was only open until noon, so every day at eleven their breakfast foods went on sale—buy one, get one free—to clear out inventory for the following day. 

Dima returned, his arms loaded up with scones and muffins, a couple of fried egg and sausage sandwiches, and a big box of doughnuts… one of which he left on Valya’s desk for her, a small gift for having to put up with Harry Potter for a boss. 

Dima distributed treats amongst the Hits and office staff, refusing when anyone attempted to pay him back for the snack. He’d gone first and foremost because _he_ was hungry. Bringing food back was just who he was, otherwise it’d have gone to waste. There was a time in Dima’s not-so-distant past when he and his family had come close to starving. So giving away food reinforced a mentality of abundance; a reminder that he was okay, that he had so much he could give some of it away. 

Dmitry could be selfish at times… but not always. He could be sweet, too, and considerate, just like Misha and Nebojsa. Today he was in a good mood.   

Dima, Nebojsa, Ron, and Harry stood around the prince’s desk, eating his bounty of breakfast goodies. 

Deputy Director Franklin Cornfoot happened to walk by. Rather than ignore them—plenty of other people were eating at their desks, too—Cornfoot decided he needed to say something to their little group in particular. They weren’t even in uniform, all four of them on administrative duty, nor were they being in any way rude or disruptive. 

Harry always told himself a grim little fairytale that Cornfoot was cursed with a splintery board as old as he was nailed to his spine and hidden under his robe; that constant pain combined with frustration at his inability to end the curse after eighty years was why Franklin Cornfoot was so bloody foul to everyone. Imagining a compelling reason behind the behavior made it easier for Harry not to lose his cool whenever he had to be around the prickly bastard. 

Cornfoot stopped at Dima’s desk and snipped, “Skipped breakfast, did you, Potter?” 

Of course Cornfoot went right for Harry. Nebojsa and Ron he considered insignificant, while Dima was obscenely rich and titled so Cornfoot wouldn’t pick on him. 

Harry finished chewing and swallowed with an exaggerated sluggishness, holding eyes with Cornfoot the entire time—wasting the man’s time, taking ownership of it for himself and then throwing it away like rubbish. Harry was even a few inches taller, managing to look down his nose—wishing he’d worn his glasses to add to the effect. Assuming he was working that morning, he’d put on contacts. 

“Second breakfast, sir,” he informed the stuffy deputy, lifting his eyebrows. “Bet you didn’t know I’m actually a hobbit.” 

That was a lie. This was technically his _third_ breakfast. He’d made omelettes and toast with Misha that morning. Then there’d been a catered meeting somewhere in the office, and the admins put the leftovers in the break room for everyone. Harry’d helped himself to some fruit and an overlarge buttery croissant when he made his morning cuppa. Having been starved as a kid, it was impossible for him to pass on free food when it was offered. His instincts still told him to eat as much as he could because there was no telling what might happen later, when he might see his next meal. He ate as much as he wanted and it never seemed to negatively effect his trim, athletic body. Then again, he’d always had a bottomless pit where his stomach ought to be. He learned that when he went off to Hogwarts, the first time he could eat as much as he wanted without being scolded for it. 

Ron and Dima chortled at his hobbit joke. They’d both been given copies of the _Lord of The Rings_ books by Hermione. And they both knew first-hand just how many meals Harry would eat in a day when left to his own devices. Double breakfast was standard. And Harry was hairy enough to be a hobbit, though he’d grown too tall. It would’ve been funnier a year ago, when he was still short. 

Cornfoot glared at Harry, not getting the joke, realizing Harry had made some kind of reference outside his purview. Mostly, it bothered the elderly wizard that his criticism just bounced off of Harry like a bird ricocheting off a closed window. 

Cornfoot didn’t get to make comments about people’s eating habits; it wasn’t appropriate. Harry wasn’t about to let anyone make him feel bad about himself, even if that person outranked him. It had taken Harry the better part seven years to learn how to keep his cool when an authority figure teased him—in a way, he had Severus Snape to thank for all that practice. Harry would rather not be ragged on in the first place… especially by someone who ought to know better in the first place. 

The Deputy Director blustered, couldn’t think of a rejoinder, and left in a rush. 

Unperturbed, Harry returned to his egg sandwich. No matter what, he could always eat. It served as an affirmation that he was still very much alive. 

They pulled up chairs and sat around Dima’s desk. 

Nebojsa was looking thoughtfully between Harry and Dima as they both returned to their food—voracious beasts, the two of them. Harry raised his eyebrow, asking to know what Sia was thinking about that put so many wrinkles in his otherwise smooth forehead. 

Sia answered without speaking. _You eat as much as my boys._  

Harry thought it was cute when Sia referred to the brothers like a proud mum talking about her kids. Nebojsa was definitely the voice of reason, the motherly energy and ultimate authority of their family. Dima liked the idea of being the boss, but only when it suited him. Being a big brother was all the authority he could handle. When the chips were down, he still deferred to Nebojsa. And Harry, too.

If Sia was the mum of their family, that meant Harry was the de-facto dad. He was a lousy father; absent too often, emotionally closed-off, deceitful, and an all-around dreadful role-model. Maybe Dima behaved like a bad kid sometimes _because_ of Harry’s influence, acting out to get Harry’s attention.  

Harry kept chewing, answering with a brief and slightly defencive, _So?_ _I’m hungry._  

Sia’s eyes widened, surprised that Harry didn’t immediately comprehend what he was getting at. His blue eyes shifted side-to-side, taking rapid note of who else was nearby. Even though he wasn’t about to say anything out loud, he still had that compulsion to check who might overhear. 

 _Harry… they’re_ _not human_ _. They’re hybrids._  

Right. Dima and Misha weren’t just bigger than him in the context of pure muscle mass—they had the curse of the two ton flying animals bonded to their souls against their will as pubescent boys. Harry had no such excuse. He wasn’t eating for a magical horse’s stomach, but for himself alone. Yet he went meal-for-meal with the Ionescue brothers for the last six months. They met in the kitchen at odd hours, looking for food. They went on random adventures in search of something to eat. Sia and Draco would go off and do other things while Harry and the brothers were busy stuffing their insatiable faces. 

If Harry’s consumption was at times excessive, then… Draco and Nebojsa under-consumed, their extremism going in the opposite direction. 

Nebojsa fasted sometimes, not taking in anything but water and a vitamin tablet as a part of his religious observance. Misha and Dima didn’t fast like other orthodox people—Harry asked once, and Misha explained that as human body builders if they suddenly stopped eating their blood glucose levels would plummet, they’d turn unbearably cranky, and lose muscle mass. Fasting also weakened their animal form, reducing their magic as well as upsetting the creatures with scarcity; so even after the war, they remained paranoid about being able to defend themselves at any given moment, and they didn’t want to rile the horses unnecessarily. Personal safety was more important than religious observance. Also, Dima turned into a whiny, miserable baby if you didn’t feed him every couple hours… or so Harry was told. Dima always had something nearby to snack on; even during the war, Harry had never been around him when food was scarce. 

Nebojsa was the only one amongst them who fasted on purpose. He did it as a gesture of his faith, but also under Misha’s supervision as a way to boost his damaged metabolism after a year starving in prison. Through strategic fasting, he and Misha could trick his damaged body into restoring his ability to burn calories, improving his energy levels enough that he could start exercising again and eventually gain back the strength he’d lost. It was a counter-intuitive method but Misha knew the science across the five languages he spoke, and the proof was evident in Nebojsa’s body. He was still a slender bloke, but he was nearly back to normal where stamina and strength were concerned. When he and Harry dueled, they were evenly matched; Sia didn’t lose his breath these days. 

Meanwhile Draco often forgot to eat. It was as though he didn’t feel hungry at all. He might have half a sleeve of Jaffa cakes and a bottle of wine while playing Final Fantasy, then forget to eat for the next twenty-four hours… or longer. When Harry inquired, Draco never said he was hungry. He’d eat if they all went out, or if Harry brought home sweets, but Draco rarely claimed he was hungry anymore, and seemed to eat more out of boredom or for the sake of socializing than any real hunger. 

Draco could at times be picky about certain flavors and textures of food, and of course the quality of the grub, but he had a good appetite back in their school-days. That went away the night Harry died. Ever since, Draco barely ate. Was that depression? Grieving the death of his father at his own hands? Or, as Sia seemed to be suggesting, was there a magical component to Draco’s abrupt lack of appetite the same way Harry’s metabolism and desire for food went through the fucking roof after he returned from death? 

Harry put his sandwich down. He was still hungry, but he wanted to think more than he wanted to eat. _Do you suppose my eating has something to do with_ _the destruction of_ _Voldemort’s horcrux, then? Because I’ve always been able to eat enough to feed a family of four. That’s not new._  

After seven years of boarding school, Ron and Dima were used to Harry and Sia’s mutual penchant for long brooding silences. The more extroverted pair were energetically discussing the upcoming match of Cork vs. the Falmouth Falcons, letting Harry and Sia have their internal conversation which had replaced the old pensive silence. 

Once or twice Dima glanced at his boyfriend, almost like he was catching pieces of their discussion—or maybe he was just curious what they were thinking about—but he’d shrug it off and go back to chatting with Ron, always vigilant not to seem overly concerned with Nebojsa whilst in public. 

 _Not the destruction of Voldemort’s horcrux but… perhaps the creation of yours._ Sia’s eyes turned far away, not seeing the world around him as he dug back into memories he’d rather forget about. _I heard that Voldemort could eat massive quantities of food and never show it. He told his followers that his insatiable greed—for sustenance as well as for killing—was a sign of powerful dark magic, a way to maintain a higher-functioning system._  

Of course Voldemort would’ve thought that killing people made him more powerful. He probably enjoyed it; whereas every time Harry thought about the people whose lives he’d taken, he wanted to crawl under his desk, hide his face inside his shirt so no one would see him cry, and then ring Dr. Beasley for an appointment. That would always be the difference between them. Harry killed people only when he thought he had to, to survive; like a mouse gnawing off its own tail to escape a trap, he would splinter his soul if it meant he got out alive. Voldemort did it because he enjoyed it, because it made him feel powerful. 

Harry found a muggle analogy. _He believed he needed to eat l_ _ike a power plant taking in_ _extra_ _fuel_ _to produce_ _more_ _electricity, meeting demand to avoid rolling blackouts._ _When Voldemort_ _first_ _came back—before he fully restored his body—he drank unicorn blood to sustain himself. That fits into the theory that consumption is related to maintaining dark powers. So m_ _aybe, just like Dima and Misha, I need more food than a regular person in order to fuel my magic inherited against my will from Voldemort._

There was, of course, a flaw in the logic. Harry pointed it out. _But if that’s true, why doesn’t Draco have the same bottomless stomach as me_ _and the brothers_ _? By Se Impetro Munus,_ _Draco i_ _s just as powerful as I am, but he’s rarely hungry anymore._  

Sia sipped his cup of black tea, thinking through the larger ramifications of Harry’s question. Conversing in their heads was amazing because it allowed Harry to eat and share ideas at the same time without disgusting anyone by accidentally talking with his mouth full. He chewed and listened intently to Sia. 

 _Voldemort’s horcrux,_ _a_ _piece of his soul, lived dormant inside of you, slowly leaching aptitude over time. With that dark power came your hunger, driving you to sustain the growth of your magic the same way a flower_ _instinctively_ _turns its face towards the sun to soak_ _up light_ _to convert to energy._ _The sun is not harmed, and the flower benefits._ _Your magic wanted to survive, to grow, in order to protect his horcrux inside you. Eventually your magic surpassed that of the horcrux, allowing you to create one of your own and escape your body when the time came._

 _What happened to Draco is very different. The piece of your soul alive inside him was able to_ _utilize_ _that_ _shared_ _magic in a way Voldemort’s never could while in you. His horcrux inside you was a bomb absent a detonator. When your horcrux entered Draco, he found the switch and flipped it._  

It was a really good thing Harry could eat his way through anything. If Ron could hear what Nebojsa was suggesting, he’d be dropping his food and running to another room. Most witches and wizards regarded this sort of thing as being in the field of Necromancy and therefore strictly beyond the pale—never to be mentioned, let alone dissected as Harry and Sia were doing now over third breakfast. 

Dima might’ve listened to them if he could, but only because of his obsession with creepy shit. Maybe dark things helped him feel better, like he wasn’t so messed up after all.

Nebojsa worked through what they knew, adding his own suppositions to the facts. _Dark magic takes from the world, promoting fear, interested only in sustaining itself—gluttony, consumption, hedonism, cold-heartedness._ _Good_ _magic gives back to the universe—temperance,_ _patience,_ _love_ _for others_ _. Killing someone is a horrifying thing. It forever alters your soul in ways we still don’t understand. It is_ _destruction and dark magic_ _when we take a life, even for a noble cause. You were drenched in dark magic the night you died. Draco countered that magic with light, with love, the same way you were able to escape_ _death_ _by sacrificing_ _your body and a part of your soul—_ _to protect Draco_ _,_ _magic_ _done_ _out of love. I think that was how he brought you back, too._

 _I’m beginning to think that Voldemort’s practice of horcrux magic was flawed—or at least incomplete. He was missing some critical component, something you and Draco had which he lacked. He could pour unlimited fuel on the fire but it never did what he wanted it to. He took. He hurt. He never loved, never gave of himself, never sacrificed—always asking others to sacrifice on his behalf._ _So perhaps the magic in you requires fuel_ _and constant feeding_ _the same way the magic in Draco craves restraint._ _Opposites which, in_ _balance_ _,_ _yield_ _greater power_ _by completing a circuit_ _._  

The words ‘Draco Malfoy’ and ‘restraint’ had probably never been uttered in the same sentence before. Except, maybe, when detailing Draco’s sexual proclivities, and then he was tying _other_ people up, not holding himself back from what he wanted. Draco was not exactly the poster child for temperance which Nebojsa’s theory required of him. Because Draco too much loved his  freedom. He loved the feeling of being able to choose, to do what he wanted or to change his mind at the last bloody second. Freedom made him horny as much as it made him feel powerful and brimming with life. 

Draco’s freedom meant so much to him because of the awful way he was raised—isolated, groomed, abused and brainwashed into wanting to be like his father. The fact that Draco was willing to hand over his freedom to Harry was astounding. It took so much trust for him to ask Harry to tie him up, to hold him down or hit him. Draco had never enjoyed bottoming before, never felt submissive. But with Harry, he found the side of himself that could give in. Maybe that was the temperance in Draco. It wasn’t something anyone but Harry would ever see, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there, a part of the man Draco chose to become. 

 _Maybe,_ Harry pondered, _when someone_ _become_ _s the vessel of a horcrux, it matters whether or not they’re willing to do it in the first place._ _Consent._ _Nagini had strong prophetic powers and grew unreasonably large because she liked Voldemort and wanted to be his vessel, so the magic was able to act on her more-so than it could_ _effect_ _me against my will._ _I think that_ _Draco was able to defend himself_ _, able to_ _kill people_ _,_ _because he was willing to be my vessel, too. He was ready to let my soul take_ _over_ _and control him. He trusted me. So what if he doesn’t need any kind of physical fuel to maintain his power because it feeds on his_ _feelings_ _for me?_  

Which opened a very scary avenue of thought. 

 _Do you think… if Draco didn’t love me anymore… he might lose his powers? Or something else bad could happen to him?_ Harry was thinking specifically of the time his own blue light nearly took Nebojsa’s life. He was used to their powers being a good thing. His abilities made him stronger. Draco’s power healed. But Nebojsa’s was lethal. Harry had to remember that. It was possible for their abilities to do harm as well as good. _C_ _ould Draco’s healing power turn_ _on him_ _? Or_ _—like when Dima and Misha stop eating—_ _would it_ _be possible for Draco’s power to act up, to_ _hurt him for taking away its fuel?_  

Nebojsa let a fraction of his nerves show on his face. He didn’t want Draco’s magic to turn, to cause him pain. And he didn’t know for sure that it wouldn’t. The only option was to wait and see. 

 _I_ _hope not._ _Magic which is based on our emotions is… that much harder to predict. I don’t know._ _I don’t think anyone really knows. Voldemort wasn’t precisely in-touch with his feelings._

To say the least! Harry had to find a positive note. _Jai_ _Cardoso_ _came to see me this morning._ _I hired his team to keep an eye on Draco._ _He said he saw Draco use his power over the weekend. He wasn’t hurt or anything,_ Harry reassured. _Just startled. Draco saw Jai’s wand and thought to use his sorcerer’s light to get him to bugger off. So Draco still has his powers. They’re not gone. Which maybe means he… still loves me?_  

Nebojsa actually nodded. He realized he was nodding at nothing and promptly put a piece of scone in his mouth, chewing. _I’m sure he does, Harry._

Because, if Draco didn’t love him anymore… maybe he’d stop being a sorcerer? Or worse. Draco’s power could strangle him—kill him—the way Harry’s nearly did Nebojsa in. 

That was the very last thing he ever wanted. Harry would take the power back into himself and let it kill him instead before he would let that magic harm Draco.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry got a worrisome tightening in his chest when he saw Nebojsa sneak a couple of aspirin from a bottle in his desk around mid-day. 

He'd never seen Nebojsa take muggle medicine before; for having grown up muggle, he'd evolved into the sort of wizard who'd pour a potion into a hot cup of tea and drink that over taking a pill. Magic had a way of taking over your muggle habits one at a time. More often than not, the magic way was simply more effective.  

Within a few hours, Nebojsa was obviously sick and no longer able to hide it. He looked ill; not that he could get any paler, but he kept closing his eyes and holding his head sitting at his desk, and when he got up to use the loo he walked slowly, like he was in pain. 

Harry and Dima made eye contact. He knew Dmitry was thinking of the war, of Sia puking his guts out and nearly dying a hundred times more than Harry was ever privy to. It was hard to forget. It was only a few months ago. Harry himself had memories of Nebojsa in a torture cell, covered in his own blood, his heart stopping dead. 

Harry knew he needn't lose his shit at seeing his friend take a few aspirin. But he couldn't help the anxious knot thumping beneath his collar bones—his heart beating a tight, fluttery rhythm in his throat. 

Holding Harry's gaze, Dima mouthed a single word in explanation. "Migraine." Dima seemed mildly concerned, but not overly worried. 

Harry had asked Sia to fake a headache over the summer in order to set up Draco's birthday party. Apparently this was what it looked like when he actually got one.

 

 

 

 

Dima rang Misha’s mobile, which made perfect sense to Harry. But rather than get their family's informal Healer to meet Sia at the flat and look after him, Dima merely suggested a restaurant for dinner instead. He intended to leave Sia to suffer on his own. 

Harry watched Sia go into Nash's office, requesting to leave early. He wasn't doing any good staying in the office if he was in too much pain to be on the computer, read parchments, or do paperwork. 

It was a thirty minute walk back to their flat—fifteen minutes via the tube, or only ten if he took a taxi. Harry really hoped Sia would suck it up and pay for the car. Nebojsa looked miserable. He needed to rest. So Harry made an executive decision; whilst Sia was in with Nash, Harry rang up the limo company who rented the floors below their flat, arranging a private car to swing by the office and take Sia home. It looked like it could snow at any minute, and that was no weather for a sick person to be out in.

He informed Sia of his actions as he held the man's coat for him, getting his long arms into it. The Serb didn't argue. He even accepted the twenty pounds Harry stuffed in his hand, zombie-like, agreeing. Since it had been Harry's idea, it was only proper he pay for it. Nebojsa hurt too much to put up a fight. With Harry, he knew it’d be useless; in the end, The Chosen One usually got his way… or died trying.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

After work, Harry and Dima met up with Misha at Aldgate Station. 

The sky couldn't decide whether to rain or snow, coming down in a sticky mixture. Dima brushed against his wand in his pocket, casting a Notice-Me-Not Charm before conjuring a large umbrella. It was a tight fit, but the three of them managed to make their way under it, reminding Harry of how he, Ron, and Hermione used to move about under his Invisibility Cloak at Hogwarts—the older they got, the harder it was not to trod on one another's feet.   

It had been tense back then because Ron and Hermione fancied each other, with Harry inserted awkwardly in the middle. In hindsight, he probably ought to have faked a headache himself and sent those two out under his cloak by themselves. They needed adventures together, memories of their own which didn't involve their best mate as the chronic third wheel. The two of them might've gotten together a long time ago had Harry been better at reading the signs and gotten his oblivious asexual arse out of the way. 

With Dima and Misha, the huddled experience was totally different. They'd grown up relying on each other for everything, so when it came to operating in tight spaces they didn't even have to think. It was perfectly natural to them, no grumbling or fussing. The two sandwiched Harry in the middle the same as they would’ve with Nebojsa, angling their shoulders in so none of them would get wet and catch a cold. With Sia sick, the rest of them had to stay healthy. 

Harry never had this kind of physical closeness with Ron or the other chaps in Gryffindor. They wouldn't have willingly shared an umbrella, faces so close together he could feel their breath on his skin when they waited to cross the road. And it wasn't just the fact that the brothers had come up in a different culture, though the warmth of Romanian manners compared to the stodginess of the English surely played a part. Dima and Misha especially never had love from their parents growing up—cuddling, sitting on laps, being picked up and played with. So they learned to do that for each other. They saw in Harry another Lost Boy, an emotional orphan, and offered him the same brand of affection they gave one another. Because they grew up more like him, they understood what he needed without his having to ask. And because they understood, Harry was able to let them in. 

Dima had selected a rather high-end place. Owing to it being a weeknight, they were able to slip in without a reservation. When Harry saw the menu, he realized why Dima picked it. They specialized in seafood and game meats, which were Misha's favorites, reminding them both of home. 

A few years ago, Harry never would've imagined himself walking comfortably into a place like this—white table cloths, multiple wine glasses for each setting, soft lighting, and vintage oil paintings on the hundred-year-old wood-trimmed walls. Most of the tables around them were couples on dates, with a few business people scattered in-between. This was still quite posh to him. But compared to Dima and Misha's early-life, white table cloths and sommeliers at their beck and call was standard, even on a weeknight. 

Eating a multiple-course meal wasn't anything new, either. It seemed they wanted something to do with the next few hours, a kind of distraction to get their minds off of their sick loved one.

Harry's mind couldn't help circling back to their missing friend. The empty fourth chair across from him didn't exactly help. If he didn't picture Nebojsa there, then it was Draco instead. His husband loved rich, artfully prepared food. He'd probably enjoy a place like this—especially dining with company so it wouldn’t feel like a date. 

Reading their menus, Harry had to ask, "Does Nebojsa get headaches very often?"

Dmitry shrugged. "A few times a year. Zince school." His tone said it was something they were all accustomed to by now. 

Harry turned to Misha, pitching his voice lower and using the large menu as a bit of cover against anyone overhearing him. "Isn't there anything you can... _do_?" Meaning magic. 

Misha shook his head. "Iz a regular migraine. Notzhing to be done about it." He was quickly adopting certain English turns of phrase into his speech. By the spring he might sound like he'd lived in London for years rather than a few months. Misha adapted very quickly. Of Nebojsa's condition, he added, "Noise makes it vorse, and the smell of food... his stomach is very bad. He needs to rest zomevhere quiet. We've learned is best to leave him be." 

Harry had never been so sick he didn't want company. Even if that person was quiet, simply sitting nearby reading a book while he rested. It made him feel better knowing someone was around, watching over him. Maybe Nebojsa rested easier when he was alone? 

“You don’t think it has anything to do with….” And Harry wiggled his fingers, meaning their shared sorcery powers. 

Not looking up from the beer and wine list, Dima shook his head, dismissing the idea. Nebojsa’s headaches predated his wandless magic. 

Harry pressed, "Then what causes it?" 

Brows furrowed, Misha found that to be a strange question. "Migraines. Stomach ache. These things are... the body's natural reaction to zomething unvanted. Too much stress. Strain on the eyes. Poor sleep. Hormones. Iz not zomething ve can control. The cause can be many different zhings. It can change." 

Misha was too nice to say plainly that Harry and Draco’s separation worried Sia so much he got sick. But the fact that ‘stress’ was the first cause he named definitely left Harry wondering if Misha was being purposefully vague for the sake of keeping dinner conversation light. He wouldn’t outright blame Harry for making Sia sick: Harry did the blaming all on his own. 

Forlorn green eyes went down to the tablecloth. "I see. It's just that last year, he never... well, I never saw…." Then again, he'd been rather distracted. And there were weeks at a time when Harry was away doing other things. It was entirely possible Nebojsa was sick then, and Harry simply wasn’t around to see it. Or Nebojsa concealed his headaches the same way Draco masked his depression from Harry’s view, not wanting The Chosen One to worry or be distracted from the war effort because someone he cared about was ill. 

Harry was known to be hyper-reactive to the suffering of others. That was why he raced to save Sirius when Voldemort tricked him into thinking he had Harry’s godfather—his last living relative—held captive. That was why Voldemort knew to target Ginny and the Weasleys, and then to go after Draco during the battle of Hogwarts; luring Harry out and making him angry, rash, fearful for the safety of the ones he loved. Losing his parents and Sirius made Harry fiercely possessive. If he’d known Draco was going through severe depressive episodes he’d have abandoned the war effort and stayed with him at Hogwarts. 

Nebojsa didn’t want to be a distraction, an anchor pulling Harry down, holding him back from where his focus ought to be. Sia kept Harry at a distance for his own good, not wanting history to repeat itself, to become another person for Harry to rescue. 

Misha nodded. "Vhen he vos underweight, zhe stomach pains and headaches vere less frequent. Our bodies shut down vhen we are starved. Many systems become less responsive, including pain receptors. The migraines and stomach cramps came back vhen he returned to a normal veight... or, normal for him, anyvay."

Apparently Sia had always tended towards being thin. After torture, and then Valaam, he'd looked like a skeleton with skin. 

"Sorry to bother you about it," Harry murmured, apologizing to both brothers. They probably didn't want to think about it, probably felt guilty there was nothing more to do than grab a meal together and give Sia his space so he didn't have to smell their food all over the apartment or listen to them talking and eating. It was probably a kindness to stay out of the flat until Sia could take a few potions and fall asleep. The brothers’ casual attitude about it suggested that Nebojsa might be back to himself in the morning, if not in a day or two.

Harry confessed, "I'm... worried, I guess. It’s hard for me to see someone suffering and not do something about it." 

Dima just sighed in response, going back to the menu for something to do. 

It wasn’t that Dima was unconcerned. He probably couldn’t stop thinking about Nebojsa. But the way he was raised never to show his feelings certainly gave him every appearance of being a heartless bastard. If Dima were just a year older, or if Durmstrang hadn’t been taken over by the Death Eaters, that impassive attitude would’ve landed him with a Dark Mark on his arm. Dima did whatever was necessary to make sure he and his brothers survived. That included Nebojsa. 

Dmitry cared very deeply. He just had funny ways of showing it. His intentions were easy to misconstrue. 

Leaning, Misha touched his shoulder to Harry's in comfort. “ _Da_ ,” he whispered. “Don’t vorry. Be calm. You need to eat, and he needs to rest. Ve are all vhere ve need to be.” 

He and Misha were the same height now, chests and arms built out, similar taper at the waist—except Harry carried more in his back, pectorals, and legs, while Misha stayed lean for quidditch, needing speed and stamina whereas Harry relied on shorter bursts of brute force for fighting.

A year ago Misha had bumped into Harry at a bar and his first thought had been, "I'm about to be trampled by a reserve from Bulgarian National." Now their bodies were comparable. It still blew Harry’s mind. He didn’t feel physically equal to the wizard sitting beside him, even when his eyes informed him they were the same size and increasingly shared clothes.

Harry spent so long trapped, orphaned and outcast, made to _feel_ small, that it never crossed his mind that there were no short people in his family—that he was meant to be this size all along, and there was something deeply wrong with his lack of growth all through his youth and school years. Voldemort’s dormant horcrux had delayed his natural growth. All those years spent staring at pictures of his parents and it never occurred to him that his body was being held back by dark magic; everything he ate, all of his spare energy devoted to maintaining the magic growing inside him, power diverted away from himself and into Voldemort’s horcrux instead. 

His father had been rather a handsome blighter, statuesque as well as photogenic. And Harry who took after his father in every way was meant to be be tall, too. 

His smaller size made it that much easier for other people to treat him like a young child even as he grew older. And because he was small, he accepted belittling treatment, bottling his anger for years before he burst and began fighting back. 

Harry liked the Ionescues because, from the moment they met, they never treated him differently. Right away, he and Draco had been a part of the gang. No one cared that they were short, or that Draco had taken the Mark to save himself and his mum. They’d done things they weren’t proud of, too. They had things about their own bodies they were insecure about. They knew how to look past the flaws and give someone a second or third or fiftieth chance. They didn’t give up on each other. You only got that way after people abandoned you. It made you stick that much tighter together. 

Now it was Draco on the outside looking in, wondering when his day might come, when he might physically look like the adult man he was on the inside. Harry didn't mind if his husband stayed the same or if he got taller, too; but he did think that maybe Draco didn't know what he was wishing for. When your body changed so much, so fast... it was a lot to deal with, dizzying, not feeling like yourself in your own skin. He didn't want that for Draco. He’d already been through enough with his torture scars—his husband still struggled to accept when he looked at his own reflection, the body he inhabited now. If Draco suddenly got taller, too, he might not handle the change so well. The dysphoria could cause another manic episode, or psychosis. 

Draco was better off as he was for now, growing naturally if more slowly that he preferred. Lucius Malfoy had been an ominously tall bugger, and Narcissa wasn’t short, either; so surely Draco had a few more inches in his future. 

Table conversation fell into Romanian, discussing the tattoo Dima had finally consented to his baby brother getting. 

All through the war, Misha wanted a magic tattoo like Nebojsa's cross; a weapon which he could peel off his skin in case of emergency. Misha was still underage in both worlds, and needed his guardian's permission to get inked. 

Dima agreed with only one stipulation: that _he_ be the one to do the ink. So he bought a professional machine and had been practicing for months—the impressive shielding tattoo on Sia's hand was Dima's work, and Dima himself had a recent design like chainmail and a leather band wrapping around his forearm, looking like a knight's armor. It too was imbued with defencive magic, currently hidden under the sleeves of his Armani jumper. 

They discussed what would need to be adjusted for their creature forms. It was safest that Misha remove the weapon from his body before transforming, otherwise there was no telling what might happen. It could stab him, or break apart into sharp pieces, or end up somewhere inside his body as he shifted. They were mixing unique magicks, and there was no textbook or authoritative guide to turn to. Everything they did, they figured out on their own through trial and error. 

Harry had thought about it... getting a knife, something small and practical, fused to his body. After all, it was Nebojsa's cross which he'd used to kill Nagini, just as he'd pulled Godric Gryffindor's sword from the Sorting Hat in order to slay Voldemort's pet basilisk. On a certain level, this was the next logical evolution.

He held back, though. He already had Draco's name on his arm. And the open-ended magic in that impulse-driven ink allowed the bond in Draco's Dark Mark to transfer to Harry once he possessed his husband. That was a lot of magic, a lot of emotional weight, in one tattoo. He didn't feel quite ready to do it again. Especially without Draco. He wouldn't get inked again without his husband's blessing, and Draco’s presence this time around when it happened. Harry's body was his own, yet he wanted Draco to continue to be pleased by it for the rest of their lives. He wouldn't get another tattoo if Draco didn't care for the design or the placement. He wanted Draco's input, for his husband to be involved at every step of the process. 

Maybe Draco would want one, too. Having a weapon on him at all times—something secret and hidden on his body, something which no one could take away—might help him feel safe. 

Lost in thought, Harry barely noticed Dima ordering for them. As the public head of the family and the highest ranking person at the table, that was his job. Misha preferred it that way, to observe more formal manners, and Harry didn't much care. Truthfully, Harry felt a bit overwhelmed by the upscale menu, relieved that Dima could pronounce things in French and be understood, saving Harry the potential embarrassment.

The restaurant was a French style, where each course consisted of multiple dishes arriving together, intended to be shared. Multiple waiters with white gloves on their hands delivered a charcuterie of boar, rabbit and venison, wild-foraged duck pate and toast, lamb tartare with a raw intact egg yolk on top, and fresh octopus tentacles, deep fried whole. 

Harry never had octopus until that summer on the Romanian coast, where he fell in love with it. Dmitry remembered, ordering Harry’s favorite along with his own rather Russian preference for raw. 

There wasn't a vegetable in sight, but those would come later. Dima predominantly ate meat, and Misha wasn't far behind. 

Harry took note when Dima pushed the plate of octopus—long, twisty tentacles lightly breaded and fried until crispy, arranged in beautiful shapes—towards Misha. "Go ahead," he urged before attacking the raw lamb. 

Dima wanted to share a bit of each dish even when his instinct was to devour it all himself. There were three more courses coming, insuring there'd be enough for everyone.   

Misha just stared at the plate, knife and fork in his hands, hovering. He was stuck. 

Dima had already helped himself to a few bites. The white flesh inside was exposed and perfectly cooked, a spongy texture like lobster, a bit saltier and melting the moment it touched your tongue. The outside was crunchy brown-crackled breading infused with herbs and spices, not too thick, just enough to insulate the meat and be sure it didn't overheat in the oil bath. Harry could smell it in all its deep fried ocean-salty goodness—and if Misha didn't take a bite soon Harry was gonna stick his fork in there and steal some while it was still hot and buttery.

Dima stopped, too. He put down his fork and looked at Misha—really looked at him, his face unreadable, bright gold eyes beneath more human-looking hazel-colored contacts focusing on his motionless little brother. Understanding brought Dmitry to a complete stop. 

"It's okay," Dmitry said more slowly, encouraging. He almost smiled. His eyes were soft, patient. He was mothering Misha, which was rare. Normally Dima positioned himself as a hard-ass when it came to his baby brother. This time, he knew not to go down that path. 

Harry didn't understand what the problem was. Misha always ate like the two-ton monster he was. But... that was with Nebojsa around. Sia was his safety blanket. Without Nebojsa to lean on, whatever this was had crept back, and Misha was having trouble coping. 

An eating disorder. Misha had an eating disorder. Harry never saw it before, falsely assuming Misha knew his way around food and nutrient information because of his bodybuilding, and from studying the healing arts to please his father. But Misha learned that stuff as part of his recovery. He could do a meal plan for Ron because mapping out his own food, or his brother's, or Sia's, was part of Misha's ongoing recuperation and mental healing, reinforcing healthy practices. Misha learned what the body needed as part of recognizing that he wasn't getting adequate nutrition for his own growing body. 

They knew what happened to their horse forms when they didn’t get enough to eat because Misha had done it; he’d starved himself, enraged the Granian inside him, and then tried to transform only to have the creature rebel against him. 

Misha's relationship with food was far more complicated than he let on. 

Now Harry saw it. Because Sia had been Misha’s mentor and biggest supporter throughout that recovery process, taking Nebojsa away even for a few hours—combined with Harry talking about Sia being sick and stressing Misha out—meant that his illness was poking back up again. 

The night of their band performance when Misha had to stay home, Harry’d walked in on him smoking pot. Misha wasn't smoking because he was upset or even because he was bored—the weed was precautionary, because Nebojsa and everyone else would be gone for the night and Misha wanted to be sure he'd eat properly left on his own. Giving himself the munchies quieted down the voice in his head shouting, _Don’t eat that, Don’t eat that_ , allowing him to listen to his actual appetite and eat more intuitively. 

Now he was struggling—the voice in his head wouldn't shut up, was even louder than his brother’s telling him the food was okay and he should eat. 

It was Harry's turn to lean close, to put his shoulder to Misha's and tell him gently, "It's okay. You don't have to. Not a big deal. But that does smell really good. Would you mind cutting me off a bit?" 

At least for Harry, it was easier to conquer his fears and do something hard when he had someone else to look after. If he was doing it for someone he loved—to make them happy, to make their lives easier, or to protect them—he was more motivated, more willing to try and get past his anxieties for the sake of that other person. That was how he managed to get over himself and ask for a relationship with Draco: he did everything for Draco, tried to be a better man for Draco, because focusing on the wizard who became his husband put everything else in proper perspective. 

That was exactly what Misha needed, too. More than his brother's encouragement or permission, he needed a reason to interact with food that was for somebody else's benefit rather than continuing to focus on his own negative thoughts. If he wasn't cutting into the food to eat it himself, he was fine. Obliging, Misha lopped off half a tentacle and slid it onto Harry's plate. 

After that it was easier, automatic, his body performing the motions without having to think. Misha cut another bite-size piece and put it in his mouth before he'd even realized what he'd done. 

He was chewing. Then his head of black hair snapped to stare at Harry, his eyes widening. It _was_ good. And Harry had gotten him through it, helped him eat, just like Nebojsa did. 

Dima lifted his beer—happy to see his little brother eat. It took all of them working together, but they could get through it. 

Harry didn't need to control Misha. Forcing Misha to eat or getting frustrated with him for something he couldn’t help wasn’t the answer. Harry had to take the time, had to understand where Misha was, to have some damn compassion and meet him there. Harry knew how to solve these sorts of problems. He'd only learned recently but the knowledge and ability was there. He only had to apply it. 

Helping Misha eat wasn't the same as screwing up with Taylor. He knew that. He'd fucked up. But he wasn't beyond hope. He knew what to do. He _knew_ deep down how to take care of people, how to show respect and do right by others. The problem had been his compulsion to cut himself off from his compassionate heart, to fall back on his soldier’s ability to become emotionless, trying to be what Fred and George expected of him in that moment because he was terrified of letting them down, losing the love of men he looked up to as brothers. He shut down when he ought to have fought back. 

He was a soldier... but he was also a man, a wizard who'd always been guided by his gut and the strength of his heart.

When he lost sight of his emotions or shut them out completely, that was when he got into trouble. That was how he managed to hurt other people. So long as he clung to his own heart, he stood a chance at doing better next time. That was all he _could_ do. 

Misha slid Harry’s plate back at him. 

"It _is_ really good," he told Harry—his toned-down version of thanking his adoptive brother for not making him feel like a baby, not treating him as sick, weak-minded, or childish. Misha needed support, some extra time and attention. Once Harry understood, he could give Misha what he really needed all along. "You should have some before it gets cold."

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Returning from dinner, Harry wasn’t at all surprised when Dima and Misha kept the lights off in their flat—kicking off their shoes, dropping their coats and extra layers as they crossed the main room through the darkness—piling into bed on either side of Nebojsa. They could sleep on top of one another like puppies… or pictures of puppies. Harry never actually had a dog, and Sirius in Animagus form didn’t count, so he wouldn’t really know. 

Sia slept on his usual side of the bed, meaning that Misha was practically falling off, determined to snuggle down with Sia—the closest Misha had ever known to a real mum or dad, all rolled into one person barely older than he was. He fitted himself to Sia, curling up, perfectly comfortable despite being one sneeze from falling off the side of the mattress. 

Harry stood there, watching them from the dark, a pile of blankets, increasingly light skin and increasingly darker hair. Nebojsa looked sick; wearing Dmitry’s sweatshirt to bed to keep warm, and he hadn’t tied his hair back like usual to keep it from getting snarled. It splayed out over the pillow, black silk on white cotton. Dima knew to move his partner’s long hair out of the way before he laid down behind him—having your hair pulled would wake anybody up, Sleeping Draught or not. 

Misha’s head popped up from the nest of blankets. He was looking for Harry, wondering why he hadn’t joined them. The younger wizard stuck his arm out through the dimness, beckoning with his fingers… knowing that Harry would need an invitation and encouragement before he comprehended that he was wanted. Dima budged up, making room for Harry between himself and his own boyfriend. Harry belonged.

This was what Harry wanted… except he wanted it from Draco. He wanted affirmation. He wanted to be wanted. He deeply needed some physical sign that Draco desired Harry’s presence in his life. 

He was heartbroken. It made him angry and sick to his stomach every time he complimented Draco only to be told to fuck off, or to have it turned into something sexual when he’d only meant to be kind. It destroyed his confidence when Draco rejected him for sex. And it made him feel objectified and dirty when Draco used him to get off without considering Harry’s own preferences in the process. All of those behaviors needed to stop. And he needed to see Draco’s softer side again: the man who climbed into a closet with him so he wouldn’t be alone on his birthday, the man who pressed their temples together and sighed like he could read all the woes on Harry’s mind… the man who threw hands over his open wounds, blood on pale hands, desperate to heal him. The man who ran over broken glass to save his life. The man who kissed the very life back into his body. Harry needed his husband back. 

For now, he had his family. So he toed his shoes off, dropped his coat and tie across the sofa on his way by, and placed his glasses on the nightstand. 

“Don’t know why we didn’t do this ages ago…” he murmured, waving his fingers over the bed. It sprang out, re-sizing from a queen to an extended king, actually large enough for four people to sleep without piling up like puppies. 

They still piled on him a bit. He needed it as much as they did.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

“Neville Longbottom?” 

Elbow-deep in a barrel of freshly chopped mandrake, Neville glanced up. He carefully pulled his gloved arm out of the barrel with a gummy squelch.

Striding towards him were two Hit Wizards in indigo-blue robes and armored vests, pistols on their hips. 

Once, he’d held a gun just like that—he fired it at Fenrir Greyback, over and over again until the Death Eater leaked blood from his robes like a red fountain, dropping to his knees in the dungeon corridor. That was how he remembered the Battle of Hogwarts. It was what he saw when he looked at his Order of Merlin, the reason he threw it in the attic and never looked at it again. 

Seeing Hit Wizards made Neville’s guts twitch. Seeing a pistol again made his entire body go cold, hands trembling as he struggled to remove his extra-long rubber gloves.   

“That would be me,” he identified himself, lifting a hand in the air, trying to sound normal. 

He and four other Herbological Supply Clerks were examining the latest delivery of potion ingredients for quality. Everyone looked at the Hit Wizards. Neville saw quite a few Aurors since he started working at St. Mungo’s, but Hit Wizards remained a rarity. He hadn’t a bloody clue why two of them might be looking for him. 

“Come with us, please.” 

 _Please_ was good. Hit Wizards probably didn’t say “please” to someone they were about to arrest. Not that Neville had done anything wrong. Which meant they needed him for something. That was somehow less reassuring than if they’d arrived to arrest him for no reason. 

The team marched him out of the supply depot and off through the hospital’s administrative area, ending up at his boss’ boss’ office—the Director of Medicinal Supply and Potioneering. 

St. Mungo’s was one of only a few magical hospitals still making their potions in-house. It was more costly, but guaranteed that all potions given to patients met with the highest quality standards. Witches and wizards used to come from all over the world to be treated at St. Mungo’s; that changed during the war, when England became the epicenter for violence and mysterious disappearances. People were still nervous about coming to the hospital even after the fighting was declared officially over.  

Neville had been offered a similar position as a Herbological Expert assessing plant-based potion ingredients at Ferrard Lachland Hospital in Florida, USA. His Gran made him turn it down, insisting that a placement at St. Mungo’s was more prestigious. St. Mungo’s also paid half the salary of the Americans, and meant Neville wouldn’t be moving out from under his grandmother’s roof any time soon. He was still kicking himself.   

Working in the same building where his parents were permanent residents was a horrible idea. Guilt drove him to visit them a few days each week after he was done with work. Then once a week, which became every other week. It was depressing. Their condition never improved; like wounded animals kept in captivity because they couldn’t survive in the wild, his parents maintained superior physical health under the care of top medical staff. At this rate, they were probably going to live to be at least a hundred and fifty.

Sometimes Neville felt as though he were waiting for his loved ones to die—his mum, his dad, and Gran, too—before his own life could start. 

He should’ve gone to Florida when he had the chance. He could be sitting on a beach right now, pitching his grandmother’s Howlers into the ocean while drinking a mojito. He had an excellent source for Corsican mint. Next time there was an opening at Lachland Hospital, he would owl his C.V. no matter how loudly his Gran screamed. 

The Hit team, two agile-bodied wizards in their forties, identified themselves as Arnold Peasegood and Martin Sawley. 

“Any relation to Lynette Sawley?” Neville asked. She was a Hufflepuff, a year behind him. She hadn’t come back last year, so would either be at Hogwarts now finishing her education, or her family had enrolled her at another school. At least she survived. 

“Yes, she’s my daughter,” the Hit Wizard confirmed. 

The Director’s office was empty. Peasegood and Sawley bade Neville to sit and listen as they explained why they’d come for him. 

“You’re well-acquainted with Astoria Greengrass.” It wasn’t precisely a question, but Neville felt compelled to answer as though it had been.

“Well… I was President of the Hogwarts Herbology Club for three years. Astoria was an active club member. I wouldn’t say we were by any means close but—” 

Sawley interrupted him. “Miss Greengrass is a known Death Eater associate, wanted for her participation in smuggling Death Eaters into Hogwarts castle in March. She’s a fugitive, along with her family.” 

As the calmer and less emotionally invested of the two, Peasegood took over. “Everything we’re about to tell you, Mr. Longbottom, is considered classified information. You have the option to be Obliviated should you choose not to comply.” 

Blinking, Neville repeated that last word. “Comply?” 

“Miss Greengrass contacted our office to turn herself in. She’s given up her family as well—her parents, her sister, and paternal grandparents—in exchange for protective custody. She’s provided information and agreed to testify before the Wizengamot. Her statement was taken under voluntary Veritaserum this morning when she submitted herself into our custody and facilitated the arrest of her family, as well as two other fugitive households traveling with them. Miss Greengrass incorporated root of Asphodel into a batch of biscuits and offered it to the others with her as they were leaving a Death Eater stronghold. The plant rendered them unconscious, making for… the most seamless arrest I’ve ever been a party to.” 

That sounded like Astoria. She always made sweets and brought them to school after holidays. No one would have thought anything of it—Astoria liked to bake. She knocked everyone out with her plant-laced sweets so that the Hit Wizards could take them alive. 

Neville slumped forward, head in his hands. He needed a moment to process. He knew Astoria was one of the students responsible for sneaking Death Eaters into the castle; that much had been reported in the papers when the names of known Death Eaters were published by the Ministry after Kingsley Shacklebolt took over. 

Astoria was a quiet person, not unlike himself. Other blokes teased her—Neville didn’t understand why someone would be cruel to a woman they fancied. Astoria didn’t say much, spending most of her time in the greenhouse, or playing Gobstones with her friends. Neville figured that her obnoxious sister Daphne and overbearing blood-purist parents had pressured her, making her go along with a plan handed down from You-Know-Who himself. She must’ve been terrified. Apparently she’d turned on her family and asked the Hit Wizards to help her escape in exchange for what she knew. She’d been in hiding with her parents, in the company of sworn Death Eaters, for something like nine months. That was long enough to gather useful information… possibly enough to garner a pardon if she played her stones right. 

Neville asked of the floor, “I’m sorry but… what does this have to do with me?” 

“Miss Greengrass is sixteen,” said Sawley. “With her immediate family arrested and her extended relations being confirmed Death Eaters, she qualifies for a _Guardian In Absentia_ under the new procedures for underage persons enacted by the Minister’s Council for Ethics.” 

Peasegood clarified, “Because she’s sixteen, Miss Greengrass has the right to choose an adult witch or wizard to speak on her behalf, to advocate for her safety and well-being, to remain with her under Ministry protection while she’s a critical witness, and generally to act as her parent in all matters until she comes of age. 

“This morning, Miss Greengrass named _you_ as her guardian.” 

That made no sense! He barely knew her. “W-what?” Neville stuttered. “Me?” 

From a pocket inside his scaled dragon hide dueling vest, Sawley produced the official parchments. As Neville read through, trying to comprehend, Sawley summarized. “If you accept, we’ll escort you and Miss Greengrass to a safe-house where you’ll remain until the trials of her family members are finished and it’s determined that she’s no longer in danger from retaliatory action. After that, you’ll receive a stipend for her continued care. We’ve arranged your absence with St. Mungo’s, so there’s no consequence for your missing work. The trials may take some weeks, but no more than a few months.” 

“If you choose not to accept the guardianship,” Hit Wizard Peasegood explained, “we are required to Obliviate you, and your supervisors we’ve spoken with as well. As you can understand, this information must remain classified. But we do need you to decide now. Miss Greengrass cannot remain in Ministry custody without a guardian present.” 

Which meant that right now she was sitting in a cell—a young witch, alone, behind bars—until she had someone to speak for her, someone to get her out.

“I…” Neville was speechless. “I… my Gran. She’s elderly. I still live with her.” 

Sawley shook his head, “I’m very sorry, but we cannot permit you to tell anyone where you’re going should you accept. Not your employer, and not your own family. You wouldn’t be able to see your grandmother again until the trials are finished—though we can arrange some limited correspondence for your loved ones’ peace of mind. I’m sure you understand, for everyone’s safety.” 

Peasegood added, “We can tell your grandmother that you’re working directly with the Hit Wizards on an important case, and that you’re safe in our care. That’s the same information which we’ve given your supervisors. We need a decision, Mr. Longbottom.” 

Neville stared at the floor. It was the same speckled linoleum as the Janus Thickey Ward where he’d visited his parents faithfully since he was a child. The pattern was burned into his memory. 

“What happens to Astoria if I decline? Does she pick someone else, or…?” 

Peasegood nodded. “She can nominate additional guardians, until someone accepts.” 

A father himself, Sawley leaned forward, confiding in Neville. “Arnold and I were part of the triple force who brought her in.” More than a dozen Hit Wizards—that had to have been terrifying. “I’ll be frank with you… she had a hard time thinking of anyone she trusted to look out for her. We gave her plenty of parchment to nominate guardians, but she only put down two names: yourself, and Hit Wizard Potter. He’s the one she contacted first, to turn herself in.” 

That much made sense. Harry was married to Draco Malfoy, the only other person to defect from the Death Eaters and live to tell about it. Harry would be sympathetic to Astoria’s situation—one of the most sympathetic people in the world. Harry had a huge heart. He forgave freely, earning respect and making friends wherever he went. Even a Slytherin like Astoria could look up to him. After the war, he was basically a god amongst wizardkind. As Harry’s ward, Astoria would be well-protected from the Death Eaters. 

But the Potters were newlyweds. If Harry became Astoria’s guardian—and surely he would if Neville turned it down—then The Boy Who Lived would be separated from his spouse for weeks or even months with only minimal communication between them. That wasn’t fair. Harry and Draco had already sacrificed so much. Harry shouldn’t have to do this, too.

Gran would be alright by herself; she had plenty of friends, and got on fine for seven years whilst he was at school most of the time. Astoria was all alone, and scared. No one had her back. No one was holding her hand as she went through this. She needed someone to speak up for her. Neville had a voice; he could do that much.   

“I’ll do it.” 

He reached for the quill and ink pot on the Director’s desk—signing his name to the order, becoming Astoria’s guardian with a wobble-handed scribble.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The Hit Wizards didn’t keep Astoria waiting in any prison. They didn’t think it necessary to restrain her at all. They brought her a cup of tea, held between her white fingers more for the warmth and familiar, comforting smell than for actual thirst. The Veritaserum she’d swallowed before giving her statement had worn off, but the bubble around her remained; no one bothered her, giving her space and privacy as though she were still bound to speak the truth and no one wanted to disturb her. 

She sat quietly on a sofa in a plain office room, huddled, seeming to be in shock. 

Neville recognized shock. He knew it from the war even more than from working in a hospital. 

He didn’t spend much time in the non-magical world, but his basic understanding of muggle life sufficed to read his surroundings. The new Law Enforcement facility was a muggle office building, a magically-shielded high-rise in central London. From the outside it looked perfectly normal for muggles, while inside they had an unusual blend of cultures—moving pictures of family members on people’s desks, posters depicting wand-movements and Ministry slogans, a few items expressing support for various quidditch teams, and most of the staff walked about in robes. But there were also computers, and telephones, trunk-size machines which spit out parchment, and… guns secured on most people’s hips. 

It was the sort of place where a mixed bloke like Harry might feel comfortable, surrounded by mostly muggle scenery with blips of magic here and there, reminding them that they straddled the line between worlds. 

Bringing Astoria here displayed a certain confidence. The arrest had gone so smoothly that they didn’t anticipate any immediate retaliation—it might be a few hours yet before the Death Eaters realized anything was amiss. Astoria wasn’t going to be processed at the old building because she wasn’t considered a criminal, but rather an informant, critical to the legal process to come. She’d provided an account of her knowledge and actions, and now the officers were to see to her comfort and safety until her new guardian arrived. 

It was probably a best-case scenario to the Hit Wizards. Usually they were called into the thick of it, when people were hostile or in immediate danger. Looking after a witness was a significantly lower-risk activity than they were accustomed to. Yet they took Astoria’s case seriously. No one was stationed outside her door as a guard so as not to frighten her any further; a few officers were about should she need anything. 

Sawley and Peasegood brought Neville directly, and no one hopped up to stop them or prevent access. 

A semi-familiar face joined them. Neville recognized Harry Potter, but it took him a minute. Those round glasses hadn’t changed in years. But the rest of Harry was very smartly dressed, showing off his athletic build in a snug-fitting blue suit and caramel wing-tipped brogues, with his long hair tied back at the nape of his neck. The Harry he knew wore denims and an oversize tee… sometimes with holes in them. This was Harry Potter all grown up. He turned out exceedingly fit. And someone had words with him about what clothing best flattered his body. 

Neville knew how physically blessed Harry was after sharing a dorm for six years; now everybody else had an inking, too. Seeing his old friend look that bloody good put a stain of jealousy in his cheeks. 

“Neville,” Harry said his name in greeting, and his voice seemed deeper, too. He’d finally grown tall enough for the man’s voice he’d had for a few years. Neville had to look up to meet his face. “Thank you for doing this. I know it’s an inconvenience.” 

“Actually… I reckon getting away from my Gran for a bit might be a good thing.” 

That made Harry laugh. “You’ve been well, tho?” He switched easily from professionalism to friendliness, sincerity in his tone. 

Neville nodded. “Well enough. Working at St. Mungo’s; quality control, inspecting plant ingredients for potions. It’s… rather boring, actually,” he admitted. His _life_ was rather boring. Looking at Harry Potter the Hit Wizard, he felt quite young by comparison. He needed a second look to figure out why. “A beard suits you, Harry. Very distinguished.” 

Harry was still the same bloke. As soon as Neville paid him a compliment, he blushed beneath his black whiskers and quickly looked away, unable to maintain eye contact even as he accepted the flattering remark. “That’s kind of you to say.” 

“No uniform?” Neville shifted the subject. Most of the office wore their new blue robes, with armored vests and bracers. The few not in uniforms appeared to be office staff or off-duty officers. 

Harry pressed his lips. “Nah. I’m chained to my desk.” His thumb jerked, indicating the general direction of where he sat. “Head injury. Can’t say more than that.” And he grimaced. 

Neville nodded. “I understand. Keeping secrets is kinda your job now, right? That’s how you keep people safe.” 

Harry paled. He was saved from having to make further small talk by the arrival of a muscular, heavily tattooed, shaved-headed wizard in a tartan kilt, boots and bare legs despite the cold outside. 

Harry made a quick introduction. “Neville Longbottom. My boss, Head Hit Wizard Seathan Nash. He’s coordinating your protection needs personally—you’re in the very best hands.” And, after laying a warm hand against Neville’s back, Harry politely excused himself. 

Neville watched as his old school-friend made his way across the open space of desks and shared work tables, going to a private office with a black-haired secretary stationed like a guard outside. Harry went in and closed his door— _his_ office. Astoria didn’t have a guard because she didn’t need one. Harry did. 

Still the same bloke. Lots of long silences, and plenty of time spent alone and thinking, putting on a chipper face when people came ‘round to check on him. 

“Mr. Nash, a pleasure.” Neville shook the Head of Department’s hand. “I’m sorry but might I have a mo’ with Astoria? We haven’t seen each other since school and… well, this is quite a lot, frankly. I think I ought to discuss things with her first before this goes any further.” 

“Aye,” Nash agreed in a surprisingly thick Scotch brogue. “Yee have a wag while we sort particulars. In yeh go.”

 

 

 

 

Neville waited until Astoria had set down her cuppa. Getting surprised with hot tea in your mouth could only end badly. 

He knocked despite the door being wide open, sticking only his head in. Astoria could tell him to sod off if she wanted to. He might be her representative, but he wasn’t the boss of her. 

He didn’t know what to say. So he settled for a simple, “Hi.” 

She looked up at him from the sofa, a light blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Seeing him, her blue eyes melted, and she began to sob. 

He didn’t know what to do. There was a box of tissues on the table, and quite a few used in the bin. He took a fresh one and offered it to her. 

Her vision watery, she reached for the tissue but ended up brushing his hand instead. When her skin found his, she latched on—grabbing his wrist, tugging, getting him closer. It seemed she needed human contact a much as her damp eyes needed the tissue. 

“Um… shall I sit?” 

She pulled him down onto the sofa cushion next to her. “Neville, I… I’m _so_ sorry,” she sniffed. 

She’d always had a sweet voice, babyish, sounding younger than she was. It wasn’t an affectation, simply her natural way of speaking. Astoria was nearly an adult, though distinctly petite—under five feet tall and barely forty kilograms—which doubtless effected the way others viewed and treated her. Astoria was classically beautiful, with long blonde hair, clear skin, and aristocratic features; what poets had in mind when they talked about an English rose. Too often, others judged Astoria by her looks or her childish voice, forgetting there was a soulful, genteel young witch beneath her doll-like surface. 

She had one of those voices that would forever sound young. “I didn’t know who else to… you were always so kind and patient when new people came to the greenhouses and… and… you’re Harry Potter’s mate. I didn’t… I don’t have anyone else….” 

“It’s alright,” Neville soothed her. She still had his wrist, and he was surprised by the strength in her hand. That must’ve been adrenaline. 

She had no way of knowing that her plan with the asphodel would work so well; for days she might’ve worried, fearing her family might put up a fight against the Hit Wizards she called in, her loved ones injured or even killed because of her actions. Asphodel was easy to find, since it grew wild, and no one would think much of it if she went and gathered a few lilies before the winter frosts came. She knew how to dry the roots without losing potency, since Herbology Club used to help Professor Sprout prepare it for the school’s potion supply.

Astoria’s plan had worked—brilliantly—but now she was completely on her own for the first time in her life. Most of her friends were on the other side, lost to her because she went against her family. She’d left her whole world behind. 

If not for the intervention of Minister Shacklebolt’s Ethics Council, Astoria could have been treated as an adult witch and put in Azkaban, tried alongside her sister and parents. All of this was new for everyone involved. She had no way of knowing what to expect—whether she’d go to prison, or how she might be treated. She threw herself on their mercy. The Ethics Council gave her the option of a guardian, someone to help, someone of her choosing to be on her side, beholden to no one but her, to insure she was treated fairly and in a dignified manner. That sentiment sounded like one man in particular… one blue suit and pacing wing-tipped shoes hiding in an office nearby, wondering whether he’d done enough.     

“I’m glad you reached out,” Neville told her. “I’m here to help. Whatever you need.” 

She was looking beyond him, through the open door to the floor of Hit Witches and Wizards. Her voice was a frightened tremor. “I can’t imagine what they must think of me.” 

Neville spoke the truth as he saw it. “They probably think you’re extraordinarily clever and brave. At least I think so—root of asphodel in biscuits? Brilliant. Did you dry and powder it?” 

Slowly, she nodded. “Chocolate biscuits cover the bitterness, so I could use more. And as far as I know, no one with us was allergic.” She’d thought it through, not wanting to hurt anyone. 

“ _I_ never would’ve thought of that!” he encouraged. “I’d have been scared out of my mind, trying to keep my head down. But not you. You found a way to help yourself and get out. That demonstrates a thinking mind and the ability to perform under pressure. These people here,” he gestured out to the Hit Witches and Wizards at their desks. “They understand how difficult that is because it’s their job. You managed to do what they do; you’re only sixteen, and you were up against fully-trained Death Eaters. You took an incredible risk and it paid off. I’m tremendously proud of you..” 

Squeezing his wrist, she kept gazing at the Hit Wizards who would be watching over her—watching over both of them—until this was over. 

“They’re having trouble,” she admitted on a whisper. “They can’t find enough people to make a guard schedule. No one wants to do it, you see. No one wants to be near me. I helped the Death Eaters get into Hogwarts—I helped hurt their kids, their siblings, their friends. They have no reason to want to help me after I hurt the ones they love.” 

Neville needed a deep breath. “I imagine… you didn’t have much of a choice in that.” 

She hung her head, using the tissue he offered to wipe at her eyes. She used to wear makeup at school but not anymore—not on the run, in hiding. She had a small suitcase beside the sofa and that was the entirety of her possessions. Not even a handbag. Unless it was enchanted, she couldn’t have more than a few robes and perhaps an extra pair of shoes in that case. 

She escaped with her life. Things could be replaced. 

“I could’ve done more,” she blamed herself. “I could’ve tried, could’ve told someone what they made me do.” 

Neville had been there; regretting, wishing he’d been braver. “Hey. You were just fifteen, right? You did what your parents told you. They had your sister watching you, and others with connections, making sure you did exactly as you were bid. _They_ were wrong—your parents, and anyone else who made you feel you had to go along with their plan. Their bad choices and the things they forced you to do doesn’t make _you_ a bad person. You were a good daughter. You _are_ a good daughter,” he amended. “Turning them in probably feels like your world is ending but… really, you’re helping them. Your parents can’t hurt anyone now they’ve been arrested. They can’t force you or your sister or anyone else to do bad things anymore. There’s no way to know how many people you’ve protected, how many lives you’ve saved, with a tin of laced biscuits.” 

His words brought a hint of a smile to her face. “And Thibault,” she added. 

“Sorry—who?” 

Astoria reached for her suitcase, loosening one of the latches. She opened it a fraction and out came a mighty hissing. There was a very angry kneazle in her case. She’d used magic to conceal the air holes punched through her suitcase; but when she opened it Neville saw the way light came through, making sure her pet would be comfortable as they made their escape. 

Thibault’s claws had destroyed her clothes in retaliation. Neville added ‘new robes and underthings’ to a growing mental list of things he could see to for Astoria’s comfort. Seven months in supply chain made him attuned to when things needed replenishment or replacing. 

“He might never forgive me, either,” Astoria murmured, talking about her pet—but maybe talking about Harry Potter, too. She’d leaned on The Boy Who Lived in order to facilitate her escape. “Best we leave him safe in there until things settle down.”

A few sheets of official parchment lay on the table. She pushed them towards Neville. 

The Hit Wizards had laid out plans for Astoria and Neville’s safety. They were to spend the next two days in a hotel while a flat was procured and properly warded. Then they would move to this secure location for the duration of the trials. The Hit Wizards recommended the use of a Fidelus Charm, which would shield their whereabouts from anyone not told directly by the Secret Keeper. They were going into hiding. 

Astoria’s finger hovered over the blank spot they’d left, for her to fill in who she wanted as their Secret Keeper. “Who can I ask?” She couldn’t think of a single person who’d want to protect her. 

Neville couldn’t be the Secret Keeper since he’d be staying with her. It had to be someone who could communicate with the rest of the world. 

Among the Hit Wizards in the office, Neville saw another familiar face. “How about my friend Ron Weasley? I’m sure he’d do it if I ask him.” 

Astoria flushed, balling the used tissue into her tight hands. 

“I couldn’t…” she murmured, embarrassed. She truly believed that the entire world hated her for having followed the wishes of her family. She’d been taught her entire life to be dutiful, to obey her elders and follow instructions. Breaking from her family was the scariest thing she’d ever done, and she had to do it alone. 

No. She had a friend now. Neville would be there for her. This was far more fulfilling than his job, anyway. Bonus that he didn’t have to sort through newt eyeballs. 

“If it’s alright with you, I’ll ask Ron right now.” 

 

 

 

 

Of course Ron agreed. If anything, he seemed flattered. “We already volunteered for guard duty,” he confessed to Neville. “No offense, but it’s a great assignment. Low-risk, and it means you and I get to catch up! Gotta stay in the safe-house, though. No trips down to the pub.” 

Neville pretended to be put out by that last suggestion, tipping his voice down in dejection. “Right.” 

He’d never actually been invited to a pub by any of the blokes he knew from school… or people from work, either. He’d never been drunk before the Election Day party at the Potters’ house. He’d started having a drink or two with dinner on occasion, but that was it. When people went out, they never thought to invite boring old Neville. Perhaps he wasn’t the life of the party but that didn’t mean he wanted to stay home with Gran his whole life.    

They were joined by Ron’s law enforcement partner, and introductions were made. 

Dmitry Ionescue smelled strongly like cigarette smoke and the springy vetiver cologne he used liberally to cover the underlying smell of his bad muggle habit. His handshake was brief, quite firm, and marked by calluses on his fingertips—not the usual sort from playing quidditch but instead from the steel strings of an electric guitar. He was built even wider than the biggest of the Weasley boys, and wasn’t the least bit talkative. Then again, a fella who looked like him didn’t need to open his mouth to get girls’ interest. 

It was easy to forget that such a handsome blighter was the son of an infamous Death Eater. Neville recognized him from having his photograph in the paper all summer, hanging out with the Potters—apparently they were mates now. If Neville hadn’t seen it himself back at school, he’d have a hard time imagining Harry Potter getting drunk and smoking cigarettes with a chap like Dmitry. Even with pictures like that in the papers, Harry somehow managed to maintain a squeaky clean public image, and Dmitry got lusted after by female writers, labeled a “bad boy,” and speculated about whether or not he was single. 

Even with an Order of Merlin of his own, Neville never had his picture in _The Prophet_. No one cared. He wasn’t rich, influential, or good-looking-enough to warrant attention. 

Dmitry dipped his chin at Neville, and again to Astoria. His wide, owl-like hazel eyes fixed on her suitcase, staring. Somehow he knew there was something there without any outward indication. Astoria had a Muffling Charm on her suitcase so that no matter how loudly Thibault yowled, no one would hear him. 

Catching Astoria’s attention, the famous Romanian wizard said succinctly, “He vonts out. He’z hungry. I vill get zome cat food.” 

Astoria went pink—she’d been caught hiding something, and hoped her protectiveness over her pet wouldn’t be misunderstood or used against her, to damage her credibility or trustworthiness. Thibault was precious to her; the only friend she had left. Of course she wanted to keep him hidden until she was sure of their situation. She couldn’t bear it if her familiar was taken away from her as well as her family. 

“Dmitry’s an Animagus,” Ron advised as his partner walked away without another word. The air in the room still smelled faintly like smoke and lemongrass. “Is your cat a kneazle? I know kneazles are especially sensitive to Animagus and other shape-shifters. Guess the sensitivity goes both ways.” 

Ron was talking to fill the silence—to help Astoria feel better, hoping she might eventually become more comfortable with him since he planned to be one of her guards and would be around often in the weeks to come. The Hit Wizards intended to have a team at the flat with them around the clock, even under a Fidelus Charm. Astoria had provided them the information they wanted; now it was their turn to come through and prove they could adequately protect her. If this worked, others might be inspired by her example and leave the Death Eaters, too. There had to be other people among the ranks who didn’t want to be there, or were treated badly. Like Astoria, they too could trade information for their safety. She was the desperate, self-released canary; if she made it out, others would follow. 

A lot was riding on the outcome of Astoria’s defection. For Neville, it had to be about Astoria as a person. He cared that her situation could change the political landscape and possibly influence future events but… that wasn’t a proper focus at the moment. Other people could see to the bigger picture. His new job was to be sure Astoria wasn’t hungry or cold, that she had proper clothes, a set of Gobstones and mascara and baking supplies… whatever she wanted. She wouldn’t be a prisoner in any way. She was his ward. They were in this together now. 

He’d never been responsible for anyone more than himself and Trevor… and he lost Trevor loads of times. A few times he nearly stepped on him; he always apologized after, but he still felt like a bad pet owner every time it happened. He wasn’t prepared for the awesome responsibility of looking after another human being. Unlike Trevor, at least Astoria could speak for herself. 

Neville wasn’t exactly the type of bloke one thought of as ‘guardian’ material. He supposed that a terrified witch like Astoria might prefer a chap more along the lines of Dmitry—capable, manly and attractive, practically mute, and in absurdly good shape. He was a fairytale prince in the flesh… he even smelled like dragon’s smoke. 

Then again, Neville didn’t much understand what women wanted in any capacity, so what did he know about choosing a protector? If somebody wanted to kill him, Neville would choose someone like Dmitry to watch his back because the intimidating Romanian would scare off all but the most hardened of criminals, a hair away from having become a Death Eater himself and known to the enemy as a total badass. But having been surrounded by a whole bunch of big and scary actual-Death-Eater blokes just like Dmitry for the last eight months, maybe that sort of persona didn’t help Astoria feel safe so much as it drudged up painful memories. 

Astoria might’ve asked for Neville because he was the opposite—someone she remembered as being patient, forgiving, and gentle with utter strangers. In many ways, the two of them were still  strangers. He learned more about Astoria in the last quarter of an hour than in six years of school. The divide between Hogwarts’ houses was very real.     

Ron went on, telling Astoria a surprising anecdote. “Not sure if you remember my girlfriend, Hermione Granger? She’s got a kneazle called Crookshanks. I used to say he had a face like he’d run into a wall too many times as a kitten; he was always hissing at me, clawing or biting. But Crookshanks was actually trying to save my life. Turns out my pet rat was an Animagus—a bloke named Peter Pettigrew who faked his own death after setting up Harry’s parents to be murdered, letting his mate Sirius Black take the blame instead. Sirius rotted in Azkaban while Peter lived a good life as my pet. Pettigrew was hiding in plain sight, a stow-away, and only Crookshanks knew it. With every bite and scratch, he was trying to warn me the best he could. So you keep that kneazle close, yeah? Dmitry and I will watch over you: you keep an eye on…?” He stopped, angling for the name of her pet.

“Thibault.” 

Ron smiled reassuringly. “You keep an eye on Thibault. If he hasn’t saved your life already, I promise you, someday he might. Never underestimate a kneazle—they’re damn smart. Be good to him. Dmitry’ll bring him some food. And you can pull him outta there if you want. No need to hide.” 

Except that the two of them were about to go into hiding. There very much _was_ good reason to hide. Ron seemed to find the irony in that statement the moment after it left his mouth. 

He went pink up to his ears. “Well… you know what I mean. Lemme get Thibault something to drink in the meantime. I think there’s some cream in the break room. Or is milk better? I can get milk if—” Ron was rambling. 

Mercifully, Astoria cut him off. “Some cream would be lovely. Thank you.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry had shrunk his guitar until it was small enough to fit in his coat pocket, bringing it with him to the office. When his lunch break came, he picked it up and headed for the staircase. 

He was determined to become a better guitar player, and improve his understanding of music on the whole. Nebojsa promised to help him practice, and apparently stairwells had the best acoustics. 

Dmitry joined them, and Ron with him. Nebojsa said his stomach still hurt too much to eat, but he brought a mug of tea along. Thankfully the smell from Ron and Dima’s take-away didn’t bother him. 

Harry took off his suit jacket, draping it over the stair railing before he sat down on the hard concrete steps, digging a guitar pick out of his re-sized case. 

“Don’t get your hopes up,” he warned Ron. “I’m _really_ bad.” 

“Just go slowly,” Sia reminded him smoothly. “Yoo are still learning—”

“So it’s okay to mess up,” Harry finished his sentence for him. He’d heard Sia say it a hundred times to Draco, the constant refrain of every lesson. “I know.” 

Just because he knew to cut himself some slack didn’t make it any easier. His life was a history of performance under pressure—when Harry didn’t do well, people died. This was just guitar-playing. This time, the only thing he could hurt with his mistakes was other people’s ears.  

Arranging his fingers on the fret, Harry began to play a simple riff. He was learning a couple of new songs, but this particular one Misha had taught him over the summer, and now seemed the right time to play it. 

He could hear the song in his head, knew what it ought to sound like after hearing it over and over again on the radio back in his bedroom in Surrey. It was popular the summer after Cedric was killed. When fourteen-year-old Harry woke from nightmares and couldn’t sleep, this song was there. He’d cried more than once with its melody in his ears. 

Harry’s fingers were sluggish and he couldn’t make it sound the way the original did. He had to accept that, to stop expecting his own rendition to be like other people’s. It was the wasted effort of trying to be like everyone else that made him so tired in the first place, made him lose sight of the man he wanted to be… who he should’ve been all along. 

He sang, “ _When I was young I knew everything. And she a punk who rarely ever took advice._ ” 

Ron’s eyebrows rose as he forgot to chew. Harry didn’t sing on his own—only quidditch fight tunes or the Hogwarts school song, when he could hide his voice amongst the many. He’d never been much of a singer. It was something he got from Draco… acquired in the same way his husband could open his beautiful, biting mouth and speak Parseltongue. Harry struggled with the technicality of music, but he _could_ close his eyes and sing, knowing his husband would guide him even from a thousand miles away. 

This song, _The Freshmen_ , was how he felt right now. He didn’t hold back, moody notes under his fingertips and a tremor in his guts. 

“ _Now I’m guilt stricken, sobbing, with my head on the floor. Stop a baby’s breath and a shoe full of rice… no. I can’t be held responsible._ ” 

Dmitry started humming along, adding what was the bass part from his throat. It was a dark song, one he liked. Their voices blended well for both being deeper. 

“ _She was touching her face. I won’t be held responsible._ ” Harry repeated that denial—he couldn’t take any more weight on his shoulders. He’d already cracked under pressure one time too many and shouldn’t be trusted again. “ _She fell in love in the first place._ ” 

He didn’t have to play it perfectly. It was a rough song, and sad. His voice rasped as he found higher notes. He could never achieve the pure sound which Nebojsa and Draco sometimes produced—he wasn’t built that way. The sooner he stopped trying to be someone he wasn’t, the easier it would be to start finding himself again. 

“ _For the life of me… I cannot remember what made us think that we were wise, and we’d never compromise. For the life of me, I cannot believe we’d ever die for these sins. We were merely freshmen._ ” 

Once you opened your eyes and decided to grow up, there was no going back. You couldn’t un-see the world. You couldn’t forget love. You couldn’t undo your mistakes. It didn’t serve anybody to throw your life away after you screwed up, no matter how bad it was. You still had value as a person. You learned, and you moved on, looking for the next phase of your life. No one could stay young and innocent forever. 

That was what people wanted of him, though—to be The Boy Who Lived, forever a child in their minds. They didn’t like that he was sexual, didn’t care for his choice of partner, didn’t approve of his friends or what he wanted to do with his new life. His duty to the magical universe was to be perfect, and to sacrifice his pure self to save them. In order to die for others, Harry had to be blameless himself. 

It was an impossible standard which no one could live up to. People still acted so surprised when Harry failed to meet their impossible expectations, when he inevitably screwed up because he was young and headstrong and scared all the time. He might look like a man and sound like one, but he was very much still a kid on the inside. 

“ _My best friend took a week’s vacation to forget her._ ” Harry ran all the way to Romania for a full month just to escape the reality of what he’d done to Taylor. Getting away might’ve cleared his head for a bit, but not his guilty conscience. “ _His girl took a week’s worth of valium and slept. And now he’s guilt stricken, sobbing, with his head on the floor._ ” As soon as he got back, he had to face the reality of his crime all over again. “ _Thinks about her now and how he never really wept. He said… ‘I can’t be held responsible. She was touching her face….’_ ” 

Harry never wept, either. Fred and George pretended everything was fine—his brothers, his role models, pretending with him, contributing to the delusion that they were in the right. They were good wizards. They were good sons. And Fred wanted to be a good father. Those beliefs drove them right off a bloody cliff. No one wanted to be responsible. It was Harry who cracked, wept, took it all down. 

“ _I won’t be held responsible. She fell in love in the first place._ ” That was the problem. Love. They were so in love with that baby, Fred’s unborn child, that they forgot to have even the most basic respect for Taylor. 

Nebojsa joined them in his lower register. With three voices together, the sound was richer. Dima slid lower still, Sia higher; a shade above Harry, improvising. Harry’s playing was slow enough to give the more experienced singers time, to find a balance which resonated, ringing out.  

Hard surfaces created an echo not unlike the churches Nebojsa usually sang in. Reverberation made their voices richer, expanding the sound until they were more than just three voices but many, making up their parts as they went along. Harry kept to the melody, not wanting to mess it up. Dima dropped down to a drone, an oktavist’s thrum which lived in his throat like a fog horn on a ship. Nebojsa balanced Harry, a harmony which didn’t make sense on its own. Together their voices created a sensation in Harry’s ears—almost pressure, primed, a kind of magic which left him on the edge of his cold hard step. They were in a stairwell… but in his ears was an entire other world. 

His fingers stilled. Just their voices—that was all they really needed. 

They sang like the choirs in Nebojsa’s cathedrals, living in the echoes, begging for absolution. “ _We tried to wash_ _o_ _ur hands of all of this. We’d never talk of our lacking relationships. And now we’re guilt stricken, sobbing, with our heads on the floor._ _We fell through the ice when we tried not to slip. We said, hey… can’t be held responsible._ ” 

Mistakes happened, even when you were being so careful. Everyone had something about their life they regretted; one decision, one moment allowed to slip by, or maybe a series of them. Even with magic, there was no going back. They had to learn how to live with themselves, with the knowledge of the pain and destruction they’d left in their wake… the things they’d done under the _casus belli_ of survival. 

“ _What made us think that we were wise?_ ” It became a question on their lips. “ _And we’d never compromise? For the life of me, I cannot believe we’d ever die for these sins…._ ” 

His friends fell away. Harry’s fingers were still, his eyes closed, leaving only his voice—an excuse, an apology, all he could muster to say for himself. He was young then, and he was yet young now. He was taking responsibility, but that would never be enough to make up for what he did. 

“ _We were merely freshmen._ ” 

The echo died, and Harry was left with his eyes shut tight, a voice directly from Draco in his throat. 

This was why his husband wanted to get hit. They were the same. They both thought they needed to suffer, to be punished, because they’d failed. And they’d rather take punishment than take responsibility for their actions and start to fix themselves. In a way, it was easier to accept punishment than it was to better yourself. Somehow they’d convinced themselves that basics like kindness and mutual respect weren’t deserved. They were desperate to earn back these decencies which they were due all along. They just couldn’t believe it, because they no longer believed in themselves. 

He wouldn’t punish Draco anymore. Draco didn’t deserve that. What Draco needed was compassion. He messed up, and he had to be allowed to move on from that, to be more than his mistakes, the sum of his broken parts absent all of the good inside him. 

A voice broke the silence, snapping Harry out of his reverie. 

“Wait,” said Ron. “It’s about a girl committing suicide?” 

Nebojsa shook his head, saving Harry from having to answer. He wasn’t ready to speak just yet. 

“Zhe song vos actually written about an accidental pregnancy. Hiz girlfriend decides to have an abortion— _stopping baby’s breath_ —because zhey vere not ready to raise a child, and zhey did not vant to be forced to get married vhile still so young. S _hoe full of rice_ is zhe vedding zhey avoided. Muggles zhrow rice at veddings. Zhe girl loved him: he does not understand hiz own feelings. He distances himzelf from zhe situation. Zhey never talk about vot happened, and zo a habit of dishonesty and zheir inability to forgive zhemselves poisons zheir future relationships after zhey break up.” 

Ron’s brows knit in a panic. He asked of Harry, “Why would you wanna sing something like that?!” 

Harry set his guitar aside, allowing his mind to go elsewhere. “It… reminds me of Cho, actually. She fell in love with me, but I didn’t feel the same way. She… expected things of me—stuff I was too young to understand and ultimately didn’t wanna do. She pressured me into a relationship I wasn’t ready for. Maybe she wasn’t ready, either. She wanted me to love her the way Cedric did, and I couldn’t. It’s not an abortion but… feeling mutually responsible for someone’s death and not acknowledging that or learning how to talk about it is a recipe for disaster.” 

He wanted to sing it because of Taylor, too, but he couldn’t tell Ron about that without making him an accessory after-the-fact. 

Unlike the bloke in the song, Harry had options available. Taylor _was_ his responsibility; she became so the moment he saw her held captive in that cellar. He should’ve stuck up for her—should have taken the ropes off of her and helped her get the abortion she needed. He knew that was what he was _supposed_ to do. Instead he refused to talk, disconnected himself from what was going on just to make it easier on himself. Like the song, he didn’t want to feel responsible for her ending her pregnancy. He’d rather ruin her life than feel guilty for another life being lost on his watch. He took responsibility for the wrong person; convincing himself he was the boss of Taylor because that was easier than being in charge of himself, going against Fred and George because in his heart he knew what was right, but the rest of him was too scared and tired to speak up. 

Watching Neville step up that morning and volunteer to look after Astoria Greengrass forced Harry to reflect on his own choices. Neville did the right thing even when he didn’t have to. Neville chose to help, to amplify Astoria’s voice even when he wouldn’t gain any popularity for it. Neville did so much better than Harry. Seeing a friend do the right thing so humbly and naturally gnawed at Harry because he wanted to be that sort of man… and deep down he wondered whether he still could be, or if that ship had sailed without him his instincts permanently broken, skewing towards self-interest and ultimately evil. 

Ron stared at Harry, his gob-smacked face plainly communicating, _I had no idea you felt that way_. _I didn’t know she’d hurt you that badly._  

He and Ron didn’t talk much about emotions, or regrets. Mostly Ron looked to Harry for advice, or they made idle conversation about whatever was going on around them: quidditch, school, Voldemort or Umbridge or whomever was out to get Harry at the time. Somewhere along the way he stopped confiding in Ron, which made their friendship one-sided. Ron wasn’t used to hearing Harry talk about his feelings anymore. Opening up was something he re-learned in therapy, having choked his emotions a little more after every attack, thinking that made him strong. 

He still wasn’t very good at sharing. But music helped. It brought his feelings to the surface using someone else’s words as a kind of spell on his lips. 

“Well…” Ron tugged at the sleeve of his jumper—it was store-bought rather than mum-made, and as such the sleeves were just a bit short on him, leaving his wrists exposed. “Why would you make such a dark song sound so pretty?” 

Dmitry answered that one. He was more than qualified to say, “Zometimes people vill listen vhen zhe message is packaged in zomething beautiful.” 

He was talking about Nebojsa, how other people listened to his partner and sought him out for advice. Nebojsa could get you to think critically, to question yourself, and frame it as self-discovery and improvement rather than a personal attack. People were more open to constructive criticism and advice when it came without judgment. The fact that he looked like an angel certainly softened the blow. 

It was human nature to feel attraction to beautiful things. People surrounded themselves with objects and other people who brought them pleasure. Harry was guilty of that. Hell, he was wearing Misha’s suit today because he was too cut up to go back to Grimmauld Place and fetch more of his own clothes; his house became ugly to him when Draco wasn’t in it, filling the place with music and that tittering squirrel laugh. Without Draco, it wasn’t home anymore. 

People listened to Harry because they enjoyed his packaging, too—he was their saviour, still fresh from battle, still young and good-looking. In their eyes, he could do no wrong. None of that mattered if he didn’t respect himself, or if he didn’t know how to respect others. That adoration was like a gun in untrained hands; liable to go off and hurt anyone with the misfortune to be nearby—usually those who believed in him the most, people who trusted and loved him. Taylor and Fred were only the beginning. 

He had to teach himself how to do the right thing, because he’d never really learned how. Otherwise a lot more people were gonna get hurt by him—the man who _was_ the gun, and could never put it down even when he so wanted to.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

In order to return to active duty after having been involved in combat, all Hit Wizards had to pass a screening process which included a cognitive test, brief sparring and firearms assessments, a short written exam of randomly selected laws and procedure, as well as a trip to the Seongsil machine operated by Ophelia Summerby. 

Harry finished his written tests, emptied a magazine through the center of a target for Ivan, broke Chesnokov’s nose even wearing sparring gloves which made that crazy fucker laugh, and aced his cognitive assessment… which arguably could be used to say he never had a concussion in the first place, to which Harry could easily assert it was a mild concussion and after suffering many in his teenage years he’d developed an effective treatment regimen for himself. He doubted anyone would kick up much of a fuss about his mild head injury, and would rather be happy that Harry was fit for duty again, putting himself and Sia back in the rotation. All that was left was a drop of his blood fed into the plain silver machine made by wizards on the other side of the world. 

The first time he’d done this had been an exercise in humiliation. Ophelia’s son was also gay and recently married which made Harry feel marginally better, but he remained an instinctually private person. The fact that his co-worker, a relative stranger who was old enough to be his mum, knew he bottomed on a regular basis still made him sit upright in his chair, goosebumps on his arms, his toes twitching in his shoes and unable to maintain eye-contact as he waited uneasily for his results. He just wanted to pass his screening and get the fuck out of her office. 

Generally, Harry avoided Ophelia as much as he could without seeming rude about it. She knew about the sexual things he did with his butt. She knew without his wanting her to know. It was an accident, of course, yet it made him deeply uncomfortable to have his preferences outed to a witch he barely knew. He hoped she didn’t think he was stuck-up or some kind of jerk for avoiding her; he was still learning how to be out, how to navigate his new publically queer life. His privacy was very important to him, and it had been looted by this machine before he understood what he was agreeing to. 

Ophelia was just doing her job. She probably learned all kinds of strange personal things about people—and she likely knew a dirty thing or two about Dima and Sia after testing their blood a few times. She’d know about Dima’s illegal creature-bond at the very least. The Ministry was covering that up—he and Misha had papers giving them immunity, free from ever being prosecuted for being illegal and unregistered Animagi after their efforts in the war. Plus it was done to them as kids, under duress, and against their wishes. If they hadn’t complied, their dad might well have killed them. Due to their having been underage and under duress, the Ministry pardoned them, sealing the records concerning their creature bond so that no one else could learn such a thing was possible and attempt it themselves. 

Ophelia was reliably discreet about everything she learned through the personal nature of her job. She was a nice lady who knew how to keep people’s private business to herself. She reminded Harry a bit of Poppy Pomfrey in that way; she was uncompromiseable. If anyone wanted dirt on Harry, they’d have better luck getting blood from a stone than in working a single drop of intel out of Ophelia Summerby. As a loving, supportive mum of an openly gay son, she had even more loyalty in her heart, and would never turn on Harry. 

Ophelia wasn’t the reason he was so on-edge sitting in her office, waiting for his results. 

There would be no Lubrication Charms or Anal Cleaning Spells on his assessment today. Because Draco had left him. At least the machine couldn't analyze his feelings; otherwise Deep Depression, Grief, Crippling Heartbreak, Criminal Remorse, and Abusive Self-Hatred would be on there, too. 

He popped for Sleeping Draught. He could read as much upside-down as his results came out of the slot. He’d needed a few sips from Dima’s brew to help fall asleep most nights. Otherwise nightmares invariably woke him. The potion wasn’t a problem but Ophelia still offered not to record it on his internal file—it was within the scope of her job that she could omit any results of a personal nature from records, so long as the information she redacted wasn’t pertinent to job performance. 

“Uh, yeah,” Harry agreed quietly. His boss didn’t need to know he took sleeping potion, and it wouldn’t be relevant to Healers or MediStaff should he be admitted to St. Mungo’s. No one had to know. “Thanks.” 

The machine didn’t detect muggle drugs or alcohol—thank God, because Harry had smoked a good amount of weed that weekend, and had a few drinks, too. 

There was one line on the report which made him scratch his head. It was listed in the Unknown Magic section, described only as “Sorcery.” No other indication of what it might be. 

In his gut, Harry suspected that indistinct reading was the subtle, subliminal magic going on between himself and Nebojsa—the Serbian language jumping into his head, and whatever Nebojsa might be experiencing but was too considerate to put on Harry’s shoulders at a time when he was already dealing with so much. 

Sia’s impregnable secrecy drove Harry to drink Sleeping Draught, too. Unspoken words ate at Harry’s soul. So did unsolved mysteries. Especially lying awake in bed every night, the man with all the answers lying next to him wearing Dima’s sweats as pajamas. Nebojsa was packed full of secrets—a ruddy bastion of the undisclosed. Having learned he had sex for money, Harry had to wonder what else his friend wasn’t telling him, how many more omissions or outright lies were out there, too personal or too uncomfortable to be said. Unlike his methods with Draco, Harry wasn’t about to attempt to fuck the truth out of his friend. Sia might not be talkative after he shagged, anyway. 

Harry would have to stick to the old-fashioned method: waiting for his mate to decide he was ready to talk. Harry wasn’t a naturally patient man. 

As usual, it took a solid two minutes to get the numeric assessment of his magical proficiency. Harry wasn’t exactly in the mood for small talk as he waited. Ophelia sensed he wasn’t in the best of spirits and kept to herself. 

He wasn’t expecting anything different. It was considered normal for a witch or wizard’s magic to increase a few points from year-to-year, tapering off as they reached adulthood. Nash was monitoring Harry’s number, understandably curious how strong he might become since he was only eighteen now. His boss was looking to mentor strong officers, hoping they would stay with the division. Nash wasn’t old, but eventually he’d need to recommend someone to take his place, and Harry was one of those promising individuals Nash had his eye on. 

The makers of the Seongsil machine stated in their literature that a wizard might expect his number to increase up until age thirty or so, as the human brain reached maturity. Certain events could boost a person’s abilities as well; mastering complex spellwork, pregnancy, or becoming bonded to a spouse. Other events might lower someone’s number—death of a loved one, financial stress, or other negative experiences. Harry suspected that Draco walking out on him might put a dent in his meteoric power. And maybe that was a good thing? If he couldn’t be trusted to do the right thing, then he ought to have his abilities dampened until he proved he could do better. 

Close to three tense, silent minutes went by before the Seongsil spat out his new rating. Ophelia’s eyebrows went up, handing it over. 

“Three hundred nineteen,” she announced—surprised at the significant increase. 

He’d shot up over forty points in the last two weeks… which made no sense. The love of his life left him for fuck’s sake! He was a wreckage of a wizard, sipping Sleeping Draught to rest at night, crying all the time, crashing with his mates, not telling anyone else about his heartache for fear of being judged or putting his husband’s safety at risk. He was scrambling to fix things with Fred and Taylor, desperate to avoid detection—and the subsequent prison time—not to mention his constant worry for the destruction not just of his own life if his crimes were discovered, but everyone around him who loved and depended on him. 

He was living out of a duffle bag. He had to buy a new toothbrush because his old one smelled like Draco and even that made him too God damn emotional to cope: Misha found him crying, unable to speak the first time he went to brush his teeth. Everything he’d failed to nail to the floor was spinning out of control as his world turned continuously; he had no gravity, no center because Draco, his light and sun, his universe, had disappeared down a black hole called Bipolar I With Psychosis, and that was in some small ways his own fault. _He_ failed. He didn’t feel powerful after all of that. He felt like petrified scum. 

Trying to make Harry feel better and knowing he was big on sarcasm, Ophelia winked at him before dead-panning, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were pregnant.” 

Because forty-some points _was_ the average witch or wizard, the equivalent of an extra person inside him. Harry’s number was so out of proportion that it was hard for him to remember where he sat in relation to the rest of the world. Toting around an extra person’s worth of magic barely registered to him. Worse, he had no idea how it got there, materializing out of thin air like a galleon under his pillow from the Aptitude Fairy. What had he done to earn it? Nothing a far as he could tell. 

To Ophelia, he said gently, “Sometimes I… I wish magic could do such a thing, you know? Biological conception for same-sex couples. It’d be amazing.” 

If it were possible, then her son Ephraim and his husband Corbin would be able to have children. So could Dima and Sia. Or Galina and Mandy. Or any other same-sex couple. That would mean so much to so many people. Other gay and queer couples would do anything to have that bundle of forty extra points be a little person created of both their bodies and brought into the world through the greatest magic of all, love. 

Perhaps those who were gay and wanted children wished for them so badly because they understood that children were the purest kind of love, and they knew that love from others could be fickle, could fade if you did something they couldn’t comprehend or didn’t approve of. Gay people understood losing your family over something you couldn’t help, couldn’t change. For some, starting a family of their own—a love and acceptance sprung from their very own bodies and manifested into being—became that much more important. Children were a way their love for each other could live on, forever a part of the universe. At least, it was that way for Harry. The love he had for Draco would die with them; they were cut off from what others could do on a whim or even by accident. Of all the power he and Draco collectively possessed, there was still this one thing they’d never be able to do, and it was the next big thing Harry had always dreamed of for his future life. In marrying Draco, he’d cut himself off from the dream of biological children. 

Draco was worth it. It made Harry sad to give that up. He hadn’t properly mourned the death of that dream. 

“Would you have a child, if you could?” asked Ophelia. 

She was probably thinking that any child of Harry’s might have forty points worth of power even in the womb. There was no telling how much combined greatness and mischief those green eyes and messy black hair might get up to once unleashed on the world. Or maybe they’d be alabaster-blond like Draco? Harry’s black hair made a blonde child highly improbable on a genetic level but when magic was involved, anything was possible. Except his child’s existence. It was too bad. They’d already found the prefect name for a daughter: Delphinia, a flower and a star. If they had a boy, Harry would let Draco decide his name. That only seemed fair. 

Harry nodded. It wasn’t even a question. “Absolutely. Maybe it’s unusual for a bloke, but I’d always daydreamed about having a family of my own one day. I can’t help but feel like I gave up on biological children when… well, never mind. Loving your spouse is enough. The two of you, together… that has to be enough.”       

He wasn’t pregnant. He couldn’t be. No wizard could: wrong equipment. It was an interesting discussion to pass the time. Harry left with no clue as to how his magic had grown, as well as a sinking feeling in his chest that he was further from his dreams than he’d ever been before.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry wasn’t expecting to be assigned a mission or sent into the field for a few weeks yet—at least after Christmas, if not into the new year. Generally new Aurors and Hits worked in the office, getting their feet wet by occasionally stepping out with more experienced co-workers on mild, non-critical assignments.

But Harry was technically back on duty from his head injury protocol. He and Sia were in uniform and on-call that afternoon when Nash marched up, a folder in his hand and a hard look on his face. 

"Potter. Radić." The boss jerked his thumb towards one of the newly created rooms where magic was allowed. 

They were just a couple of previously empty offices which the Unspeakables had shielded the ever-loving piss out of—a place for Aurors and Hits to practice their spells on-site. They didn't want everyone popping back and forth to the old Ministry building willy-nilly, gumming up the Trans-Location Barrier they'd installed. The new barrier was for official purposes only. Those who could Apparate from Public Apparition Points around the city were still encouraged to do so. The magic of the barriers was harder to shield against leakage, and too much magical seepage would destroy their computers as well as their cover. The shielded offices were a middle-ground, a place to perform magic in a pinch, or to Apparate out on an urgent assignment. 

Harry and Sia grabbed their wands, loaded and holstered their Glocks, and followed Nash into one of the little shielded rooms. It had a sofa, coffee table, and a simple armchair. The only decor was a print of the stadium from the 1986 World Cup, an impressive structure hidden in the rainforests of Guyana. Harry found his eyes going to it even as Nash spoke. He paid attention, but the stadium in the middle of swaying trees was beautiful to look at. He wanted to go to Africa someday. 

Nash briefed them, and they Apparated directly to Diagon Alley.

 

 

 

 

He and Nebojsa made their way through the streets at a brisk pace. Sia's legs were just as long as Harry's and they made good time, moving unconsciously in-step. Harry only noticed when their footsteps sounded like one person's boots against the paving stones.

It had been two days and Nebojsa still had a headache. Not enough to keep him in bed. Harry had watched him root through the medicine cabinet, looking for something to get through the day. His stomach was still hurting him, too. He hadn’t eaten much, but he was able to drink tea and a smoothie picked up on the way into the office that morning. He still got up before dawn to attend church before work, but skipped his usual workout. His discomfort wasn’t noticeable to anyone who didn’t know him well, nor was it slowing him down. Harry supposed that Hit Witches sometimes had to work while on their periods so—as long as Sia wasn’t contagious, his reflexes and decision-making on-point—this was more-or-less the same. 

He had what Misha deemed to be a natural condition, and he was dealing with it the best he could. If it stood a chance of interfering with his work, Sia wouldn’t be here putting Harry at risk. 

It helped that people sprang out of the way upon seeing the new Hit Wizard uniforms, recognizing that familiar saturated blue color despite the strong aesthetic changes. Those with muggle backgrounds backed away at the sight of guns in Diagon Alley—Harry carried openly on his hip, while Sia concealed a 26 in the small of his back under his armored vest. They were loaded with Stunner Rounds which they filled themselves. 

It would take a while to get used to seeing officers dual-armed. But North and South America had acclimated, so the Brits could too. They were often behind-the-times, which explained how the Death Eater movement was able to gain such a foothold. Hell, it started in the UK—in any other country or at any other school, even Durmstrang, young Tom Riddle might’ve met with a more open and forgiving attitude about blood status, gay people, and everything else he grew to hate. Harry suspected something about the Brits made his people especially susceptible to self-hatred and repression, which was a gateway to hating and oppressing others.   

He and Nebojsa turned down Knockturn Alley. There, witches and wizards got out of their way just as fast... but they turned their backs rather than gawk and realize one of the officers was The Boy Who Lived. The shoppers of Knockturn Alley didn't want to be scrutinized too closely, and that started by not making eye contact with anyone walking by—especially a team of uniformed Hit Wizards. 

It was an overcast day to begin with, and nearly everyone in the poorly lit alley wore a shade of black, making it a challenge to pick out the Auror they were meeting. His department's uniforms remained back with silver fastenings, a popular style for civilian robes, too. 

Nebojsa lifted his chin. He rarely pointed, and he didn't want to attract unnecessary attention by raising his long arm. His tattooed hands were covered by dragonhide gloves, his vest and robe the insulated winter version with a collar covering most of the ink on his neck. 

It was cold enough they could occasionally see their own breath. Sia’s words left his mouth in a cloud as he spoke. "Zhere." 

An Auror with tufts of white at his temples and more silver than brown in his short beard was questioning a woman. She wore good quality robes with a low neckline, showing off her chest propped up with some magical equivalent of a push-up bra. No woman's breasts stood up quite like that on their own, especially a woman her age who might’ve had a teenage child. A simple woolen shawl with tassels, the whole thing faded from black to a dreary grey, wrapped her shoulders. She was otherwise bare—no makeup or jewelry, no hat, no adornments in her hair, no handbag, no shopping bags or paper-wrapped purchases under her arm. Every shop would wrap your items for you if you were leaving to the muggle side: it was required by the Statute of Secrecy.

The woman was perhaps in her early fifties; average-looking, her dry-textured dark brown hair worn loose around an oval face, her thin mouth showing a few wrinkles at the corners which traveled up to frame her small round nose. 

She spoke with a very thick accent. Harry's ears recognized something between Russian and Romanian pronunciation, so she was perhaps Ukrainian... or possibly Moldovan, though the smaller country didn't have much of a magical population to begin with, which was further reduced by the war. She might've lived in one country and then emigrated to another after marrying. She wore no wedding ring, so Harry had to recant his mental assumption that a lady her age was likely married. She could be single, or a widow. The fact that she wore black wasn't significant—many witches did, especially in Knockturn Alley. There were also a large number of widows after the war, which explained why Harry’s eyes saw a parent-aged woman in a black robe and automatically assumed ‘widow.’ 

Nebojsa tapped two fingers against Harry's shoulder blade, providing him with the Translation Charm he would need to engage properly. Nodding to each other that they were as ready as they could be, they approached. 

"Moss," Harry acknowledged the Auror from a few paces. He inclined his head to the witch Auror Moss was speaking with—this was a soft detainment, nothing formal yet. They were only trying to help her by bringing in someone who could understand her better. " _Gospozha_." 

The woman looked between the newly-arrived Hit Wizards, assessing them. Her face betrayed nothing. She was an absolute blank. 

Harry did the talking whilst Nebojsa observed. Moss stepped back to be out of their way—hands clasped behind his back, gazing down the alley but likely still listening though he couldn't understand the language. Harry and Sia hadn't been called simply because Sia spoke Russian, but that was what they would present... for now. 

Nebojsa was silent beside him. He conveyed nothing through their mental link, wanting Harry to take the lead and feel this one out on his own. Nebojsa was there to back him up, there for Harry to lean on if he needed backup. 

"I understand your daughter is missing," Harry said under translation. It wasn’t odd to hear Russian coming out of his mouth anymore. He sang in Russian sometimes. It was interesting that, like Sia, his Russian had a light Serbian accent—maybe that was his now. "I'm very sorry to hear about that. We're here to start a formal investigation, if you like. Could you please tell us more?" 

He pulled out a small notepad which he kept tucked under one of the straps of his chest guard. From his own pocket, Nebojsa wordlessly handed his partner a muggle pen—knowing what he needed and providing before he had the chance to ask for it. That was Sia’s specialty, after all. He made it feel seamless, like he’d always been Harry’s support. He was probably just mind-reading on his partner. 

Harry looked back at the woman expectantly, the writing instrument poised to take note of everything she said. There would be paperwork to fill out back at the office, and he didn’t want to rely solely on his and Sia’s memories to get the details right. 

The witch had been pan-handling—begging passers-by for money to help her find her missing daughter. That was the story she told everyone walking by. Going by the way she was dressed, it seemed she'd sold most of her possessions and was hard up for gold. One of the shop keepers floo-called it in, not keen that her presence was deterring people from entering his shop. By wizarding law, the woman had a right to be on the streets asking for coins. She couldn't go into a private business to ask customers... but she hadn't done that. She was within the law. 

She stared at him. Hard. 

Most people's eyes moved upon seeing Harry Potter for the first time. Harry knew the path—a ring around his round glasses, then up to the legendary lightning bolt etched into his forehead. Though his hair was quite long now, he tied it back out of his face for work, leaving his scar totally exposed. He was wearing contact lenses too, not wanting his glasses to fall off or get damaged in a duel and leave him blind. Something about the thin shield over his eyes managed to intensify their natural color. His taller, stronger, long-haired and bearded self may not look like the boy people remembered seeing in the newspapers for years, but he remained recognizable as grown-up Harry Potter. He would never be rid of his long nose, floo-fire green eyes, or his scar. 

This woman didn't react a centimeter. She blinked placidly at him, looking up directly into his face. There was something vaguely familiar about her eyes—their color caught between brown and green, a kind of hazel where flecks like leaves floated in a brown pond. Harry knew he'd seen another person with sable-brown hair and those mixed-color eyes before, but he couldn't place precisely whom of his Eastern European acquaintances this lady might be related to.

" _Da_ ," she said slowly. "My daughter. She's been missing for some time." 

When she didn't speak more, Harry prompted. "Have you filed a report with any other Ministries?" 

She gave a tiny shake of her head. Her hazel eyes stayed fixed on his floo-fire ones. 

He pressed out of genuine interest, his Saviour Complex activated and ready to help her if she wanted him involved. If anybody could find a missing girl, The Boy Who Lived Twice was her absolute best possible bet. "How long has she been missing? And where did you last see her? Did she disappear here in England?" 

The woman acted like a statue, not speaking another word. 

Harry understood why Auror Moss had called for back-up. The woman's behavior would be especially suspicious to the average officer. Most people would expect a woman with a missing daughter to be distraught—frantic, perhaps crying, begging anyone who would listen for help in finding her baby girl. All parents thought of their kids as babies regardless of how old they were. This lady's daughter was probably close to Harry's age, give or take a couple years. 

The woman's stoicness, her lack of feeling, her speech and body language devoid of any emotion like fear or rage... could be taken the wrong way. First off, she was Eastern European; while Slavic people made plenty of noise to celebrate, their culture also valued keeping your head on in a crisis. She was something other than a frightened woman tamping down on her emotions, attempting to be logical in a difficult situation. 

Harry understood shock and PTSD perhaps more intimately  than most. So did Nebojsa. They could be temperate, compassionate, non-confrontational in assessing the situation. That was why Nash sent them as opposed to a more experienced team. This woman's sad situation required a more delicate hand. 

 _If_ what she said was true. By Nebojsa's silence and stiff posture, Harry was starting to have his doubts. He held off on asking Sia to confirm his suspicions, following his hunch. 

"My daughter..." The woman said very slowly, puffing out a long breath as though unsure what to say next. 

Locking up was common with PTSD. So was having issues with your recall of traumatic situations. Perhaps her daughter had been snatched in front of her. Or... or she was lying, struggling to invent details on the fly when presented with a famously perceptive person like Harry Potter to try to deceive. 

Nebojsa's nostrils flared. He gave no other reaction, his face as much made of stone as the witch's. Perhaps as Harry talked to her, Sia was trying to use his superior Legilimency skills to read her mind? She might be so distracted in speaking to Harry because she was fending off Nebojsa’s insistent psychic probes. But that didn’t seem like something Sia would do. He was probably assessing other factors without poking at her head. 

"Yes, your daughter," Harry repeated. He asked gently, "What's her name? And yours?" 

Harry waited through an agonizing silence—the witch staring him down, cold-faced, and him not uttering another word. He was waiting on her answer, however long that took. And he was willing to let his own silence become uncomfortable; if she wanted to get to her daughter so badly, she would overcome whatever doubts were flying through her head and speak up. 

Help was right in front of her: Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, and Nebojsa Radić, one of only two wizards known to have escaped Death Eater captivity. The other was Draco, Harry’s own spouse. Ollivander and Gregorovitch were still living under the radar in America, recovering his nerve, not ready for anyone to know they'd made it. They had the right to hide. And so did this woman's daughter, if she'd run from her mother rather than having been taken. That was a possibility, too. 

Harry let the silence drag on, during which he pondered where this year’s class of first years had gone to buy their wands without Ollivander or Gregorovitch in business. Probably Kiddell’s. They were still open down the alley. Kiddell wands were considered cheap, but not totally inferior. They were functional, just not handed down as heirloom pieces the way people regarded the artistry of Ollivander or Gregorovitch, and the modest price tag reflected that. 

When the woman didn’t speak again after something like an entire minute of staring at each other, Nebojsa finally broke his silence. 

His voice was so soft, spoken with a kind of sadness. Harry almost missed his words. “Where did you get Olenka Novikova’s hair? She’s been dead nearly five years.” 

Her thin lips curled to a snarl, reaching for her wand. 

Harry and Sia were faster, surprising her by not reaching for their wands, too. They didn’t have to get sucked into a duel, going for a combination of brute force and embedded magicks to de-escalate the potential fight before it began.

Sia snatched the woman’s arm as it crossed her body, pulling her wand from her opposite sleeve. His thin fingers were deceptively strong, controlling her forearm, forcing her to turn away from him so that her other hand couldn’t become a threat. He spun her around so that they had her back. If she couldn’t see them, her reactions would be slower. Harry dropped low, his pen and notepad thrown aside, putting his broad shoulder to her middle—just below her ribs, getting her right in the kidneys, the impact of which would be felt in the diaphragm to effectively knock the wind out of her. She was an average size woman, but Harry was taller and heavier. It wasn’t hard for him to control her. He had to pay attention that he didn’t hurt her. 

She was close enough to a building that he didn’t have to push her far—just one shocked, stumbling step—before he had her up against the drab brick. Sia moved seamlessly with them, still in control of her wand arm as Harry pressed her into the brick wall, preventing her from escaping. He transitioned from full contact to just his forearm against her upper back, his arm stretching across her shoulders below her neck so there was no risk of injury. The pressure was enough to keep her still while allowing her to get her breath back. He tucked a foot between hers, tapping his much larger boot against the inside of her shoe; if she tried to squirm away, he could hook her ankle and trip her. He didn’t want to have to grab her by the hair if he didn’t have to. The tactic was effective, but too rude for his hyper-aware morality when it came to crimes and women. 

He’d messed up once with a woman in his care and it rightly scarred him for life. He wouldn’t fuck up again if he could possibly help it. Sia was there to make sure he followed the law, just as Harry was his touchstone as to when action became necessary. 

Her free elbow fired back, trying to hit Harry, to knock him off of her. Her strike bounced off his armored dragon hide vest—it probably bruised her elbow while Harry didn’t feel a thing. She could’ve stabbed him and he wouldn’t have felt it, either, thanks to the layers of spellwork woven into his armor and the indigo gi beneath. She couldn’t hurt him, so he didn’t have to hurt her, either. That fact made the whole exchange much easier on his end. 

He was just glad she’d struck him and not Nebojsa with his three-day stomach ache. If she’d hit Sia instead, she might’ve had a fraction of a chance at getting away. 

He and Sia exchanged a quick flash of eyes. 

 _Yes_ , Sia was confident, too. They could bring her in peacefully, without having to hurt anything more than her pride. 

“Hands behind your back,” Harry said. “You’re under arrest for drawing your wand against a Hit Wizard.” That was very illegal—three years in Azkaban, minimum. The only people who’d ever been tried for that particular crime and found innocent were able to prove there was a credible threat nearby which they were defending against… usually a creature of some kind which the Hit had their back to or couldn’t see for some other reason. They were in the middle of Knockturn Alley at one in the afternoon with nearly a dozen witnesses about, so that defence wouldn’t hold up. 

Sia had gotten her arm to the small of her back as Harry pressed her into the wall. Sia held her by her wrist, low, contained. He could have canted her arm up which would cause a sharp pain to her shoulder—though it wasn’t damaging, just uncomfortable. He chose to simply restrain. 

“You’d arrest a woman?” she gasped. Now that she was angry, she found her voice again. 

“Your breath smells of Polyjuice Potion,” Nebojsa countered. That was why his nose twitched when she spoke—he was sniffing her breath. He knew that smell perhaps better than Harry, having lived off the stuff for weeks after Dima and the lads broke him out of Death Eater captivity, and again after he lost a kidney at Valaam. Being Polyjuiced into Harry’s body had saved his life, so the smell would be a deeply-held memory. Of course he recognized it. 

Nebojsa reached for her other wrist without touching yet. His hand hovered. He was giving her the chance to comply before he forced her. “We don’t know if you’re a witch or wizard. Release your wand, and put both hands at your back,” he repeated Harry’s instruction. “Now. You’re being taken into custody.” 

She couldn’t use magic against them. In grabbing her arm, Nebojsa had tagged her with an Enemy Combatant Disarming Jinx woven into his leather gloves as well as his forearm bracers—a technique of arming one’s clothing to activate on contact which Leon taught Harry, and he in turn passed on to their training class. Their non-Durmstrang instructors raised a few eyebrows at Harry’s casual understanding of neutral embedded magicks normally only taught in NEWT-level courses at the defunct school. But Harry did what he had to to survive. At least now there were rules—codes of conduct by which he carried out his duties while respecting the rights of magical people, even if they’d committed a crime. He couldn’t fix the past: all he could do was try to be better now. 

She’d drawn her wand with the intention to cast a spell or to duel them, so they restrained her and prevented her from using any more magic to hurt them or anyone nearby. That was fair as well as legal, and didn’t impede anyone’s rights. She’d committed a crime by drawing her wand on them, so their questioning ticked up to an arrest. 

Possession of Polyjuice wasn’t illegal. But using it to impersonate another person to a law enforcement officer or any other Ministry official was a violation of multiple laws. So was pulling your wand on a Hit Wizard. It was three-on-one and still she went for it. If anything, Harry admired her guts, though not her lack of wisdom. 

Behind them, the momentarily startled Auror Moss was now effectively shooing people away when they tried to stop and look, curious why Hit Wizards were performing an arrest in broad daylight. And probably gawping at the new uniforms. _Witch Weekly_ said the new threads made Law Enforcement sexy for the first time in four hundred years. 

The witch under Polyjuice turned her head and spat in Nebojsa’s direction. Her spit missed him by millimeters. She snapped out a quick, dirty phrase which Harry couldn’t decipher. The language was outside of his charm, nor was it Serbian. 

At her words, Nebojsa backed away, signaling with an abrupt jerk of his head that Harry ought to finish the arrest. Whatever she’d said, Sia wouldn’t touch her now. Perhaps he thought it prudent—if she’d insulted him in some way and then he had to use force to bring her in, it could be construed as retaliation. He wanted her arrested and brought in correctly, without a whiff of misconduct on either of their parts. Harry appreciated that. 

This was their first arrest—his and Sia’s, both. Harry needed this one to be by-the-book. After the awful week he’d had, his heart couldn’t handle something unfortunate happening on the job. An allegation of improper behavior aimed at Nebojsa would simply break what grit Harry had left. 

Harry gave her one last chance to comply. “ _Gospozha_. Release your wand and place your other hand behind your back. Now. Or I _will_ incapacitate you. Final warning.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Being the most proficient Apparator, Nebojsa did a Side-Along for Harry, Moss, and their prisoner impersonating Olenka Novikova, landing them in the secure booking room in the old Ministry building.

Upon their arrival, they earned about a half-dozen wands on them—standard procedure, though disconcerting if you weren’t used to multiple people pointing their wands in your face the moment you arrived somewhere. Harry’s back automatically went up at the hostile welcome; alert, his heart picking up in his chest, but refusing to hold good procedure against them. It wasn’t their fault that their actions reminded him of when he and Nebojsa came into this building as the Gregorovitches to be detained and tortured on purpose. 

That had been his own dumb decision. And Sia’s. He could tell his partner was involuntarily flashing back to that moment when Bellatrix Lestrange seized him like a cat with a mouse and dragged him off to be toyed with before she killed him. This time, their prisoner would be treated with dignity. That brought Harry back to earth as much as it did for Sia, cooling their blood and keeping their wands stowed, no magic sparking around their hands. They were okay.   

Upon seeing the familiar navy and indigo blue of Hit Wizard uniforms, wands lowered as one, the clerks returning to their duties. 

Harry had the imposter's wrists bound by a charm which wound all the way up to her elbows—so she couldn't try to smack him in the stomach again. If she got Moss in his belly she had a slim shot, but Harry and Sia wore enchanted-leather armor she stood no chance of getting around empty-handed.

He controlled her by way of both hands on her shoulders, walking behind her, steering where she ought to go as he could see over her head. Sia and Moss flanked their detainee, Moss carrying two wands which they'd found on her, and a knife which was hidden by a strap on her leg. It was Harry who ended up reaching under her skirt after feeling the presence of a weapon in a standard pat down. He managed not to blush—to stay professional as he skimmed under her skirt and up her bare leg to retrieve the blade—but the experience had likely been mortifying to her more-so than for him... or whomever had Polyjuiced themselves into her likeness, anyway. Harry himself was no stranger to Polyjuicing himself into a woman's body. It could’ve been anyone in her skin. 

The Ministry had some two dozen holding cells in the building where she could be kept until the officers' testimonies were taken and a court date was set. 

Harry hadn't been down to those cells again, nor did he wish to. They were the same black, cold blocks of bars where he and Sia had rescued Garrick Ollivander... that would be a year ago next month. It felt like much longer than that. It would never be long enough for Harry to go back to those cells and feel nothing. He would always see Death Eaters holding people captive there, no matter what the place might look like now.  

Moss and Sia handled the initial details while Harry kept their detainee still. Soon, he felt a familiar shifting beneath his hands. He knew the sensation of Polyjuice wearing off from experiencing it himself. It was a bit different than when Fred and George's appearance-shifting potions wore off. Polyjuice was significantly more painful. 

He kept a good hold on the body in front of him. Moss drew his wand. Sia took a step closer, ready to assist; unlike Moss, he knew exactly what was happening. 

"Polyjuice Potion is wearing off," Harry advised so the administrators in the room wouldn't kick up a fuss. That was precisely the kind of distraction they didn't need—one in which their imposter could try for an escape... providing the transition back to their own body didn't knock them unconscious. It sure made Harry feel faint a few times. 

He was a tad surprised when the body before him grew rather than shrinking. The witch's good quality robe split at the shoulder seam as their body expanded, revealing a man's collar bone. He wasn't weedy, nor was he noticeably muscular. A slender-to-average build for a man in his seventies, Harry guessed, when the head of hair before him turned from rich brown to titanium dark silver. The hands tied at his back bloomed with a few age spots, knuckles growing, fingers becoming a bit more twisted. He'd obviously broken a few fingers—whether playing quidditch or getting into fights, it was impossible to say. Both types of injury looked exactly the same once healed. 

Having his Polyjuice Potion wear off in a room full of witnesses was about the worst thing that could happen for this man—sealing his fate. It was abundantly clear that he'd been under Polyjuice Potion whilst speaking to law enforcement. _That_ was an additional seven years for willful identity misrepresentation to a Ministry official. 

It was a struggle to get any information out of their prisoner. Moss stuck his wand in the guy's face, but Sia gently lowered the Auror's arm, moving the threatening wand away. This was his and Harry's arrest, not Moss', and they were in control of every step, responsible for all that went on until the prisoner was handed over to guards. 

"Your name," Harry instructed again, without a wand brandished at him. 

The man relented. "Boryslav Kolisnychenko." 

The booking clerk took over. "Place of birth?" 

Kolisnychenko understood enough English to comply. "Lutsk, Ukraine." 

"Occupation?" 

This time, he had to answer in Russian. "Undertaker." Harry repeated that back to the clerk. 

That was how Kolisnychenko was able to get dead people's hair for Polyjuice Potion. He was running around as Vitya Novikov's mom, Olenka, who as Sia said died years ago. Nebojsa probably went to the memorial service; he and Vitya had been friends, so of course he was there to support his mate when his mum died. 

As a magical mortician, Kolisnychenko would’ve had access to hundreds if not thousands of bodies during his career. Harry imagined he might've run quite a lucrative operation in black market hair at one point. 

With the war over and the Death Eaters decentralized, it appeared Kolisnychenko's business dried up, and he was using his stores to run street-cons in order to survive. He had Olenka's hair because, Harry guessed, his Death Eater clientele might’ve taken offense had he tried to sell them her likeness; at least one of Olenka's sons, Vitya's twin brother Zoran, was himself a Death Eater. Harry and Vitya had fought him in his Animagus form back in Moldova, and as far as Harry could tell Zoran was considered dead, but that wasn’t confirmed. Olenka wasn't on any known-Death-Eater registries, but she was Death-Eater adjacent, so as a disguise she was inherently suspect. That meant Kolisnychenko was on his last legs, and desperate. 

When thoroughly questioned, there was a good chance he might surrender names of those he'd sold to, and the names of the deceased he'd stolen hair from. The Brits would know who to be on the look-out for and could disseminate that information to governments around the world. Capturing Kolisnychenko could be a very good thing... provided he decided to talk to save his skin. He couldn't avoid time in Azkaban, but the length of his sentence might be shortened for cooperating. He wouldn’t even go to Azkaban at first—until the renovations were completed, he’d be held here in London or by an allied neighboring government like France, Denmark, or Norway. Even Canada was taking British prisoners… and the UK paid a stipend for it. Thanks to some of Kingsley’s new measures, those budgets were now a matter of public record. It cost twenty-six pounds and thirty pence per day to house a prisoner. 

This was where Harry, Nebojsa, and Moss' involvement ended. Kolisnychenko's records were generated, guards took him away to be held, and the Hit Wizard Team and Auror Moss made their way back to Fenchurch to give their own statements and be debriefed by their respective superiors. 

Walking the black halls of the old Ministry, Harry leaned his head toward Nebojsa's shoulder. 

"What did he call you back in Knockturn Alley?" he whispered. Instead of hissing at each other and scaring the life out of Moss who trailed behind them, Harry thought it might be more palatable to conduct their own sort of debriefing in Serbian instead. 

Nebojsa shook his head. "Doesn’t matter." 

Harry knew that passively dismissive tone, even in a foreign tongue. He used it all the time. He pressed the issue. "Hey. It matters to me. He insulted you." 

Nebojsa's pretty face didn't move. With his hair secured in a knot at the back of his head, Harry could see each muscle of his jaw and throat beneath paper-pale skin. Sia was totally calm—not swallowing or pressing his teeth, not holding back feeling. He was absolutely, genuinely placid. He truly didn't mind. 

"Not the first time I’ve been called names. Nor the last."

Harry always said something similar to Draco during the war. It was important to keep a thick skin, not to let others get to you or influence your perception. Still, it hurt to be insulted. Words had meaning, could cut deep; even when you trained your ears and mind to ignore them, they could still get to your heart. 

It would end up in Sia's statement, of course. But with Kolisnychenko's Polyjuice running out in front of a dozen Ministry witnesses, it was unlikely their team's presence would be called upon at the trial. Kolisnychenko could be offered a plea deal and never stand trial before judges. Harry might never know. 

It was probably a good thing that Nebojsa had his secrets. In some ways, it put distance between them. Yet... he also piqued Harry's famously dangerous curiosity, too. The Boy Who Lived had built himself to solve riddles and unscramble mysteries—his life often depended on it. Sia putting up a wall between them only made Harry want to scale it, to know what was hidden on the other side. It was about peace of mind... and discovery. Harry was always searching for answers, comprehension, a deeper understanding of the universe and the people he cared about within it.

He wondered if Sia knew what he was doing was so supremely frustrating. If he understood that his occasional aloofness was what kept Harry at his heels, demanding answers. It was that way with Draco, too; how he kept Harry chasing after him, demanding answers to his constant twist of verbal riddles. 

It wasn't that Sia was outright lying to him—on the contrary, everyone was entitled to a bit of privacy. It was the fact that Sia didn't want to tell him, didn't want to share, which drove Harry spare. Nebojsa was his confidant, his rock in every storm... and a part of him wanted Sia to return that, to lean on _him_ when things got rough, when his feelings were hurt, when he needed a friend or a fellow dominant to relate to. Sia was everyone's priest. Who took his confessions? Who comforted him? Not Dima—that wasn't in his nature. 

For all he had a steady partner, having been in a relationship for more than six years, Nebojsa was in many ways by himself. That was his own choice. He kept everyone out. He chose to be alone.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

“Would you hand me the… never mind, then.” 

Blaise was about to ask for an oven glove; instead, Draco levitated the hot baking sheet of their mutual interest out of the oven via a wandless, wordless, only mildly facetious flip of his fingers. Another spurt of sorcery turned the buds, his dry and blinking eyes checking them over, making sure they’d decarbed at a low-enough temperature to preserve most of the crystals. 

Blaise had a high-quality weed source. It wouldn’t be right to ruin excellence by over-baking. 

Not many people knew that Draco fancied cooking. Not many people were aware he could cook at all, or would take him for the sort. Granted he did most of his cooking with magic. That was how he’d learnt. Blaise taught him quite a bit, and before him, Margaux. She was the angel who showed him how to infuse oils and butter with marijuana. That had been _such_ a lovely summer. Before his life went to complete shite, anyway. 

Once cooled, the buds would go into a high-grade edible oil and sit in jars to infuse, or be distilled and blended into a compound butter. They planned a fair amount of both carrier varieties—butter for savory cooking, and the oil to make sweets. They had several pounds of chocolate, and had even made marzipan. _Do it right or fuck right off_ , Draco always said. 

Blaise waved his wand, and the process began without their having to lift a finger. Strainers, glass containers, and the tub of freshly churned butter they’d picked up from the market all jumped to do his bidding. 

“I can’t believe muggles do all this by hand,” the Italian murmured. “Almost seems like too much work just to get high from your food. Except… I suppose muggles need to get high more than we do. Living their entire lives without magic seems almost cruel.” And he puffed twice on the blunt he’d packed, holding his air in his lungs and thereby rendered silent as he very correctly passed to Draco. 

“Feeling bad for muggles?” he mocked so long as Blaise was guaranteed not to answer. “Fuck me, mate. You’re stooooooooned.” He raised his eyebrows. “Best join you.”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry and Nebojsa volunteered for several shifts guarding Astoria and Neville. After finding a suitable furnished flat and loading it with every protective charm and ward in their considerable arsenal, the Fidelus Charm was performed. As their Secret Keeper, Ron spoke the address to his fellow Hits who would be guarding the pair until the trials for the Greengrass’ were finished, and Astoria’s intel was acted upon. 

As one of her assigned guards, Harry was granted access to her case files and able to read the statement Astoria had given minutes after watching her family and their traveling companions being arrested. Speaking on the record, she voluntarily drank a bottle of Veritserum to prove her authenticity. Astoria offered—it wasn’t standard practice. She didn’t want there to be any doubt. 

Harry sat in his office, reading her words on his computer screen. His heart broke in two.

Astoria had been raped. By multiple wizards. Her parents offered her up as breeding stock to several Death Eater commanders. Across factions, the movement had turned its collective focus to increasing their numbers after losing so many in the war. Children were easier to indoctrinate than converting grown men and women to the cause. 

Astoria had trouble conceiving, and so she was passed along. Her parents made her go with important lieutenants like Corban Yaxley, Thorfinn Rowle, and Laron Didier… all of whom were old enough to be her father. After months of repeated sexual assaults and still no baby in her belly, Astoria was given as a reward, a play-thing, to Maldon Rees. 

Just sixteen, Rees was a popular figure in the Death Eater movement, having been one of the prominent coordinators inside Hogwarts castle in addition to having attacked the Potters openly in the Great Hall, and ordered the breaking of Draco’s hand in a violent quidditch match. The easiest way to score points with the Death Eaters these days was through outright violence: bonus points if you got a Potter. 

By Astoria’s testimony, several Death Eaters actually maintained a ledger, a physical book in which they recorded the results of battles and skirmishes, assigning points based on damage dealt and the value of various human targets. 

Killing Minerva McGonagall was worth seventy-five points. That honor went to Theo Knott Sr before Draco took him out; Knott had gone after Draco again for the points, looking to increase his score. Rees had a respectable sixty points to his name, and he was only seventeen. Leading the pack was Philippe Didier, with fifty points for the murder of Alastor Moody, twenty-five for capturing and raping Harry Potter’s ex-girlfriend Ginny Weasley and bringing her under Death Eater control, with an additional fifteen points awarded for picking a verbal fight with Harry and getting hissed at in Parseltongue. You literally got five points just for making The Boy Who Lived hiss at you, like tapping on the cage of a zoo animal until the poor abused thing got angry and snapped in vain just to get you to knock it off. To them, Harry _was_ a zoo animal, existing for their entertainment. Philippe complained he was due another hundred points for raping Draco back when he was a Malfoy, before the war started.

They treated it like a game, an amusement. The point system kept spirits up while encouraging members to go out on occasion and terrorize the population as a form of sport. Each faction kept their own scorecards, distrustful of other groups. Fights often broke out over who was due points over what foul deed. 

Harry wasn’t surprised. He just felt sick. And so fucking tired.   

Astoria’s parents gave her away, handed her to various men like a pair of sneakers, an object rather than a person. They didn’t seem to care when she told them she didn’t want to have sex with men she wasn’t attracted to; her father slapped her, berated her as disloyal, then her mother took her wand and locked her in her room. Astoria never saw her wand again. She was that much easier to control without one. 

Her testimony said every other young witch she was able to sneak a few whispered words with also had her wand taken away. There could be hundreds of Astorias out there—under their parents’ influence, wandless, unable to engineer a way out or even call for help as they were abused by people who supposedly loved them and wanted what was best for the world. The girls were told they needed to sacrifice their own comfort and preferences for the sake of future generations. They would be heroes someday, the mothers of the revolution. Raped, assaulted, traumatized teenage mothers. 

Yaxley, Rees, and Didier had peculiar sexual tastes. Harry wasn’t in a position to judge someone for what got them off—but he certainly held it against them when they did it to an underage girl who was in no position to refuse. Knowledge and freely-given consent were the only difference between BDSM and assault. Harry had done both: he knew the bloody difference first-hand. He wasn’t perfect, but he knew where the line was. 

He wasn’t expecting what Rees did to her. Under Veritaserum, Astoria recounted in detail that Maldon liked her to kneel naked before him and thank him for choosing her to be a part of his plan back at Hogwarts—clear gaslighting, as Astoria hadn’t had a choice one way or the other. Her parents were committed to the Death Eater cause; they would hand her over to Voldemort regardless of whether she cooperated or not. She’d been terrified that year at school; her every move policed by Death Eater spies like Rees and her own sister, with Voldemort himself watching over them all through Ginny Weasley’s eyes, even Gin helpless to stop it. Astoria’s fear doubled just before the battle began, when she was dragged out of her dormitory without a word of why or where she was being taken. 

She was smuggled out through the repaired forth floor tunnel with the other students who’d been complicit in the plan, taken out of the castle as the Death Eaters came in, drinking Polyjuice Potion in order to take their places before the battle outside ever began. 

Astoria’s white kneazle followed her, tracking after her for days across Scotland, looking for his witch familiar. That smash-faced ball of fur never gave up on Astoria. If only anyone else had half so much faith in her, she might’ve been able to get away that much sooner. 

Astoria didn’t escape—she walked out of the castle into the hands of more Death Eaters and her parents who’d put her through this hell. She walked out of the castle and into a world of imprisonment, brainwashing and constant fear, peppered by assault and rape which her own family told her was for the good of wizardkind each time she came back to them bruised and weeping. Just like Draco’s awakening to what Death Eater culture was really about: control. 

After making Astoria repeat back what he wanted to hear, Maldon Rees would beat her. He only raped her if she was already crying—couldn’t get it up if she didn’t have tears on her face, if she wasn’t clearly terrified of him. As much as she tried, Astoria couldn’t teach herself not to cry. 

Harry immediately put his fist through the wall. Right into a steel beam.

He screamed, his hand brutally fucked up. Several broken bones, he could tell.

Dima heard him shout and poked his head through the door. He was about to ask if Harry was okay when he saw his friend hunched in half, clutching his hand to his chest, and the telling, fist-size hole he'd made in the wall. Dmitry knew what it was like to have a lifetime of pain take the wheel; emotion shooting up like a geyser, making you lash out whether you wanted to or not. 

Harry saw panic rise in Dima’s face—like when Nebojsa was hurt, coughing up blood and so close to dying. Dima didn't know how to see the people he cared about get hurt. It probably made him think he was about to lose another family member, another brother, even if Harry's hand was just broken in a couple of places. 

Dima understood why Harry hurt himself; he too used pain as a tool, a way to force himself to experience and process his repressed feelings.   

"Yoo need a Healer," the Romanian said abruptly, frozen to the spot. 

"No," Harry protested—what, he wasn't so sure. Mostly that he didn't want to explain yet another injury—incurred in his office, no less. He'd had a moment, an outburst, and that was private. "No Healers. Just... I'll use the Trans-Location Barrier to go to the old Ministry building and heal myself there." 

He had a briefing on the security plans for Astoria and Neville in half an hour, anyway; anyone watching would suppose he was heading over early. The Healing Spell would show up on his next Seongsil reading but that couldn’t be helped. He could lie, could say he was working out at home and accidentally dropped a free-weight on his hand, broke a few fingers, and had to heal it right away. Compared to the number of times Draco got his hands broken, this was literally nothing. Harry gave himself no choice but to suck it up. 

By next week, his boss and every other Law Enforcement supervisor would know he’d broken his hand and had it healed. That wasn’t so bad… as long as they didn’t know he’d broken it by losing his temper. He had a very good reason, but he ought to have better self-control by now. It was his lack of emotional management which embarrassed him the most. 

“I’m going vith yoo.” Dima insisted. “Hold on.” 

He tapped the door closed to speak quietly with Valya. Harry heard Dima’s deep voice through the drywall, telling Val secretively in Russian to call a workman into Harry's office to fix the hole he'd punched in the wall, to keep the door closed so no one would see the damage, and to charge the materials plus the workman’s hours to his own credit card which he dropped discreetly on Val’s desk. 

She understood her boss was following the Umbridge case, and she knew there were allegations of child abuse in the majority of those statements. Hopefully she'd assume Harry got upset by the victim accounts, which was partly true; the fact that he'd been one of the kids Umbridge tortured _was_ a part of why he put his hand through the wall. Because he still didn't know how to regulate his emotions. He'd been trained to bottle everything up until he exploded; engineered to fail, like a dodgy pair of trainers which would break often and need to be replaced. Harry was trained to believe that his very existence was impermanent, that he didn’t matter, the same as the Death Eaters tried to drill into young Astoria Greengrass. If she believed she didn’t matter enough to be treated with respect and dignity, then she’d never fight back or attempt an escape. She would accept poor treatment as what she deserved. 

Harry being broken benefited other people, made him easier to manipulate or take advantage of. He only saw it once he was treated right by strangers: when the Weasleys and then the Harpers took him in, when Nebojsa had his back in Death Eater captivity, even when the French muggles who ran the hotel where they spent their honeymoon came to Harry for help finding their missing daughter. It felt _good_ to be treated right, to be viewed with respect and shown kindness. His sick brain told him those were things he had to earn, not a basic right. 

Harry never expected to be treated well, never learned how to stop another Dumbledore or Umbridge from running him over, running his feelings into the ground. He took it—took the abuse, the pain—because he was taught that suffering in silence made him a man.

So here he was; a broken hand clutched to his chest, mute, trembling because he needed to scream again but his body wouldn’t let it out. He stared at the white walls of his office, seeing nothing, listening as Dmitry coordinated outside… as his friend stepped up and treated him right because he’d forgotten to value himself. 

Harry took his emotions out on the wall in part because he was mad at himself. Because somewhere deep down, he'd buried his memories of Dolores Umbridge and every other person who’d abused him as soon as they were gone. He knew Philippe was a rapist, but he never considered how the sick fuck learned those skills before unleashing them on fourteen-year-old Draco. He knew Voldemort held Ginny captive under the Imperius Curse for months, yet he never let himself consider what Riddle had made her do, what-all she might’ve seen during those awful months where her body wasn’t her own. He'd never thought about those hurtful people ever again, and never considered the other victims they'd invariably done the same horrible things to. He'd only felt relief that _he_ had gotten away, never sparing a thought for anyone else tumbling in the wake of his escape. 

That wasn't the man he wanted to be. He needed to lift others up rather than bury the scrappy pieces of his broken heart and simply run away. He’d been taught to run, to hide his hurt, never to tell; because when he focused so hard on himself, the people who hurt him would never be exposed and could get away with doing the same awful things to someone else, over and over again, because Harry Potter the broken child was guaranteed not to say a word. 

Astoria was telling. She was screaming the truth right there through the computer screen. She didn’t care what anyone might think of her. She wanted these atrocities to stop. And she was putting herself on the line to make sure everyone knew. 

Harry made a promise to himself: that the world would hear Astoria Greengrass’ voice loud and clear. 

His office door opened again. Two faces came to help him. 

Dima brought Ron. With a friend at either side, Harry was able to stuff his injured hand in his robe pocket. No one noticed as the three of them pretended to carry on a conversation, walking across the office and through the magic wall which would lead them to the old Ministry.

 

 

 

 

They stepped through the Trans-Location Barrier and into a dark, dimly-lit hallway near the Law Enforcement Library. Ron turned instantly to Harry, saying, "Let's see, mate. How bad is it?" 

"Bad," admitted Harry, sick of hiding, sick of lying to everyone about how bad he actually felt. “Fuckin’ hurts.” 

Ron hissed when Harry pulled his hand out. There was a jagged bit of busted knuckle bone poking through his skin. He hadn't noticed he was bleeding that badly. His hand dripped a good amount of red onto the shiny black floor, meaning his pocket would be full of blood needing to be spelled away. A combination of the war and being kinky meant Harry could Vanish blood stains in his sleep.

His brain always had that mantra: hide the evidence, hide the evidence, or everyone will find out you're a fraud. 

Ron looked at him like he was some kind of hero. "Fuck! How've you not passed out?" 

Dima had his wand out, ready to heal Harry. His golden eyes flicked at Ron for a second, debating what he was going to say. He decided to go with: "Sex vith men does zhings to your pain tolerance." 

Ron gulped, his eyes gone wide. He knew Dima was gay but the subject so rarely came up in conversation. He blushed a bit, but managed to keep his cool, saying, “’Suppose you’re right.” 

Harry snorted. "I was gonna say 'shock,' but… I suppose a little of that, too."

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry’s last day of work that week was Thursday, an administrative day for himself and Sia. Hits worked four days on, three days off. Dima and Ron were on middle shift, stuck in the office until eight that evening. 

Sia knocked on Harry’s door to let him know that Ivan requested help with a firearms demonstration for a delegation from the Australian Ministry—he would be staying late, probably after six and garnering some overtime pay, so he planned to work out after his demo and then head back to the flat with Dima once the Prince’s shift was over. 

For an entire week, Harry hadn’t gone anywhere without Sia or an Ionescue brother Spell-o-Taped to his side. Tonight was the first time he might be on his own for a few hours.

Nebojsa didn’t ask what Harry might get up to with his free time. Which was a good thing, as an idea started to take shape in Harry’s mind watching his partner walk back to his desk to fill out seemingly endless paperwork. Harry had a tiny scheme up his sleeve. 

He let Val go for the day. With everything important settled until he was back on Monday, he slipped out of his over-robe and into his coat, leaving the office the muggle way.

 

 

 

 

Harry stopped at what he considered to be the ‘good’ grocery market. The tiers of food quality were more pronounced in London than he’d experienced growing up in Surrey. If one wanted first-rate produce, one paid more for it. There were costs involved with getting fresh food into the city. Harry didn’t mind paying. Money was ephemeral, while his need to eat remained palpable. 

He could’ve Apparated anywhere, of course, but the muggle in him took a bit of pride at being able to stroll into the posh city market in his suit and tie, his leather-bottom dress shoes making a muffled _clack_ against the floor whenever his heels struck. 

He always felt it when someone had eyes on him; at least now he wasn’t so self-conscious about his appearance, knowing no one could find fault in what they saw. He wasn’t hiding under Dudley’s cast-offs anymore. He didn’t look like a child, bruised and drowning in someone else’s clothes. He was a man—successful, respected, in-command of his life. Or at least, he looked the part of the man he wanted to be. The woman who met his eyes across a display of vegetables did so because she thought he was cute; smiling at him, blushing a bit as she placed a head of broccoli into her shopping basket and moved on. 

Harry knew roughly what he needed: vegetables to roast in the oven, a fresh head of garlic, a loaf of French bread, one of those pre-roasted chickens, and a collection of smoked meats, cheese and stuffed olives. On a whim, he picked up two bottles of red wine as well. 

Looking over the groceries in his basket, something quite critical occurred to him: over the course of their acquaintance, more than a year and a half… he’d never actually seen Nebojsa eat meat. Was he a vegetarian?

They went out for sushi—Nebojsa ate the fried vegetables and the rolls without fish in them. When they had Indian food, he always ordered a meatless spicy curry. When they cooked steaks, Nebojsa ate the potatoes or other vegetables on the side. And bacon... Dima always ate Sia's bacon with breakfast. Harry assumed that was because Dima was an entitled prick sometimes—but no, it was because _Harry_ was an unobservant prick who'd never noticed that his best mate was a fucking vegetarian, even after living together for a summer and working glued to each other’s sides for months. 

God, Harry felt like such an asshole. 

He wanted to double check. Real quick, he phoned Misha who was out of town for a press event with the Cannons.

"Hey, sorry to bother you." Misha assured him it wasn't a problem. "Stupid question, mate. Nebojsa’s a vegetarian, right? He doesn't eat meat." 

"Correct." Misha spoke with a rising tilt to his voice, like Harry was pulling his leg or winding up for some kind of joke. 

"Okay," Harry nodded with the phone pressed to his ear. "I thought so. He eats animal products tho, right? Eggs, cheese, butter?" Having been wrong once, Harry felt the need to clarify even the most glaringly obvious. 

"Yes," Misha confirmed, still thinking Harry was being very weird. "He does not eat anyzhing vith blood or a face." 

"Gotcha. Thanks!" They said their goodbyes. 

Newly informed, Harry picked up some eggs so he could make breakfast in the morning, too. He would no longer be the oblivious friend who offered the vegetarian a piece of fucking bacon. Knowing now, the memory made him turn bright red in the middle of the check-out queue, pressing fingers to his forehead, properly mortified with himself.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry let himself into the warehouse flat with the key his mates had made for him. They said it was his to keep. 

He had a key; he had a toothbrush here; he had a drawer to keep his socks and underwear, and hangers for his work clothes, his things intermingled with theirs in the wash. Like it or not, Harry lived with them. Somewhere in the last week, he’d moved in. It just… happened. 

No one said anything. He was welcome for however long it took to get his life back on track. There was no knowing how long that might be. And yet… when he walked through the door, groceries in his arms, toeing off his shoes… it did feel like home.  

He put a Stasis Charm over the chicken to keep it warm—he and Dima would eat that. The whole thing would be gone in one sitting. Diligently, he cleaned and cut the vegetables, coating them in a bit of butter before popping them in the oven. With it he roasted the garlic before cutting the loaf of bread open, smearing it with the mashed up garlic and some more butter, and into the oven it went to toast up. 

While the food was cooking he opened the wine to breathe, cleaned their bathroom, took out the rubbish, started the laundry, and generally did the tidying which he, Nebojsa, and Misha usually took turns doing. With Misha out of town, it would’ve fallen to Nebojsa, anyway, and he was still feeling less than his best.

Harry and Nebojsa shared the habits of men who’d grown up with very little to call their own. What they had they took superior care of—their homes clean, precious few possessions organized and properly mended, ready for use. Nebojsa was always aiming his wandless magic to make the bed, wipe down the counters, or clean the loo. Tonight, Harry was beating him to it. Sometimes he needed his wand, other times the incantation would do, but he was surely getting stronger. He didn’t know what to attribute the increase in his wandless magic to, but bumping around the house he could feel those extra forty points reported by the Seongsil now that he was paying attention. 

Sia and Dima came through the door at twenty-after-eight, arguing about something. Harry could hear them in the stairwell, boots on the concrete, their voices jostling back-and-forth as Dmitry whined about something and Sia probably told him not to be such a fucking baby… but nicer. The pair stopped in the doorway, keys in hand; struck silent, smelling food. 

"Yoo made us dinner?" Dima choked out in disbelief. 

Nebojsa visibly swallowed. "Yoo don't have to do zhat, Harry. But zhank yoo." 

Harry scratched the back of his neck, eyes on the ceiling, the walls, not wanting to look at them because he’d blush. He wasn’t exactly used to being thanked—he was used to being snipped at when he did something nice, or jumped for sex as an excuse not to acknowledge that he’d done a kindness. Common courtesy was something he’d forgotten about the less it was adhered to under his own roof. 

"I, uh… I wanted to,” he admitted, his cheeks rather hot. “You've both been so kind to me. I wanted...." he trailed off, not sure how to express what his gesture was meant to convey—a part of why he settled on cooking them dinner in the first place: so he might not have to put words to what he was feeling. Gratitude, for sure. Respect. Some type of familial, brother-like love which he'd experienced shades of with the Weasleys and the guys in Gryffindor. 

This was friendship on steroids. These guys were his family. He wanted to take care of them, to do something in return for all they’d given him the last week. And a semi-home-made meal seemed nicer than yet another night of take-away, beers, and learning to play guitar. They'd still probably teach him a few new licks after dinner.

 

 

 

 

"He's cooking for us?" Dima murmured in Romanian, his voice oddly breathy, awed. He was falling, hard. And in his defence, it was hard _not_ to fall in love when you came home to a man like Harry Potter having scrubbed your house from top-to-bottom with magic and then cooking you dinner as a surprise. 

The bottle of wine on the table was a nice touch. And Harry bought flowers, which could definitely be misinterpreted. Harry... he liked flowers. All the women in his family were named after them. He liked being near attractive things, or having them in his home. At least in Serbia, buying a bouquet was a common way to show appreciation to one’s hosts when spending the night. In western culture, buying someone flowers had other connotations—romantic ones. Nebojsa wasn’t sure if Harry was observing the custom of his hosts’ countries, or following some whim of his own, and damn the possible implications. 

Dima wouldn't see this lovely gesture as platonic. He'd think Harry was trying to get them drunk and buttered up to _finally_ fool around in bed. Misha _was_ out of town that night. The three of them would be alone.

Dima's brain always jumped to the worst-case scenario, always assumed somebody was trying to use him or screw him or get something out of him. He wouldn't see that Harry's intentions were pure, honorable, motivated by a kind of familial love which transcended everything else. Harry wanted to do something nice for them, to feed them and care for them. And that meant so much more than if Harry had just gotten wrecked on red wine and tried to kiss one of them. He was demonstrating his feelings for them... but he was doing it on his own terms, respectfully, without violating anyone's moral code in the process.

Nebojsa grabbed Dima by his collar, bodily holding him back. He voiced a clear warning while Harry was distracted, pulling a tray of vegetables out of the oven. 

"Keep your pants on, Dimka. He's not hitting on us," Nebojsa whispered out of the corner of his mouth, speaking low and quick against the curve of Dima’s ear. "This is just how he shows affection. Don't read into it." 

"But—" 

"Nope." 

" _Blya_ —" 

Nebojsa’s voice went hard but stayed quiet. "We discussed this. We are doing everything in our power to get The Chosen One and his husband back together. Under no circumstances are we kissing, touching, fondling, groping, or otherwise having our way with him—no matter _how_ drunk he or we get. Do I make myself clear?" 

Dima rolled his eyes. "Yes, sir."

That ‘sir’ was mordant, but deep down he did mean it. Dima’s use of a formal title was his way of acknowledging that it was their responsibility as the more experienced parties to make sure everything which went on tonight remained platonic. 

Dima wasn’t agreeing not to have feelings. That was impossible. He was agreeing to respect Harry by not acting on what they felt. Even if Harry’s signals were wildly misdirecting at times, Draco had laid out clear boundaries months ago. Absent any further information, they would stick to the promise Nebojsa gave Draco. Absolutely nothing sexual would happen between either of them and Harry Potter. Even when he did something as heart-melting and trouser-dropping as cooking them dinner. 

"Thank you. Good boy. Wash your hands and let's eat."

 

 

\- - -

 

 

They ate dinner together, got a little tipsy—Harry hadn’t had a drink all week—and ended up piled in bed watching a movie. 

The _Rocky_ series was Dima's go-to, but tonight he put on his all-time favorite, _Boondock Saints_. 

Harry could see clearly in the film Dima's adoration of Nebojsa. He looked at Harry and Sia like the brothers in the film—taking matters into their own hands during the war, going out and applying lethal force to mass murderers and rapists and thugs in order to stop their message from spreading and harming others. Dima had a vigilante's heart, and he saw the same drive in his closest friends. 

Watching the end of the film was hard. When the brothers and their dad stormed the courtroom, taking justice into their own hands one last time… it reminded Harry of himself and Draco standing behind Leon Harper, the old man with his bushy white beard and a shotgun racked against his shoulder, all of them ready to die for what they believed in. 

On screen, one of the brothers asked, “How far are we gonna take this, Da?” 

Their father’s answer haunted Harry long after the credits rolled. "The question is not how far. The question is, do you possess the constitution, the depth of faith, to go as far as is needed?" 

That question was too true. It wasn't about whether or not you'd crossed a line somewhere, but if you had the stones to admit you'd fucked up. If your faith and goodness could overpower your shame and lift you back up again. If you could claw your way back to being a decent human being once you realized how easy it was to make the wrong choice, how easy it was to do nothing and let the bad guys win.

It wasn’t a question of violence, but one of heart.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry sat in Dr. Beasley's office the next day, staring blankly at his feet. 

"If I... did something bad. Really bad. If I told you I'd killed a muggle and buried their body in my back yard, would you have to say something to the muggle authorities?" 

Akilah pursed her lips slightly, sucking in air, her nostrils flaring. That was all the surprise she allowed herself to show. Harry had said stranger things in the past. "We're speaking hypothetically?" 

"Yeah." 

"Well, I'm what's called a mandated reporter. I work with military personnel, people who have an immense amount of training, who could potentially do terrible things with their knowledge, or the resources they have access to. Folks who could potentially become violent towards others. If I'm told of a crime which has already occurred, no, I don't have to report it. My priority, my oath, is to treat my patients. Though, in our hypothetical situation, if I thought reporting my patient would get them the help they needed, or prevent them from hurting others in the future, then I would report them even if I wasn't mandated to do so. I treat my patients. It's a balance of logic, ethics, and emotion, like we talk about." 

"Okay," Harry scratched the side of his neck, fingers slipping up into his whiskers, looking away as he thought to himself. "Let's say I didn't kill anyone. Suppose I... have a muggle tied up in my basement,” because Americans called it a basement; in England, it was a cellar. “I'm keeping them prisoner, and I tell you about it. What happens then?" 

Akilah's eyebrows went up. Her face remained otherwise serene, which was fascinating to Harry. She must hear some truly fucked up shit on a daily basis if even this wasn't disturbing her. "If a patient told me they were actively harming someone, or planning to do harm, I have an obligation to report them to muggle authorities. Otherwise I lose my license to practice medicine, and face criminal charges as an accessory to the crime." 

In short, if Harry had told her about Taylor while she was still under the Imperius Curse, Dr. Beasley could have taken him down. In theory, she still could. Now that he wasn’t actively controlling Taylor any more, some of the legality had diffused on Dr. Beasley’s end. Harry was still left in moral limbo, needing to fix the situation… and needing to fix his conscience. He didn’t see a way to adequately repair either. 

"So muggle law has clear protocol and consequences. What about on the magical side of things?" Harry questioned. He had his own understanding from the UK’s laws, but wanted to double-check. 

"Magical law has no such mandate," she explained. "If I were made aware of a magical crime, or of a witch or wizard in danger, I would have no obligation to report it." 

"Wizards don't have punishments if a magical person knows about a crime and doesn't report," Harry chewed his lip. "We don't force each other to snitch." 

Akilah shook her head, which was agreement with his assessment. "The magical community prioritizes secrecy, and so the ability to keep secrets is a trait we foster amongst our kind. It can be a detriment, psychologically. Often we are taught to keep our heads down and not say anything—which makes us easier to lead, but also easier to hoodwink and deceive. In trying to build trust amongst our people, we often create distrust. A certain amount of transparency keeps society healthy." 

She was talking about people like Cornelius Fudge and Dolores Umbridge. People like Voldemort, who wanted you to be afraid of them so you'd go along with whatever they said. A culture of fear was never a good thing. Everyday people had to be able to speak up against the powerful. 

"Muggles prioritize preventing violence," Harry observed. "And preserving life. Why do you think they're better at it than we are?" 

Akilah considered her own thoughts for a moment. "Perhaps magical people assume they're better equipped to defend themselves, while those of us without magic more readily acknowledge our mortality and helplessness. Wizards think their magic is enough to defend themselves against harm. Muggles know it takes a community working together to provide safety." She looked him over—his lack of eye contact, his leg idly twitching, his slumped posture. "Why do you ask, Harry?" 

"Oh," he started. He still couldn’t tell her the truth… not without destroying her practice, making her very-much-needed services inaccessible to all of her other patients. He wouldn’t do that to the doc. She’d been too good to him. 

So, one more time, he lied. "I'm working on a project—law enforcement as it applies to magical persons under seventeen. I'm trying to set up some kind of system within education—like muggle mandated reporters I guess—to get help to young people who may have done something bad, or who might hurt themselves or others, before it's too late and they're tried as adults for things they got sucked into as a kid. People like Draco. I… have a feeling there might be others like him, who want to get out before they’re coerced into doing anything worse." That was the most he was allowed to say about Astoria Greengrass, even in confidence. 

"That sounds like a very noble project." 

She believed him. She fucking believed him. Of course she did! Who _would_ believe that Harry Potter had kept a muggle woman prisoner? Being Harry Potter was precisely _how_ he could get away with it. And that was a large part of the problem.

That was how Dolores Umbridge was able to hurt so many people. How Dumbledore was able to leave an orphaned child in such terrible conditions. Magical society was primed to believe prominent adults over the word of kids, or Squibs, or muggles, or any other ‘useless,’ voiceless person. There was no one to advocate for the victims, to speak out, to speak louder. 

The same way he was abused and taken advantage of, Harry began doing to others. Because he learned that abuse was effective. That didn't mean he should do it, even if he could get away with it. The only thing stopping him from falling over the edge was his own beliefs… and Harry didn’t know what he believed in anymore. Certainly not himself. 

He hurt and lied to the people around him because those pathways were built in his brain over time: his abusers teaching him that they could always get away with their crimes, so there was no use in him going for help. Now, because he knew those terrible behaviors were effective, he was repeating them from the abusing side. Not because he wanted to... but because his brain told him that was the best path to survival. 

In the past, he'd wondered how Dima could manage to be so cold to Nebojsa in public, or how Draco so seamlessly became their school bully—this was how, this self-numbing, this auto-pilot behavior; mimicking the actions of your abuser because those actions kept you alive, kept you intact and safe from pain. Except that the pain you spared yourself was transferred to the person you took advantage of. Dima dumped his fear and shame onto Nebojsa, demanding his partner shoulder that burden on his behalf, just as Draco treated Harry and Hermione and Ron like shit all through school in order to feel better about himself while his father alternately abused and neglected him… just as Harry took his own fear of abandonment and his helpless anger over his parents' deaths and turned those emotions against Taylor, whom he allowed himself to label as a bad person, a bad mother, because she didn’t want to keep her accidental pregnancy. 

Like Dima, like Draco and Lucius and Umbridge and the rest, Harry forced his will on another person. It was quite possibly the worst thing he’d ever done.    

“I think…” Harry murmured. “It’s something I need to do. After everything, I… those people… they’ve made mistakes, done bad things, but… they’re victims. They only did those things because they were hurting. And they’re still kids. They deserve a way out. Otherwise they’ll only sink deeper, become more violent, and no one really wants that kind of life. Not if there’s another option. I want to build them a way out.” 

Except he wasn’t talking about someone like Draco or Astoria Greengrass. Harry was speaking of himself. He needed to atone, to re-align himself to the side he belonged to, fought for, died for. In order to escape those who would hurt him, he allowed himself to become too much like them. 

The only way to get out was to stop, to reverse his actions and do the opposite. He had to put together a plan, to figure out what that might look like.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Dima opened the bathroom door, sticking his head in… he was looking for Harry like a pet looked for its favorite human. No one was supposed to have favorites but it was inevitable. Harry was Dima’s favorite person. 

“He's at therapy,” Sia told him. “He’ll be back in an hour or so.” 

Dima flopped down on their bed, his hands folded behind his head—he knew how good his massive arms looked at that angle, showing off the definition of his tricep before it disappeared under the sleeve of his tee. His gold eyes dropped pointedly to his chest, purposefully sensual, inviting Nebojsa in. There was a begging, emotional flicker to his gaze, his soul unsteady and needing the comfort, trying to lure his partner in by looking so damn good so he wouldn't have to admit what he needed. 

Cuddling. This was a new thing. Before last year they'd never been willing to risk being discovered long enough to simply lie down and hold each other. The war was their first opportunity to actually sleep in the same bed, to wake up together, even if it was in some cheap motel room or on a mattress of dirt hiding somewhere in the woods. 

Dima hadn’t cuddled a year ago. He only started offering it after he saw Harry and Draco do it—as though he needed permission, instruction from those he trusted on what it was other couples did to feel close. Dima still wasn’t entirely comfortable with the operation, and only showed an interest recently. From watching Harry and Draco, he’d learned how to initiate it. 

Nebojsa peeled off his shirt and crawled into bed, wrapping himself up with one of Dima’s heavy arms, his head looking for a softer spot on that wide, heavy expanse of chest. He listened to each breath, each heartbeat, his fingers stroking freshly waxed muscles. Dima smelled like the almond oil and shea he rubbed into his hot skin, carrying the heat of the Romanian sun with him even three thousand kilometers away. His partner's body was as warm as a summer beach beneath him. His heat radiated outwards, relentless. The creature bonded to his soul made him run permanently hot. 

“I’m a terrible person,” Dima whispered. 

“Why?” There was plenty Dima could be beating himself up for, only some of it justified. Nebojsa waited to hear if this was normal guilt or something deeper. Growing up with a sociopath for a father did a real number on Dima; sometimes he struggled with reality versus the psychological filter he'd grown up with. 

A huge breath moved Dima’s chest, air filling his lungs. His heart stuttered under Nebojsa’s ear. “I… a part of me wants this separation to be permanent. For Harry to stay. For Draco to be single. I feel awful even thinking it, never mind saying it out loud.” 

“I know.” Self-interest had kept them alive this long—it was a hard instinct to resist, made all the more complicated when it meant rooting for someone else to falter. Neither of them _wanted_ the Potters’ marriage to fail… though they could both benefit if it did. The entire situation turned Nebojsa’s stomach, which still ached. It made him pray harder, for patience and wisdom. 

Dima dry-washed his free hand over his face, covering his eyes. His other arm tightened, caging, wanting Nebojsa close. “Without Draco in the picture… you have a chance with Harry. Or me with Draco. There's no way we could have them both; Harry's married to his word as much as he's married to the Dragon. I want him—I want them both—but I can't stand to see Harry get his heart broken like this. And Harry’s the stable one. I can’t imagine what Draco’s like. I wanna Apparate to Italy right now and find him,” Dima admitted to the rash churnings of his mind, his emotional desires. “I wanna drag his scrawny ass back here and lock them in a room until they work things out. I can’t _make_ Draco come back but… I want to. I think about him so much. I know it’s not right, though. I won’t do it. They’re just… fantasies, I guess.” 

For once, Dima was turning his back on the selfish choice. He wasn’t thinking of himself, but putting Harry and Draco first. The pair of them could be spending this time seducing Harry, trying to win him over… but they weren't. They agreed the night Harry showed up in tears that they would try their best to support both their friends and patch things up between the Potters—against their own interests. Because they cared for the Potters, deeply and truly cared, Harry and Draco’s happiness came before their own desires. 

“You would rather see them happy, together, and forever out of reach, than….” Nebojsa couldn't bring himself to say it. He didn't allow himself to speak about it, lest he entertain delusional fantasies of his own. It wasn’t healthy to dwell. 

There was no way anything more would happen between them and the Potters: not as long as Harry and Draco maintained a traditional marriage. On top of which… Harry might be into him—the hot glow of green eyes betrayed him—but Harry felt nothing beyond friendly affection for Dima. The lack of sexual chemistry between Harry and Dima would make for a trying dynamic where Harry’s jealous tendencies and unshakeable bias towards monogamy would constantly tear at every relationship; it wouldn't work unless _everybody_ wanted to have sex with each other equally. Harry wasn’t sexually attracted to Dima, and with that critical spark missing, the connection between the four of them was forever lopsided. Nothing would ever happen organically between them as couples without Harry feeling attraction toward Dima. 

Harry’s jealousy might as well have been an Anti-Boner Hex separating them; so long as it was there, nothing sexual could develop without destroying their friendship. It might take years of therapy for Harry to shed that need to possess and control the person he loved... or he might never shake it. Some people couldn't share their partners, and Harry might be one of those people. Right now he refused to share Draco… and he wouldn't share Nebojsa, either, should they start something in this uncertain time. He couldn’t see any feasible way forward. There was no path by which he could be with Harry _and_ stay in a relationship with Dima. 

Harry was too jealous. As he was, he would not tolerate his partner being anything less than one hundred percent sexually and romantically exclusive, end of story. Harry’s heart couldn’t take it. Even seeing Draco’s small, passing crush on Dima ate at him, made him feel resentful and insecure when his spouse looked at another person. Never mind that Harry looked lustfully at _Nebojsa_ all the time.  

It was better to give up. Thinking about it only left them both frustrated, slightly aroused, and unrequited. It felt almost like heartbreak before they'd had the chance to properly fall. 

“You're better when you're with Harry,” Dima observed, his voice earnest. “He's good for you. I've never seen you so happy.” 

Nebojsa almost laughed—it was true. “He's good for all of us. But Harry is _so_ giving, so generous… we have to be careful not to run him dry. He doesn’t know how to say no, how to stop.” 

Dima nodded. “That's fair. I do feel better with him. He's so… natural.” Dima never cared for overt dominance, like traditional scenes or pick-up play. He found negotiation boring and preferred to act, figuring things out as he went, a true practitioner of Risk Aware Consensual Kink. That hedonism often got him hurt or taken advantage of. Harry’s style of affection and his expressions of power were so perfectly in line with Dima’s preferences that Harry started on him without even realizing, his natural dominance playing too well with Dima’s light-but-heartfelt submission. Every day Dima was giving little pieces of his heart away, giving them to Harry for safe keeping. 

In a way, Harry and Draco were both very much like Vukasin—bright, intuitive, occasionally devious, naturally charismatic, born to be leaders. Because Dima never mourned Vuk, never dealt with that grief… he was gravitating now towards their friends who embodied so many of his brother’s strongest qualities. Dima wasn’t ready to be the big brother, to grow up and act the part of an adult. He didn’t want to be head of his family. He recoiled at the thought of being in charge. In Draco, he saw a fellow deviant ready to break from convention and stir up trouble. In Harry, he saw the perfect older-brother-figure to protect and guide him, keeping him on a better path. Both he trusted, deferred to, gave his heart to. 

“I don't… I don't want to be without him,” Dima admitted. “Even if it’s only ever as friends. I don't want you to be without Harry, either.” 

“So… we stay. We support Harry no matter what.” 

“ _Da_ ,” he agreed, reaffirming their previous decision, pressing his face into Nebojsa’s hair, inhaling against him. His heart beat a frantic rhythm. “If Draco really has left him….” 

Dima couldn't finish the thought. The words got stuck in his throat. A hitch of his chest, and dampness against Sia’s scalp. Dima always hid his face when he cried—his father had beaten him for his tears as a small child, so he learned to shove himself into a dark little place like a closet or the back seat of a car, somewhere he’d never be found, before he could let his emotions out: silent, shaking. He was crying for Harry’s pain, and for Draco’s uncertainty. And a few of his tears might've been for their own torn-up hearts. 

Nebojsa had only seen Dima cry a handful times. 

At Durmstrang, after he and his brothers decided it was themselves or their father. Dima feared being outed... but he feared more never having done that which he might be killed for. It was the first time he actually said the words "I'm gay." He didn't say "I love you." That wasn't who he was. Dima had never said those words; instead, he said "You are worth my life." And that was Dima's heart. 

Two summers later Dima had a paramour, a Greek wizard called Hector he couldn’t get enough of fucking, who was a few years older and into the same heavy S&M. Hector managed to take photos of the two of them and, when the relationship didn't go in the direction Hector wanted, he owled Dima copies of the compromising photographs and threatened to out him if he didn't pay a significant sum. Dima had been beside himself—in a rage, his face and chest splotched with red, throwing his fists about. He cried for himself, for being betrayed, for his foolishness in trusting someone with his deepest secrets. He cried for fear his father would somehow find out and murder him just like their mother. His angry, frightened magic blasted a hole through his bedroom wall. Then he went to a bar in Constanța where he proceeded to get steaming drunk, picked a fight he couldn’t win, and spent the night in lock-up; bruised, bleeding and stewing. Nothing brought Dima to his senses quite like getting his lights knocked out. They had Tiho to thank for that. 

The day Dima got out of jail, brought home in the back of a police car… Hector went missing.

His body never turned up. Nebojsa had his suspicions that Vuk, Chereshko, and Yuri got to Hector. Back then, there were so many Thestrals on the Ionescue palace grounds that, in a single night, one could feed them the body of an average-sized man, hacked apart—so long as one started at a reasonably dark hour of the night and went until dawn. 

When Hector disappeared, Dima's tears stopped. 

He didn't cry when Vuk died. Perhaps Dimka felt he had to be strong. Perhaps he'd been in shock. Perhaps his attention turned with hyper-focus to his own life and safety, or to Misha’s, forcibly transitioning himself into the role of eldest brother. Dima had never truly grieved for Vukasin. He had panic attacks and stopped sleeping... especially after Nebojsa was captured. Everyone he loved, the Death Eaters had taken away from him. 

That was the only other time he cried. When he feared his true and chosen Master was lost. Only Misha saw him like that, breaking apart… saying he would kill himself if they didn’t get his Master back. He feared the type of person he might become without supervision, absent forcible restraint. 

And again those were selfish tears—crying for his own anguish, his fears of what his life would be without the only man who'd ever loved him without condition, without any expectation of reciprocation. Nebojsa loved Dima for who he was—at his best, at his worst, and everything in between. Dima didn't like who he was without a righteous hand to guide him. And sometimes, to control him. He cried then because he was afraid of being alone with himself. 

Dima had at last found what love meant. To love another more than the self. To give up anything and everything for their well-being. Dima actually loved the Potters. A pure and decent sort of love; selfless, unconditional, uplifting. With all the bullshit stripped away, his feelings at last became clear. It took a long time for the fog of wrong action, fear and selfishness to clear. When it did, Dmitry was one of the best sorts of men.

“If Draco’s left for good…” Dima sniffled. He was wiping his nose on the pillow and not Nebojsa’s hair. “Harry will need you. More than me. You should go to him.” 

Nebojsa sat up, flinging a leg over Dima’s wide hips, straddling him. He leaned, his hair falling like a curtain around their faces. 

Dima was rarely selfless. Only for his family—Vuk, Misha, and him. Dima never cared enough about anyone else. Now Harry Potter made that short list. He looked up to Harry as perhaps more than a brother; to Dima, Harry was the highest-ranking member of their family, their leader, their chosen king. He deferred to Harry, even when it hurt. He was ready to sacrifice anything if it meant preserving Harry. 

Dima was giving his permission for Nebojsa to leave him, out of consideration for Harry’s deep-rooted jealousy and strict preference for monogamy in romantic relationships. He wanted Harry to have the comfort of someone who loved him, even if that meant giving up the greatest, longest relationship of his own life. 

Nebojsa pressed their lips. Kisses were no longer stolen, panicked, but luxurious and slow. 

“You have the most beautiful heart, Dimka.” It was good to see his true self again. 

Nebojsa took a moment to smooth his hair, fingers pinching his chin and lifting it, demanding eye contact. Dima’s gaze was rimmed in red, but he didn’t shy away. 

The one person neither of them could get away from—no matter how hard they tried—was also arguably the most powerful sorcerer in the world. Every time they attempted to retreat, Harry chased them. The Boy Who Lived wouldn't let them go… which kept them locked in this unsteady orbit; attracted but not acting, near but not intimate, dancing a tightrope of emotion. Every day they felt a little more, fell a little deeper. 

Dima was so strong, so steady. Day after day he watched Harry Potter—the most famous and powerful wizard alive—openly lust after his partner. And instead of feeling jealousy or inadequacy, all Dima felt was pride. He _wanted_ to share his relationship: he _wanted_ Harry to experience whatever he desired with Nebojsa… and maybe someday Harry might find a kind of love for him as well. The war had tried to strip Dima of the gentle man he was inside. He’d found that heart again; no longer a rebel, a renegade, only concerned for himself. Now he loved, deeply and truly. Now he wanted to share his heart. And he was willing to give up his own happiness for Harry to have it instead. 

Harry almost didn't deserve a love that pure. Almost. 

“Draco is coming back,” Nebojsa said. “Give him time. He’ll come around.” He didn't want to entertain a fantasy sharp enough to kill them. They weren't going to end up with Harry Potter; the man was utterly out of reach—married to, in love with, and faithful to someone else. It wasn't healthy to play what-if, to cling to this stifling, Dementor’s cloak of a dream. If they weren’t careful, this pressure could bleed them dry, could suck all the hope from their hearts and leave them as empty shells. Nebojsa didn’t want that. 

“If Draco doesn't come back,” Dima played devil’s advocate again. “Will you please go to Harry? It would hurt more knowing he was alone.” 

Nebojsa forced himself to swallow. He didn't make promises he wasn't prepared to keep. “We’ll see how things go, alright? I'm not dismissing it. I want to keep talking. We both want what's best for Harry, and for Draco too, no matter what.”

Nebojsa wasn't convinced he was a better match for Harry. The Boy Who Lived had chosen Draco, not him. Lustful looks meant nothing. Harry loved Draco. Harry wasn’t the kind of man who broke his word, his promise, his vows. Not for the entire world on offer, and certainly not for a fuck. 

Sad eyes fixed on him, seeing to his heart. “You don't believe Harry loves you.” 

Nebojsa cocked his head. Light cut through his hair, illuminating Dima’s freckles. He couldn't help but kiss a few of them, gathering his thoughts as his mouth worked. 

“I think… whatever Harry might feel for me, he wants his husband more. We need to respect his choice, no matter what. No relationship can last without respect. To be in his life, we need to honor him.” 

Dima whispered, agreeing. “Okay.”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry and Sia agreed to start grocery shopping together. With Dima out of the room, Harry pointed out it would help cut down on living costs. Take-away added up over time, and wasn’t the healthiest considering how active they were at work. And he would of course pitch in with the cooking and clean-up, so it wasn’t all on Sia and Misha. They had fucking magic—casting a spell to clean the dishes was _not_ that big of a deal. 

Purchasing groceries also gave Harry the opportunity to actually pay for something. His friends staunchly refused his offers to contribute towards their mortgage or any other expenses. 

At the market, Harry noticed Sia pick up a bottle of the full-fat cream he liked in his tea. Sia didn’t take cream in his tea or coffee, so the purchase was clearly an observation of Harry’s preference. Sia noticed, and made that small gesture, catering to him. 

" _Hvala_ ," Harry thanked him. 

" _Nema na čemu_ ," he smiled in return. And, putting the container in their shopping cart, Sia's pleasant face came level with his own. The Serb kissed his cheek; a sudden slight scratch of stubble, his warm breath, and the biting little pressure of the ring in his lower lip against Harry's skin. Plus a sweet, giving dampness which was… arousing. He _liked_ the way Sia’s lips felt on his skin. 

Nebojsa immediately pulled back, realizing what he'd done. The action had been a reflex—saying "you're welcome" and then giving his boyfriend of nearly six years an innocent kiss on the cheek. 

It was because they were speaking Serbian. There was an intimacy to speaking your native language with your partner… it was why Harry tried so hard to learn French for Draco, to slip a word into conversation here and there. Nebojsa had that shared language with Dima. His boyfriend learned Serbian to be closer to him, just as Nebojsa learned to speak Romanian over the years. 

Except this was Harry Potter he’d Serbian-smooched; his law enforcement partner, who was _not_ his boyfriend, and was married to someone else. 

Sia had kissed his cheek plenty of times saying hello or goodbye. This was different. The man had accidentally crossed over into Draco's domain, and that was not acceptable. Not... unless Draco and Dima were there to sanction it, Harry supposed. He would be okay with that, only if both of their partners were for it too; the fact that it had happened without Draco or Dima's knowledge or input bothered him more than the unexpected sensuality. 

Nebojsa's black brows drew together, shadowing his gaze. His blue eyes glowed, even in the shitty supermarket lighting. He looked like a wolf, a predator. At least until he gulped visibly. Then he didn't look scary at all. 

He knew he’d fucked up, and he was clearly very sorry. 

"Shit." Sia rarely swore, in English or otherwise. The muttered curse was an aberration on his lips. " _Shit_." A second time for emphasis. 

Harry found it appropriate given how mortified Sia was. And… kind of a turn-on, but he tamped that feeling down. He was upset. Now was not the right time for a sudden half-erection. He told his body; his prick didn't exactly obey him. Nebojsa swearing was… really fucking hot. Harry filed that away—he knew swearing turned him on sometimes, but when Sia did it, it was a new and wildly unexpected level of boner-inducement. If he didn’t stop cursing, Harry would have to ask him to stop before his condition grew indecent. 

"That zhould not have happened. My apologies." 

Harry swallowed the lump in his own throat. "It was an accident," he offered, accepting the apology. _Don't do_ _it again,_ _or there’ll be trouble between us_ , was implied by the hard-as-iron look in his eyes, mind-reading or not.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

That night Harry and Sia cooked dinner together. Harry made fish and rice; Nebojsa stir fried vegetables on the stove and cut up others for a salad. Harry was the one who grabbed the head of lettuce at the store, assuming it to be a staple of a vegetarian’s diet. 

Sia managed to take a large amount of vegetables and somehow make them different enough in texture and flavor that the meal didn’t all feel the same, though their plates would be half green-things. Harry cooked the fish in the oven, separate from everything else, so there would be plenty which Sia could eat, with leftovers to pack for work next week. 

The salad made it to the dinner table first, and Dima groaned loudly. 

"Zhere haz been a mistake," he whined. "Zhis iz zhe food vhich _my_ food eats." 

As far as Harry knew, Thestrals were carnivorous while Aethonans and Granians were herbivores like traditional horses. He tried to remember a time he’d seen Dima willingly eat a vegetable if it wasn’t accompanied by meat. Maybe he ought to have cooked some bacon and crumbled that on the salad. If it had bacon on it, Dima would surely eat it without complaining. 

Nebojsa glared daggers at his boyfriend. Harry thought Dima might actually burst into flame from endopathotic magic. Nebojsa was _mad_. Harry didn’t need to be able to read the guy’s mind to understand his side of things. He and Harry had taken the time to go to the fucking store, purchase actual vegetables, and prepare them. Since Dima never cooked, he had zero foundation from which to voice any complaint about the food which he was served. 

Dima picked up his fork, stabbing some lettuce with a very put-upon sigh. He tentatively put a bite of greens in his mouth. 

"Oh." He chewed. Then he stabbed another bite with markedly increased enthusiasm. "Zhis dressing iz actually good. Never mind." 

The back-handed apology didn’t do any good. Nebojsa still looked like he was mentally going over ways to kill his boyfriend while he slept. 

Harry had the right of it. As he pulled the fish out of the oven, he heard Nebojsa seethe at Dima under his breath in Serbian; leaning over the table, getting in his partner’s face to deliver his message. 

Harry wasn’t sure whether he was meant to hear it or not—if Sia just forgot Harry could speak Serbian now, or if he was so furious he momentarily didn’t care if Harry understood the threat he delivered to Dima on a malevolent whisper. “ _Harry Potter died for our sins. He does the dishes_ _without having to be reminded five hundred times. He_ _picks up after you_ _. He_ _respects our home. He made dinner for you—twice—you self-centered wretch, and you haven’t thanked him for any of it. Now you think you get to make jokes at his expense, too? To complain when he goes out of his way to include me? No. You’re sleeping on the floor tonight, asshole._ ” 

Harry figured Sia was exaggerating… until midnight rolled around, and after he’d brushed his teeth and put on sweats to sleep in—because no one in the flat had proper pajamas except for Harry—the Serb took a pillow from the bed and threw it on the ground. 

Sia snapped his fingers, pointing for just a second to direct Dima’s attention, his dark eyebrows rising threateningly. Then—as though he hadn’t just delivered a death threat with nothing but his glacial eyes—Nebojsa crawled into bed next to Harry, who’d watched the entire scene unfold over the top of the book he was reading… shocked, confused, waiting to see what would happen. 

Nebojsa really expected Dmitry—a billionaire, a duke, and a God damn Prince—to sleep on the floor in his own flat when Misha’s room was empty. Because Sia said so. Dima was expected to do it as a punishment, because he was inconsiderate to Harry. 

And Dmitry did. He got down on his knees, pulled a spare blanket from one of the drawers under the bed, wrapped himself up in it, and laid down on the floor for the night… like a dog. Dima settled into the punishment because he agreed with Sia’s assessment that he’d been rude; Dima broke the rules, and there had to be consequences. His sleeping on the floor didn’t mean anything to Harry, but perhaps the humiliation of being kicked out of bed—in front of Harry—and made to sleep alone might help the message sink in. 

As though this was all perfectly normal, Nebojsa reached for a small bottle on the headboard, getting a few drops of scented oil on his fingertips which he rubbed against his temples—sighing, his jaw relaxing, enjoying the little massage he gave himself before bed, seeming not to care that he’d consigned his boyfriend to spend the night on the concrete floor. He rubbed the excess oil from his fingers into the tips of his hair as a kind of conditioner before tying it all back using the elastic on his wrist. His eyes closed—the air around him smelling like eucalyptus and mint from the oil—and he settled down to sleep… leaving the bed-side lamp on so Harry could read as long as he pleased. 

It was… harsh, a bit cold, not something Harry would ever think to ask of someone he loved. Then again, he was a very different type of dominant than Nebojsa—and Dima’s preferences and needs were so different from anyone Harry had ever known. This was a side of their relationship he’d never seen before; they’d kept it hidden, not wanting their dynamic to influence Harry and Draco as they developed their own style, their own way of doing things. Just because Harry would never do it didn’t make it wrong. On the contrary, it seemed remarkably effective in getting Dima to think about how his words and actions effected other people. 

Harry almost missed it when Sia’s hand snuck out from under the sheet a few minutes after he laid down—his pale limb tattooed with Dima’s own designs slipping down the side of the bed to find a familiar broad shoulder. Sia gave a little rub and squeeze which read, _Please work on your narcissism, dear; it’s unacceptable that you’re rude to our friends, especially when they_ _’_ _re_ _guests in our home_ _. I need you to focus on this for the future._ _It’s important to me that you show respect to Harry as a member of our family._  

That wasn’t Harry reading Nebojsa’s mind. It was a feeling, a wave coming off of him. Harry knew Sia so well that he could put into words what Sia was putting across with that silent, consoling touch. It wasn’t consolation that Dima was put on the floor, but consolation for his heart, that he’d accidentally said something rude and damaged Harry’s opinion of him. 

Truth be told, the fact that Dima was willing to sleep on the concrete floor with nothing more than a pillow and blanket in bloody December was one of the most sincere apologies Harry had ever received, verbal or not. He _knew_ Dima was sorry. He could feel it. And he knew that when Dima got off the floor in the morning, he would try harder to be aware of other people’s feelings, not just Harry’s.    

Dima was capable of changing his behavior. He wanted to be a good friend, a good brother, a good partner. He fucked up because he spent his life subjected to conflicting messages. There would always be the voice of his father in his head, praising him for being self-centered and taking advantage of others. Then there was Nebojsa’s voice, the angel on his shoulder, reminding him to consider others before making decisions or opening his mouth. Harry knew what it was like to have opposite factions turn your head into a battleground; for seventeen years he had Voldemort’s soul inside him, fighting against Dumbledore, fighting against the love and determination handed down to him from his parents. Harry understood. So he was willing to give Dima all the time and patience and guidance he needed to figure out his new moral code. People didn’t change overnight. But Dmitry _was_ trying.  

Dima let off a tremendous sigh—sounding for a moment like the winged horse locked inside of him coming through. Harry never knew a person to make that almost whickering, sad sort of sound. It was how Harry felt, too. After everything, his work and sweat and tears, all the mistakes and the successes too… he still wasn’t anywhere near the man he wanted to be.

 

 

 

 


	22. These Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conversations, some of which conducted in bathrooms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** depression, disassociation, mamihlapinatapei, identity exploration, sexual anxiety, homophobia, shame, LGBT issues, discussion of gender transitioning, outing a passing Trans character, war crimes, mention of a dead body, law-breaking, an arrest, bribery, reparations, medical jargon, mention of euthanasia, reproductive issues, mention of past rape

 

 

_These days I can't take too much_

_I've been falling down, falling behind_

_These days I can't take so much_

_I've been falling down, falling behind_

_And I know what it takes_

_And I think we can make it_

_Through everything_

_You are all I need_

_Oh, I am away from you_

_Today I am away from you_

_Today time passed strangely_

_Today you don't know me, you said_

_Today I scare so easily_

 

 

"[These Days](https://youtu.be/QucF-hCey14)"

Wet

 

 

 

Harry and Sia were re-assigned to first shift, starting at half-five in the morning. The early start meant that Nebojsa couldn’t go to his usual sunrise vespers, and Harry had to forego his morning jog, settling for a quick round of pull-ups in the flat—racing Nebojsa to see who could get to one hundred first—before they set out for work. London was dark at that hour, a peaceful commute to Fenchurch while most people were still drinking coffee in their dressing gowns, looking out on quiet streets. 

Their crack-of-dawn schedule meant Harry was able to squeeze in the occasional extra session with Dr. Beasley after work thanks to the time difference. 

He expected to talk about Draco most of every therapy hour; instead, their conversation drifted to something which Akilah referred to as his ‘lifestyle.’ 

“The first ten years of my life, I lived in a closet,” Harry reflected. “Literally. My aunt and uncle would lock me in a cupboard for days, whenever my magic acted up and it freaked them out. I slept in that cupboard. It held everything I cared about: some second hand clothes and a few action figures, a couple of books, some scraps of food I'd knicked.” 

Harry rarely talked about his abuse at the Dursleys’ hands. No one believed him when he spoke up as a lad—when he told his teachers at school that he wasn’t getting enough to eat at home, that he didn’t have a proper bedroom and was denied access to a bathroom, sometimes for days at a time. He was labeled a troubled child, a liar, an attention-seeker. Others were warned not to believe his stories. “ _Your Auntie and Uncle love you_ ,” he was told, over and over again. “ _Why would you say that they hurt you? What’s really going on?_ ” Because no one wanted to believe the alternative. It was easier to dupe a child. It was re-framed as Harry’s problem: nothing wrong with the Dursleys, but with him. 

Without magic, he might’ve given in, given up and stopped fighting—let starvation or Uncle Vernon’s fists kill him, put an end to it all. Something inside him never gave up, even when his mind and his broken heart wanted to. His Hogwarts letter came just in time. 

"The next six years, everything I owned fit it a trunk I'd pack off to Scotland each fall. My whole life in a suitcase, like I might not ever go home. I didn't have a home outside of that trunk. 

"And then last year I packed a duffle bag and left England. I went out and got myself into the war. I had some fights, saw the world... got a gun and learned to fight back. Once more, my entire life in a bag over my shoulder. I've never had anything but a bag of stuff and a weapon in my hand: a wand or a gun or a sword, or the magic in my own blood. I’ve always been armed, packed-up, ready to march off and risk my life. I think Dumbledore wanted me that way. No attachments, no real place, no permanence. Easy to clean up if I failed. 

"Now... now my friends are princes who live in a palace. Everyone listens to what I have to say, and I’m believed no matter what. I have two commas in my vault statement. By marriage I control over twenty commercial properties, and I own three houses—one of which I've never seen, a flat in Paris. Draco was born there. I own Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire; I've only been there twice. Lucius Malfoy tried to kill me in the foyer. I nearly watched my mate Misha bleed to death in Draco's old bedroom. Voldemort was hiding something in the cellar, and we still don’t know what it was or why he was hiding it. All these places… they’re mine. I don’t know what it means to own much of anything.”

He leaned back, staring at the ceiling. "I just... I dunno if I can accept this life. If I can handle it. It’s like I’m pretending to be this bloke, this grown wizard everyone sees in me, but I haven’t quite found him yet. It feels like I'm gonna wake up from my dream-life and be in the dirt somewhere in the woods with a ring on my finger, a gun in my hand, and a blood-stained duffle bag with a horcrux inside slung over my shoulder. That life seems more real to me. I’m always carrying around something dangerous whether other people can see it or not. I don't know how to do this—how to be this respectable chap who owns houses, who goes to weddings and has meetings with important people like it’s nothing out of the ordinary. A bloke who buys whatever he needs without looking at the price or wondering how I'll lug it around on my back. My post-war life doesn't feel real sometimes. I'll blink and it might all go up in smoke." 

He’d never questioned himself so hard, never been this unsteady… not until Draco left. Without his husband to lean on, Harry felt truly lost. He felt like that kid in the cupboard—struggling to find hope, searching for something to hold on to. 

Akilah nodded. "That's called Imposter Syndrome. Feeling like you don't deserve your life, or good fortune... even when you know it's yours, even with the memories of working hard for it are fresh in your mind. Survivors of abuse often experience Imposter Syndrome after their abuse has ended. It's... residual psychological programming from your abuser, that you don't deserve good things, that comfort is temporary. Your mind is trying to prepare you for the worst; you sometimes see the more you have as more to fear losing, more that can be leveraged against you. Your abusers wanted you fearful, to better manipulate you. 

"So to work towards healing Imposter Syndrome, it's necessary to accept that you control your life, not someone else. That the things you have are a direct result of your hard work and others recognizing and rewarding your efforts. That everything you have can be gained again, if lost; by repeating the actions you've already taken, retracing your steps, and continuing on your same path. Success and happiness are not finite resources, Harry—everyone can have them. There's more than enough to go around." 

Harry smirked, wry. "And anyone who says differently is either a manipulator, trying to sell me something, or both." 

"Trying to sell you something?" Akilah questioned. Harry rarely talked about money, and it wasn't an idea they'd discussed before—that his youth and inherited wealth made him a prime target for schemes and scam artists. 

"I've been reading," admitted Harry. "After Draco got his family vault reopened… seeing that much gold in one place, I realized I had no bloody clue what to do with money like that. I asked Leon and Arty if they could recommend a few books about managing finances on that scale. I would’ve asked Dima but… despite being a billionaire, I think he knows more about spending money than managing it. Classic middle-child, I guess." 

Akilah’s brow arched. "Arty? You mean Ferrard Lachland, the philanthropist?" 

Even as a Squib, Akilah knew who he was. As one of the richest wizards in North America, it was rather hard not to. Arty had a magical hospital in Miami, Florida named after him, after having paid to rebuild it from the ground up after a hurricane destroyed the original structure. 

Wizards didn’t track one another’s wealth publicly the way muggles did, so there was no way to know how much gold Arty really had short of asking him. But he had enough to rebuild the biggest hospital on this side of the planet and not lose his shirt in the process. That was how Harry wanted to be with money. He wanted to be able to throw down massive amounts of gold whenever and wherever it could do some good for others. He didn’t want his name on buildings—that would be embarrassing. He just wanted to be helpful, for the money he’d come into to be put to good use. If he learned to manage it, tend to it, there would always be funds to give away. 

"Yeah, Arty and I go back a ways," Harry shrugged, off-handed—using a childhood nickname to talk about one of the wealthiest wizards in the world. "The war. You know. I connected him to a lot of good people looking for work. We get on. And we have this Iceland project we’re both in on. Arty owled me a muggle book about investing; the basics, and what to watch out for. He took a highlighter to one section, about how anyone trying to convince me there's scarcity is someone I shouldn't trust. Because there are enough resources on planet Earth for everyone—the rest is a problem of distribution, stockpiling, or constructed exclusivity." 

"It sounds like you're learning a lot," she observed. Then she went quiet, waiting for Harry to explain his new-found interest. 

It wasn't so much an interest as a necessity. He didn't want to be a Hit Wizard forever. He didn't want to work until his hair was white. Preferably he could retire early, whenever he and Draco were ready to have kids. That was his plan, anyway. To be something like at-home dads… he and Draco both if they could swing it. He never expected Draco to work if he didn’t have an interest or feel passionate about a career path; with his Bipolar, it could be hard for him to have a traditional job, anyway. Professional people might not be as understanding of Draco when he couldn’t conform, or failed to meet expectations, missed deadlines or lost his temper because of his neurological disorder. Draco might be better off outside that sort of environment—free to keep his own schedule, not locked down by other people’s standards he couldn’t hope to meet. 

Now their future was up in the air. But that wasn't an excuse for Harry to put down the books and stop learning. His curiosity, once piqued, didn't exactly die an easy death. He wasn’t a man who gave up on his dreams… even when their contents shifted. If anything, he saw more clearly now, understood and better appreciated the foundations necessary to build the new future life he saw taking shape in his head. 

"I’ve decided that I won’t stay with the Hit Wizards as my career-path,” he said. It was hard to talk about the future. He kept picturing one with Draco in it… whether or not that was reality or a fantasy, he didn’t know anymore. “I don't want to be like Franklin Cornfoot—with my grandkids finishing Hogwarts, all grown up, and me still working as someone’s deputy in Law Enforcement. My family is my priority and, at least for me, working until I'm in my 80's isn't an option. I want to be there; to see Ron and Hermione get married without having a panic attack at the ceremony, to babysit Teddy and watch him grow up, to be present for those moments which go by so fast... and I can't be there or fully enjoy those experiences if I'm chained to my desk at work. So maybe… I can go further with financing, owning things, making investments like I did with Weasleys Wizard Wheezes,” he admitted, though the idea still made him nervous. 

It was the business model of wizards like Lucius Malfoy and Arnet Didier… but it was also how Arty Lachland made his fortune. Harry didn’t have to be like Lucius; he could choose to be different, to be himself. 

“That’s a way for me to transition out of enforcement and into something which frees up my time to be spent on other things I value, things that make me happy without putting my life in danger. Because, as much as I enjoy being active and helping people… I’d rather spend my time with the ones I love. I think… no, I _believe_ I’ve earned that. I deserve to retire while I’m still young, and be able to enjoy my life. Other people can follow in my footsteps—they can step up and keep saving the world while I bow out and live a more normal, lower-stress life. It would be better for my mental health in the long-term. 

“If I build up our finances now—if I’m smart about it and leverage what’s already at my disposal—we could have a comfortable income without having to work at it more than a few hours each day. We could do some real good, too. Maybe reach _more_ people than I ever could as a Hit Wizard." 

Akilah was looking at him with… pity? Sadness? He couldn’t tell. All she offered was a gently probing, “We?”

Thickly, Harry forced himself to swallow, pushing his glasses up his long nose. “I’m… not giving up. I’ll never give up on Draco. That’s part of the deal I made with myself when I started therapy: try a new tactic, look for another way, be patient and try again later. I’m allowed to get upset, to need a break, to re-group. And Draco’s entitled to the same. But I’m not giving up on us. To me, marriage is for life. I chose him, and he chose me. I won’t abandon him, abandon _us_ , just because it’s tough.” 

Harry rubbed at the scar on his forehead—the same mark carved into Draco’s skin by magic they were no closer to understanding. 

“Draco’s not here right now. He… needs some time to himself. Maybe he’ll be back in a few weeks. Maybe it’ll take him a year. Maybe he’s never coming back.” That made his eyes sting, put a quaffle in his throat it was hard to squeeze words past. “I don’t know what he’s gonna decide. That’s up to him. But I’m not quitting. I don’t think you can ever quit loving someone. Not when it’s true. I’m taking that love and using it as fuel to keep moving forward. I’ve got to keep working, to get myself better—in proper order—for myself as much as for him. _We_ deserve that.”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

At the office, Harry spotted Nebojsa hunched over at his desk—elbows on either side of his keyboard, head in his hands, fingers gripped in his hair. At first, Harry thought it was another migraine. A deep breath moved Sia’s shoulders... not from pain but attempting to regulate his emotions behind the curtain of his hair, doing his best to shield himself from the world until he had it together. 

Nebojsa was upset. And, of course, Dima was nowhere in sight.

Harry was at his side in a blink—crouching down on the balls of his feet, getting close. He wanted to press his forehead into Sia's shoulder, to whisper and ask what was the matter. But he had to resist the urge to reach out. With Sia distressed, he couldn't predict what either of their magics might do. 

Nebojsa had been reading a freshly-released internal memo. It was still up on his computer screen.

Steeling himself, Harry grabbed the mouse, scrolled up to the top, and began reading. 

Three missing Danish children had been found and were now in the care of their grandfather. A ten year old boy called Henrik, his sister Liva who was five, and their cousin Josephine, age six. They'd been left home alone, staying in a remote cabin in the wilderness of Russia's Sakha Republic. Joesphine's parents were Death Eaters killed at Hogwarts, and she was taken in by her aunt and uncle, also Death Eaters. They'd lived in various strongholds across northern Europe during the war, retreating to that isolated cabin after Voldemort fell and the movement fractured into dozens of sub-groups fighting for prominence. 

The children’s parents and guardians were Oscar and Ella Madsen. 

Harry's stomach hit the floor. He knew why Nebojsa was emotional. Oscar Madsen was the crow Animagus arrested in Ohio—the wizard tasked with spying on Harry, Draco, and the Harpers. Oscar Madsen had helped set in motion the series of attacks which contributed heavily to Draco’s psychotic break. 

The Madsens had lived in isolation for the last six months, keeping an ear to the ground as so many lieutenants and commanders vied for dominance after Voldemort's death; each gaining and losing supporters, fighting amongst themselves when they weren't harassing smaller magical governments or stalking high-profile targets out of ambition, seeking to win glory and convert others to their side by taking out someone like Harry Potter. Eventually, the Madsens threw in with Augustus Rookwood, agreeing to join his planned raid on the Potters.

Ten year old Henrik recounted that his mum Ella came back from the Ohio skirmish badly wounded. She'd been shot through the abdomen, her wand splintered and barely functional. She was able to Apparate back to her children but her busted wand wasn't sufficient to heal her injuries. The children had never seen gunshot wounds before. Neither had Ella, a pureblood. They had no idea how to treat the injury. Within a day, she died. Henrik was left to take care of his sister and cousin. 

Alone in the mountains, the children would inevitably run out of food, and their mother's corpse frightened the little girls. Knowing they couldn't survive on their own, Henrik rationed out their remaining supplies, bundled up the girls, and they set out into the snow to make the three-day trek to the nearest civilization—a tiny village, Predporozhnyy, population just over two hundred. 

Arriving in the village—freezing, hungry, and not speaking a word of Russian—the muggles immediately took the children in. They scrambled to figure out who the kids were, where they came from, and who might be desperately searching for them. As pureblood children from Denmark, there were no records of their birth. As far as the muggles could tell, these abandoned children had appeared out of thin air.

Leon's office had put out a report of vulnerable missing children through various muggle non-profit groups after arresting Oscar Madsen—who refused to give the location of his family, believing Ella had gotten away, making her way back to the kids and moving to some other hole to hide. Rather than rat out his family, Oscar rolled on Rookwood, spilling what little he knew of hide-outs and future plans. Because he'd only recently joined their fold, Oscar didn't know much. It was the work of the muggle charities and their vast international network of volunteers which eventually located the traumatized magical children nearly a week later in that remote, snowy village. 

Josephine hadn't spoken a word since witnessing her aunt Ella's death; Healers weren’t sure if she’d ever speak again. Liva had screaming fits in her sleep. Henrik didn't sleep at all unless he was given Sleeping Draughts. 

Their father Oscar was facing life in Azkaban for espionage, murder, conspiracy against the American Ministry, trespassing on the Harpers' private property, being an unregistered Animagus, and a long list of other crimes from other battles he'd participated in. But because Oscar was arrested in America where laws concerning the parental rights of the incarcerated were quite clear, he would be permitted to see his children in a few days… providing he was able to pass several non-violence assessments. If Oscar Madsen were arrested in England, there'd have been no guarantee of ever seeing his kids again. 

Kingsley, the Ethics Council, and the Wizengamot were still in committee to iron out their new policies concerning prisoners’ rights; it looked like they'd compromise somewhere between the moderate position of central Europe and the more humanist American model. 

The Madsen kids were reunited with their grandfather in Copenhagen this morning. Through the Danish Ministry, their grandfather requested the help of Healers with experience in children's trauma. He was nearly ninety years old, and a widower, and suddenly he was a parent again to three kids with very serious needs. His request was being routed to a liaison at St. Mungo's as well as other hospitals in the United States, Brazil, and Japan. No matter that their parents were Death Eaters, there were people all over the world who wanted to help the Madsen kids. 

This was the first horrific story of many. Every battle, every skirmish, every victory or defeat, spurred more sad stories like this on both sides of the fight. 

At the bottom of the report was a list of updated conflict information—witches and wizards within the British Ministry whose files would be effected based on these events. 

Josephine's parents who died in the Battle of Hogwarts... Harry killed them. Their bodies were retrieved in the tunnel connecting the castle to Honeyduke's Sweet Shop, 9mm hollow-point bullets embedded in their skulls.

 _He_ , Harry Potter, was the reason silent six-year-old Josephine was an orphan. 

 _No_ , Nebojsa countered, having heard Harry's conscience start to blame himself for all of this. _They chose to follow Voldemort. They chose to attack a school, to endanger other people’s children. You reacted to their decision. You stopped them._  

Rationally, Harry knew Nebojsa was right. That knowledge didn't help him feel any less guilty. 

He wondered, when Henrik and Josephine and Liva grew up… if they would hate him. If every time someone mentioned Harry Potter their hands would clench into fists. Harry was the reason they suffered. Harry's existence, and their parents' choices. His name might trigger uncontrollable tears or fits of rage for the rest of their young lives. They might isolate themselves or pull away from wizarding society all together, just to get away from the idea of Harry Potter.  

To be honest... he wanted to get away from the idea of himself, too.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

That night, Harry took a bath. 

In the tub he felt… numb, staring blankly at the wall, and the water was starting to get cold. He didn't have the mental power to remember to use magic to heat it back up. He just sat there, getting colder, memorizing the shape of the tiles on the wall. 

Sia knocked on the door, apologizing. He needed to piss. Harry blushed, feeling like an ass, realizing he was monopolizing their only bathroom. "Sure, yeah," he shrugged. "Go ahead." 

With his back to Harry, Nebojsa unzipped his fly and peed. He let loose a tiny unconscious sigh, like he'd been holding it for a while. 

That innocuous sound—the zipper on a bloke's trousers—was sexual to Harry. It made his throat clench tight. It reminded him of fucking Draco in cupboards and loos, wherever they could get their hands on each other. The sound of a fly unzipping sent his mind racing, images of pale skin and scars flashing through his mind. He pictured his own hand taking down Draco's fly, making that same sound, before his fingers delved into tight pants and.... Shit, he didn't want to be turned on right now.  

In that awkward moment, Harry realized that Draco had never actually taken a slash in the same room as him. Because Draco was a ponce who never shared a bathroom before school? Or because Draco was anxious that if he did something so regular and normal as piss that the magic spell of their carefully constructed relationship dynamic would be shattered—Harry would realize Draco was human and imperfect, and might not love him anymore? Fuck. Harry understood Draco's anxiety because it was the twin of his own. Realizing that those feelings were disordered and a result of childhood trauma made him ache for Draco. There was no mistake Draco could make, no fault or flaw, which would ever stop Harry from loving him. That Draco thought he might lose Harry’s love made his heart hurt that much more. Draco didn’t get it. 

Harry wanted to have a relationship where it was okay to fantastically fuck up—and equally okay to be human, to be boring, to do something as mundane as take a ruddy piss in front of each other. Draco was so afraid of not being perfect, of scaring Harry away, of losing his love; because Draco thought love was something earned rather than freely given. 

Harry loved him, forever. Didn't he know that the only way Harry would ever leave him was in a body bag? Wasn't that what he'd proved in Slytherin Common room?

But Draco didn't want him. Not right now, anyway. That's why he was turning wrinkled in this bath, floating in his own cold thoughts. 

Harry couldn't stop himself from looking at Nebojsa's back as the wizard relieved himself. 

Harry had been in his share of public toilets. Some bloke taking a slash near him wasn't off-putting or unusual. But this was Nebojsa—his best mate, his partner, the wizard who had his back without question. A man who was so much like him in so many ways, and yet an entirely different person who Harry sometimes struggled to untangle. 

Sia had no issue with this. He probably shared a loo with Dima and Misha for years. They were a family, after all. And Harry, cold and somewhat shriveled in the tub, was a part of their family now. Maybe he had been for a while.  

Harry thought back to an earlier session with Akilah; they'd been exploring his sexual identity. It felt like the more he delved into the subject, the less clear his thoughts became; like dipping a paint brush into a glass of water. Each time he examined himself, a fresh load of color would be dumped into the water. After so much self-reflection, what had once been clear was now muddy, almost black—impossible to see through, impossible to know for sure.

He loved Draco. That much he knew. But everything else was nebulous, hard to pin down. Was he gay? Bisexual? A man who had sex with another man? Was he attracted to other men, or just Draco? Or was he latently attracted to other men, but only willing to admit to and act on his attraction to Draco? 

Defining himself felt like chasing a thousand Snitches at once. Not one wanted to give him a break and fly into his hand. The answers to his questions continued to elude him. 

Draco had labeled Harry as "mostly straight," and that truly seemed to fit as far as his preference. The physical attractions he'd experienced were by and large towards women. He felt more comfortable when a woman flirted with him than a man, although both still made him rather awkward and nervous. Which was crazy, considering he was married—and considering what he and Draco got up to in the bedroom. Why would a pretty woman winking at him make him uncomfortable, but getting fucked by Draco with both hands wrapped around his beautiful scarred neck felt perfectly normal? Because his heart was put together very differently than other people’s. 

Harry was attracted to women—drawn to them. He thought they were beautiful. He still fantasized about women’s bodies, the way a woman would touch him, the way her curves would feel against his own much harder frame. When it came to thoughts about sex, he still found himself female-oriented with the exception of Draco. Yet the fact that he was attracted didn’t mean he was at all comfortable around women. Making small talk with an attractive single woman or being more intimate—emotionally or physically—still clammed him up like walking into a freezer. 

When it came to meaningful relationships, he leaned heavily toward his own sex. Every building-block of a good relationship—hanging out, planning special things to do together, offering up favors without being asked, and communicating, opening himself up and talking through problems… those were things which, over the last few years, he exclusively wanted to do with other men. Not that women weren’t capable! Women were probably better, more experienced. For him, it was simply more comfortable to take off his armor and be vulnerable with his male friends—especially male mentor figures like Sirius and Remus. He paid attention to the emotional state of the men in his life, cheering them up when they were down, going out of his way to do something nice. In Harry’s mind, he was looking out for his mates who he loved like family; but to an outside observer… he could be caught instinctively flirting with his male friends more than he ever did with girls. And muggles had a name for that, too: homoromantic. 

He’d never wanted to take a woman on a date. The idea of spending time alone with an attractive woman with their clothes _on_ made him break out in a clammy sweat more than the prospect of time spent with clothes _off._ But doing romantic-type things with his male friends? That was the most natural thing in the world. 

Harry bought gifts. He planned surprises and special things to do. He wanted to see them happy. Harry was always the first to sit down and listen if Ron was having a rough day, to provide Neville the kind of encouragement he never got from his gran, or offer advice when Seamus and Dean had one of their legendary spats. In school, he’d made himself into a sounding board, a safe person for other guys to turn to and confide in; Harry built a reputation for being a good mate, knowing that other chaps would come to him for guidance… and he could get that fulfillment of his own needs in the process. 

Supporting other blokes made him feel good. Having their trust filled him with confidence and purpose. He’d always thought of himself as a role-model to other men, nothing sexual about it. But being that friend, that shoulder to cry on, that model of healthy male identity… it was one of the few things which genuinely made Harry feel good about himself, from the inside-out.

Now as an adult, that long-standing desire for deeper connection with other men had blossomed into these thunderous emotional ties—sharing clothes with Misha, reaching out to support Dmitry, and never letting Nebojsa pay for anything so that he could turn around and give every galleon he had to charity. 

For some reason Harry couldn’t pin down, he preferred his most bonded and dear relationships to be with other men. He’d connected with women over the years—Hermione and Luna he especially considered close friends. But when Dima and Misha came at him, bear-hugging him off his feet with twin contented growls, their heads pressed against him and arms wrapping him so tight it got tricky to breathe… Harry’s spine would disintegrate as his heart turned to mush, thinking, _Stay. Never quit doing this. Ever. We’ll just die like this and it’ll be fine._ It was the same feeling he got when Draco used to offer him a massage or cook for him. It _was_ romantic… romance absent a sexual component. 

As Draco grieved and went into a prolonged depression, he stopped doing those meaningful things, acts of kindness which were the food to Harry’s romantic soul… and Harry slowly started getting his emotional needs fulfilled elsewhere. 

Receiving love from other men made him happiest. He had to stop fighting it. He wanted deeply emotional and fulfilling relationships with other men, and sometimes that involved actions which other people considered more romantic in nature than platonic. It wasn’t sexual to Harry. It just felt like where he was supposed to be. 

At Dr. Beasley’s suggestion, Harry had started reading about the terms muggles used to describe sexuality. He read everything he could get his hands on, trying to find anything which described the uncomfortable un-erotic desert he experienced with other people verses the tiny, unexpected oasis of drowning sexual madness he’d found with Draco. 

For months he was convinced he was asexual. Because Draco was literally the only person he'd ever wanted to fuck—felt like his entire body would implode and cease to exist if he wasn't with Draco, if their souls weren't together for eternity; joined at mouth and groin, a physical manifestation of the connection in their hearts. 

If he was asexual, what did it mean that he had these frightfully strong, distinctly lustful feelings for Draco? Was it horcrux magic—a horcrux drawn to a vessel, a means of survival? He'd started to fear that was true. Especially when the war ended and Draco stopped fucking him. He feared that, as soon as Voldemort's soul was out of his body, Draco no longer felt drawn to him in the same magnetic, irresistible way. 

He began to resent his asexuality. It was a sign that what he had with Draco was manufactured—horcrux-driven, not something of their own choosing. That scared him the most. 

It was like taking a bludger to the head when he'd discovered something called grey asexuality. Specifically, _demisexual_. The day he stumbled across that word, his ears rang like he'd suffered a real concussion. A demisexual person rarely experienced sexual attraction to others. It might be necessary for a demisexual to first establish a strong emotional or intellectual connection, often a friendship built over time. Demisexuals could have friendly, purely platonic relationships for months or even _years_ before romantic feelings or sexual attraction might surface. 

It _had_ taken years for Harry to feel anything sexual. He'd known Cho for over a year before they started dating, and it still felt awkward holding her hand. Five years of proximity to Ginny gave Harry the confidence to kiss her back, to hold her when she came to him. Heather had reminded him of Tonks, of Draco, and of Sirius—after she got him drunk, he'd succumb to the natural order of events, thinking he should accept sex when she offered it. His prick wanted her, that much was sure. But like every other encounter it had been purely physical between him and a woman, like playing quidditch or working out; Harry enjoyed the activity, it was a pleasant experience, but he was at no risk of falling in love… or even wanting to phone her for a second date. His entire life, Harry felt nothing more than friendship and a mild hard-on. It took Draco to break that pattern. 

Love and lust were exclusively Draco's domain. Because Draco was the one he allowed himself to trust above all others. 

That was him. That was who he was, how he felt. Harry was mostly heterosexual, homoromantic, and demisexual. It was a seemingly inoperable combination of conflicting drives; enough to confuse other people, as it had confused him his entire fucking life. 

Other people's attraction worked a thousand times faster than his. That explained why, even early on, it had been Cho or Ginny making the first move. Why Heather had to pump him full of drinks, hold his hand and listen to him whinge about his problems until his body opened up enough that she was able to sneak in and steal that first kiss. Harry needed to build connections first, to feel trust and understanding, before his dick would get hard. And with anyone other than Draco, his dick had taken an unusually long time to warm up. To the point he feared there was something wrong with him. 

His demisexuality made sense, especially for a bloke whose relatives had treated him so cruelly. Harry couldn't get turned on without a foundation of emotional security to support his erection. He couldn’t trust a stranger, even a good-looking one. He needed to feel safe with someone before there was even a chance he could feel desire, or come close to falling in love. 

He felt safe... with Nebojsa. Which made him nervous, and anxious, ashamed, and latently aroused. 

Unaware of any of Harry’s emotional insecurities flying about the bathroom, Nebojsa used his foot to flush the toilet, tapping the lever with his bare toes. He was a tidy person. He didn't want to get germs on his hands from the toilet lever, even when he was probably the most recent one to have cleaned it. He would sometimes shower twice in one day, especially if they worked out. Nebojsa used the showers at the office. Harry would often see his long black hair, still wet, spilling over the shoulders of his robes, drops of water turning the navy fabric of his uniform almost black. He refused to use the hair dryers in the locker room because they made his hair “too dry.” Harry never knew there was such a thing. He accepted that he in fact knew very little about hair, his own included. 

Harry watched as Nebojsa washed his hands—with soap and hot water. He turned, searching for a towel to dry his hands with. He refused to wipe his wet hands on his clothes, even though he wore faded flea market denims and a Romanian National Quidditch sweatshirt. It was obviously Dima's because it was too big in the shoulders, and not quite long enough in the arms. Nebojsa's waist was absurdly narrow below his ribs, creating the illusion that his hips flared out more like a woman’s. His arms were remarkably long, his wingspan reflecting his height of six-foot-two. 

Nebojsa's fingers had been broken at some point. They hadn't healed entirely right. There were bulging places and strange twists, his fingers turning slightly where they ought to be straight. The breaks had been reset in muggle fashion—likely done himself during the year he was held and tortured in a Death Eater prison, before his wandless magic grew strong enough to heal himself properly. 

Harry had learned these things over time—these stories written on his friend's body, spelled out in his daily actions. One shoulder was slightly higher than the other, his shoulder blade protruding asymmetrically from his back. Harry spotted it when Sia did pull-ups with his shirt off. It was either childhood scoliosis or damage to his spine from the Death Eaters. Or perhaps when an entire cathedral came down on him at Valaam last year. Nebojsa was purposefully developing the muscles in that area, to support the malformation and keep his strength balanced. He did pull-ups and push-ups every day, murmuring to himself. Harry could now count with him in Serbian, hearing his friend's soft voice in his head.

All of this scared him. Harry only noticed these sorts of things when he fancied someone. Deeply. He'd only ever been this hyper-focused, fixated… when he'd fallen for Draco. 

He had to remind himself, forcibly, that experiencing sexual attraction _was not cheating_. He felt attraction so fucking rarely that when it did pop up, he had no clue how to handle himself. 

If he got out of this bath and gave Nebojsa a blowjob, _that_ would be infidelity. He knew where to draw the line as far as physical activity went. But where was the mental line? And the emotional line? He didn’t know. 

It was okay to appreciate his friend visually, aesthetically... sexually. What he was feeling in that moment was normal. He kept telling himself that. 

It was all very new to him. There was no shame in what he felt—only the guilt and assumptions other people piled on him because of their own expectations for how he ought to be. That was subtle homophobia, and he’d been subjected to it his entire life. It was bad enough Harry let himself fall for one bloke, his critics would say. But two in a row? One bloke was an anomaly. Two blokes was a pattern—a gay one. Mostly straight blokes didn’t have gay patterns. Except… Harry did. Being mostly straight meant he was also at least incidentally homosexual. 

For the longest time, Draco had been the only bloke, his only anything. Now there were two; two amazing wizards who together made a homoromantic, incidentally homosexual pattern he couldn’t ignore or deny any longer. 

 _I do think Nebojsa is sexy as hell_ , Harry admitted, practicing Occlumency now that he had a real reason—preventing the subject of his gaze from hearing his true thoughts. The words were radical, even in the confines of his head. 

He quietly thanked Severus Snape for trying so hard to teach him Occlumency. Thanks to Snape, Harry knew enough to shield his thoughts from the Serb currently rooting around for a clean hand towel. He could’ve dried his hands with magic in an instant, but instinct was stronger; the muggle in him said his hands wouldn’t truly be dry unless he physically removed the moisture, transferring it to another object. Making things vanish was how wizards thought. The muggle world was tactile, physical, laborious… but there was something to be said for doing things with your own two hands, a beauty of time-devoted and physical sensation which wizards sometimes missed out on. 

Looking at Nebojsa, Harry let himself go, gave his mind permission to run free. 

 _He's loyal_ _. He's patient._ _He’s gentle._ _He's so incredibly brave it hurts sometimes. His stodginess about cleanliness and religion is a turn on, even, because those_ _fussy_ _traits are_ _rooted in his respect for himself and others. And they’re_ _balanced by his dark side—the part of him that_ _calls Dima his slave, demanded_ _a_ _rather_ _degrading_ _blowjob in an alley_ _in front of all their friends_ _, and decided to kiss me_ _with_ _both our partners_ _present and consenting_ _the night we met._ _He’s not afraid to go after what he wants_ _—even if it gets him killed_ _. And that night… I was something he wanted. He’s drawn to me the same way_ _I'm drawn to him, emotionally_ _and_ _… sexually_ _, too_ _. And that's okay_. 

Harry pinched his own leg beneath the bath water, inflicting physical pain so that the message might sink in. _This feeling is normal sexual attraction_ _. I acknowledge what it is,_ _and I'm choosing not to act on it. There's nothing to feel guilty about, and I'm not going to beat myself up_ _for having_ _a_ _very normal_ _,_ _sexual and romantic_ _interest_ _._ _So what if my feelings are for another bloke? I refuse to be ashamed._  

Suddenly, his body got very warm. 

He'd gone into a kind of trance, totally focused on his own feelings, talking himself down from what could have been the beginnings of a panic attack: a full-blown panic attack because he thought his friend was attractive, and maybe there _wasn’t_ anything wrong with that. Maybe it was other people who wanted him to _feel_ wrong, to be ashamed for feeling the way he did towards another bloke who wasn’t his spouse. The shame he felt was from other people. It wasn’t organic to his own mind, but rather planted by others in an effort to control his behavior. 

With his attention turned inward, Harry hadn't noticed Nebojsa sit down on the floor next to the tub. And he hadn't noticed Nebojsa draw his onyx black wand to turn the bath water warm again. 

"Thanks," Harry said lamely. He sunk his shoulders down into the pleasantly hot water, warming himself up. And also, if he was honest, he was hiding his naked body beneath the water, made murky by the epsom salts he'd added for his sore muscles after punishing himself a bit in the gym. 

He didn't feel quite comfortable having Nebojsa see him without his pants on. Not because he didn’t trust Sia. Harry wasn’t ready for his friend to see him naked. Not when he wasn’t exactly married anymore, wasn’t decidedly off-limits. There might be a ring on his finger but… Draco didn’t want him, wasn’t claiming him anymore, and just that mere crack of possibly being sexually available made Harry intensely nervous. Without the security of his marriage taking him off the market, putting him above sexual advances, Harry lost a lot of his confidence. Being married meant he was safe from other people… at least in his head. No one would go after a man who belonged body and soul to Draco Malfoy. Right now, Harry only belonged to himself, and he didn’t consider that enough of a deterrent. 

Sia's lips were thinner than usual. He pressed them into a hard line, their color going pale peach. Cloud-like eyes examined his bathing friend with a pinch of concern. Sia sat facing Harry; from that angle, he wouldn’t be able to see anything below Harry’s sternum. 

Sia didn't ask if he was okay. He knew Harry wasn't. 

"Has Dima ever left you?" 

Nebojsa shook his head. No, Dima never broke things off. If anything, it would be Sia dumping His Serene Highness. Nebojsa was really patent, putting up with Dima. Not everyone would’ve stayed. It might be easier for Sia to date someone else—he could come out, be more himself. But he preferred to stay with Dmitry. 

"I cannot imagine vot yoo are going zhrough."

Harry swallowed. "It feels like… my world is ending. Which is co-dependant as fuck, and I'm working on that. Therapy three days a week." A blustery breath made ripples on the surface of the bath water. "I just want Draco to be happy. For him to have a good life. That's all I want. Even if that means he's... not with me anymore. If I’m not good for him, then he’s better off without me." 

Nebojsa's gaze softened, his eyes on the tile behind Harry's head but not really seeing anything. Like Harry, his focus was turned inwards. "True love iz selfless," he agreed. "Yoo and Draco have a fire for each ozher. It burns in yoo. Both of yoo. Dima and I... ve are a quiet affection." 

Harry found it unusual that Nebojsa didn't say 'quiet love.' Why call it affection? Surely he and Dima loved each other? They bought a flat together. They'd been together for years. Surely you wouldn’t take things that far if you weren’t in love? 

"You've nearly died for each other, the same as us," Harry pointed out. “You gave up everything and risked your lives to be together. Sounds like true love to me.” 

Sia's head tilted, his hair falling in a black wave over his shoulder. A peculiar smile turned the corner of his mouth, wiggling the black ring pierced through his lip. "Zuppose yoo are right." He shrugged with only his eyebrows. "Still. I do find myzelf... jealous of yoo. Your passion. The depth of your...." He stopped, needing to redirect his thought process. "Jealousy iz a sin," he chastised himself. He was always beating himself up, taking himself down. Forcibly humbling oneself was a part of his religion, even more-so for monks and priests. Nebojsa still held to that mindset, even though he'd given up on monastic life. For Dima? Or for himself? Harry wondered. 

" _Gospodi pomiluy_ ," Harry croaked. It was an Orthodox prayer, begging for mercy. Sia had murmured it along with several others when he thought he was dying. It was the most common phrase in their services, too. It was a prayer, a request for _God’s mercy on us sinners_. Harry had never believed in a god, but he wanted Draco's mercy more than anything. 

"Господи Помилуј," his friend repeated, somber. He blessed himself, tracing the shape of a cross with his thumb nail; over his forehead, over his lips, and at the base of this throat, not quite over his heart. 

Harry marveled at this man who’d intended to become a priest. He'd given up that life of service to God to be someone's lover—to worship the flesh of another, to be worshiped… to be a dominant, a soldier, a criminal, a killer, a whore, and whatever else he’d done or identified as along the way. Nebojsa had forsaken the priesthood to—if they didn’t die in the process—possibly become a duke’s husband someday: to wear fancy robes, to be bowed to, and live in a beautiful, crumbling palace. Except Nebojsa was still so grounded, so hyper-fixated on humility that they lived in this simple, utilitarian warehouse; slept in the common area so Misha could have a bedroom; clothed himself mostly with cast-offs from a second-hand street-market while trying to convince the brothers of the merits of giving away their fortune. 

Nebojsa was still a kind of priest—a shaman or a spirit guide, living amongst the people instead of hiding himself away in some remote chapel. People came to him at the office, seemingly out of nowhere, asking him to pray for them or seeking his advise. By the time Harry had found his second breakfast, Nebojsa inevitably had his hand on somebody's shoulder, whispering words of encouragement and solace to them, promising to pray for their souls. If anyone was a type of magic fueled solely and soulfully by love, it was Nebojsa. 

Right now Sia looked like he wanted to offer Harry that same peace. Nebojsa wanted to push the light of hope back into Harry’s body even knowing there was a Lethifold called heartbreak trying to suck it out. He still wanted to try, to help Harry find absolution. 

Harry shook his head softly. He didn't want to be touched. He couldn't bear it—not right now, when he was vulnerable, naked, shaken. 

His friend understood, keeping his magic-shielded hands to himself. 

Harry fancied Nebojsa. And Nebojsa fancied him. And apparently _everybody_ knew that—everybody except Harry. 

Nebojsa recognized it the night they met. Nebojsa felt their connection so strongly he'd reached out and kissed him. Harry hadn't understood that kiss at the time. He was demisexual, his attraction too dormant to wake up and realize what the fuck was going on. Dima and Draco knew what was happening—they'd both been so absurdly pleased by it, encouraging, because they were highly sexual people who grew up in a world where non-monogamy was standard. To them, it wasn’t cheating or wrong in any possible way. 

Hermione had spotted their mutual attraction, too, and she barely knew Nebojsa. Hermione believed in monogamy as a sign of respect and devotion to your partner, just like Harry did. She saw in Nebojsa the potential to wound Harry deeply—to rip out his soul with those broken fingers and feed him to the wolves. Harry _liked_ Nebojsa. And those feelings gave the man even more power. 

Was this what people who weren't borderline asexual went through every time they fancied someone? Or was it that much more fraught for Harry _because_ he was demi? _Because_ his desire only came with deep, emotional bonds like this? _Because_ he looked at women, but only craved intimate, emotionally invested relationships with other men? Nebojsa looked female from the neck-up, which—when Harry was brutally honest—seriously complicated and exacerbated his feelings. It was almost too easy for Harry to be into Sia because he looked and acted in many ways like a woman, piquing Harry’s sexual interest, and yet he also hit all of the masculine points Harry needed to feel safe.

He'd felt admiration and respect for a few special people in his life. Sometimes that had blossomed into a latent sexual interest. With Nebojsa.... This was different. This went beyond desire. This had tipped over into something else. This was that fire Nebojsa talked about, burning profoundly inside him. 

Harry's heart was a fire. It consumed him. His emotions had always been volatile. He was only just learning to recognize them in the hope of one day gaining control. He wouldn't let the fire in his heart hurt anyone else. It was okay to burn. But he had to manage the fire; feed it, tend to it, respect it, or it would take him down... and burn down everyone he loved with him. 

Harry didn't want these feelings. He wanted their relationship to remain as it was. Just friends. Because his heart was wired into his brain by a more circuitous route than other people's, it had taken him the better part of a year to unravel what had been plain to literally everyone else in his life. He was so late to the game that most of the match had been played without him. 

Dima and Draco had wanted them to get physical the night they met— _more_ physical, anyway. Their partners wanted it so much that they encouraged Harry again a year later, drunk on a hotel balcony in New York City. 

Harry saw it clearly now; funny how sobriety and hindsight worked together to damn him. Dima and Draco had given their clear consent to Harry that night, both saying out loud and to his face that they'd enjoy it if his drunk, cluelessly-greysexual self snogged Sia again. They told him to go for it. He was so much in denial that he’d refused to hear them. 

Harry willfully misunderstood—like a child with his fingers stuffed in his ears, drowning out what he didn’t want to hear. Every time, he made it go over his head. He hadn’t been ready to accept who he was, this truth about himself. And now that he'd finally caught up, aware of his own feelings at long last… it was time to forfeit the match. He wouldn't add any more fuel to this heat between them. Nebojsa had his arsenal of Christian guilt and endless self-flagellation to keep his own desires in check. Harry had his willpower—Godric Gryffindor levels of stubbornness—and his death-defying devotion to Draco. 

They could be attracted to each other. They could see potential for something more. And each of them, out of love and duty and personal responsibility, made the choice to stand by their partner and let this potential go. 

Harry pinched his leg again, reminding himself: _Feeling attraction doesn't make me a bad person_ _. Being attracted to someone else doesn’t mean I’m a bad husband_ _._ _There’s nothing wrong with me or my feelings._ _The people who want me to be ashamed_ _of what’s in my heart_ _are the ones who are wrong_. 

He had a choice, and his decision was to remain faithful to Draco. Nebojsa counted sacred the marriage vows he'd stood witness to, and would never intrude on Harry's promise to remain true to his spouse so long as they were married. As long as Harry wore his ring. As long as there was the slightest chance that Draco wanted him again. Harry wanted to belong to Draco. So he and Nebojsa could be friends, and be attracted to each other without acting on those feelings. They could—because above all else, they respected each other. 

"You pray a lot, right?" 

Sia nodded.

"Do you ever… pray for me?" 

Nebojsa held his gaze. "A lot," he repeated Harry's words back to him. "Yoo need it." 

They both burst out laughing. He was hopeless. Only Nebojsa's God stood a chance at repairing his torn-up soul. _Their_ torn up souls. They both knew it.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

They hid ingloriously behind some scraggly evergreen bushes, watching, a squatting squad; Harry Potter, Nebojsa Radić, along with more experienced Hits Baltasar Einarsson, and his partner Alina von Brandt. They were deep in the countryside of Alina’s native Germany. 

Harry didn’t expect his work as a Hit Wizard to be filled with heart-pounding duels and constant danger. This was more what he had in mind—more of the same overwhelming dullness and drudgery interspersed with rare moments of action. Hours spent on steak-outs, observing, taking careful notes, gathering information or hunting down clues. Hunkering in bushes under Concealment Charms, observant but also in the back of his head amusing himself by contemplating where he might go for lunch if they arrested their target in a reasonably expedient manner. 

They were tipped off to a possible Death Eater sighting. Releasing still photographs and detailed descriptions of known Death Eaters to muggle authorities worldwide was one of the smartest things Kingsley’s Ministry could’ve done; they went from having a population of eight hundred thousand on the look-out to having billions of eyes. The muggles didn’t exactly plaster their streets and television programs with ‘wanted’ posters, but their authorities had the information available, and when a call came in regarding suspicious behavior or something amiss, the local constabulary compared the description of their suspect to known wanted-persons who were in fact witches and wizards. When a description matched, muggle law enforcement phoned Fenchurch and then sat back out of harm’s way, believing they were calling in MI5 to pursue a person wanted in connection to acts of terrorism against Great Britain. 

That was how a squad of Hit Wizards ended up in rural Germany, watching a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, hunkered in a scrub of trees where the air smelled vaguely of dung. A couple of ranchers telephoned their local authorities, complaining that a strange man matching the description of known Death Eater Remington Alcott Fawley IV had been spotted lurking about the abandoned property. The locals were upset because Fawley appeared to be breaking into their paddocks every few days, stealing an animal, and flagrantly spit-roasting the stolen property outside of his commandeered dwelling the following day. The ranchers wanted the thief arrested, and to be compensated for their stolen livestock. This had been going on for nearly a week. 

It was, to say the least, quite odd.

Harry and his squad had a photograph of Remmy Fawley. It was a few years old. In the photo he was a teenager: now Fawley was a grown man of twenty-five. 

Harry didn’t personally know any Fawleys. Considered one of the ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight’ pureblood families, the Fawleys were Brits who attended Durmstrang rather than Hogwarts. 

Looking between the reference photo and the man who’d at last stepped out of the cottage in a somewhat tatty black robe, there was no mistaking Remington Fawley IV. He’d grown into his large nose—high-bridged and downturned—with a goatee elongating his square face. His wheat-blond hair had darkened to more of a golden strawberry shade with some red in his beard. Fawley was a well-built fellow, five-foot-ten and easily eighty kilograms on his broad-shouldered build. 

The first Remington Acott Fawley was worthy of a Chocolate Frog Card—Harry had three of him. He’d been a Herbologist and inventor, responsible for breeding the first Self-Juicing Snargaluff and a number of other functional advancements in plant science. These days, the Fawley family were known as wealthy socialites living off the residual fortune of their ancestor’s many patents. Remmy IV fancied himself a quidditch player; before the war he played Keeper for an amateur team in Bristol. He still looked strong and quick, and yet… something was off. 

Fawley went puttering about the exterior of the farmhouse, having skinned a goat and stuck a spit through it; exactly as the ranchers said, he’d started a goodly fire and was preparing to barbeque. 

He muttered to himself as he went about his preparations. Baltasar performed an incantation-less Amplification Charm, allowing the squad to listen in. 

“Ackh, me bawbag fer a bit o tatties. Perjink scran.” He turned around suddenly, his back to them, bending at the waist in order to bellow at the ground at the top of his lungs. “Haud yer wheesht! Haud yer wheesht!” It was Scots for ‘shut your gob.’ But there was nothing there. Fawley was alone. He seemed to be shouting at something only he could see—small like a house elf, pet, or a child. If Harry had to guess, Fawley was hallucinating. 

Alina scrunched up her nose. “Is that English?” 

Harry shook his head. “He’s speaking Scots.” 

Alina turned to regard Harry, instead. “You can understand him?” 

“Sort of.” Many residents of Hogsmeade spoke Scots. That was where he heard the language. 

Nebojsa leaned into Harry, his voice extra low. “Izn’t Fawley English?” 

“Yeah. He’s from Bristol.” Meaning there was no reason for him to suddenly develop a Scottish accent, let alone start speaking Scots; more than a dialect but a separate language related to English. It made no sense. Neither did the way Fawley talked to himself. His focus was erratic, jumbled. Harry was reminded of how muggles behaved after getting knocked in the head. 

Baltasar and Alina were experienced officers—Alina in her late thirties, and Baltasar probably over forty, both old enough to be Harry or Sia’s parents. As a team, they had hundreds of successful missions under their belts. Through tremendous skill and a bit of luck, they’d survived combat in both Death Eater wars. Alina had an Order of Merlin, Second Class, for valor in battle. 

Knowing their business, Baltasar had a Monitoring Spell surrounding the cottage and extending out to the public dirt road. 

“We’ve got company,” the Icelander whispered, pointing towards the road. A moment later, a muggle pick-up truck rumbled to a stop, the engine turning off. Through the trees, Harry heard the sound of creaky car doors opening and closing—either multiple people getting out, or one person retrieving something from the cab. Baltasar consulted his warding magic. “One person. Non-magical.” 

Alina nodded. “Be on guard.” She and Baltasar drew their wands. A second later, Sia did the same—hesitating because a wand wasn’t reflex anymore, but optional. Harry’s hand went to his gun, unholstering, flipping the switch to disengage the safety, readying himself to fire if needed.

Footsteps. Then into the clearing stepped a muggle man—salt-and-pepper-haired, with a sturdy body clothed in workman’s canvas jacket and overalls with heavy, manure-and-mud-cured boots. He must’ve been one of the ranchers Fawley stole food from; fed up with the perceived inaction of his local constabulary, he’d decided to take the law into his own hands. The old rancher racked his shotgun, tucked it steady against his shoulder socket, and leveled it at Remmy Fawley. 

Fawley showed no reaction. In his own world, he didn’t appear to see the old muggle arrive with a firearm. 

In that instant, Harry’s instincts took over. “Sia,” he instructed on a whisper. “Flank the old man. Disarm him and I’ll Stun. Baltasar, Alina—Anti-Apparition Jinx and lock down the perimeter. Subdue the target.” 

Harry wasn’t the senior officer—that was Alina. As purebloods, she and Baltasar were still adjusting to firearms; they didn’t have a muggle-born’s instinct, didn’t immediately perceive it as a weapon but rather as something muggle and therefore amusing but not dangerous. It took time to re-train that instinct. Harry and Sia had it naturally, reacting to the arrival of an armed muggle as a threat to be neutralized immediately. 

Baltasar and Alina worked silent spells as Nebojsa set off running at a crouch through the trees, Disillusioning himself, disappearing among the dry branches. Harry waited just a few seconds, timing the muggle’s footsteps as he approached Fawley. Very strangely, the Death Eater utterly ignored the new arrival in favor of humming a little tune to his spit goat as he turned it. 

A rustle of foliage behind the rancher—that was Sia, in position. Invisible, he Summoned the shotgun right out of the old man’s hands. His greying head turned as his weapon suddenly flew away, ripped out of his grip by a force he couldn’t see or explain. He swore in German, not understanding what was happening. With his head turned in the opposite direction, Harry stepped from his cover, too. 

He raised his Glock as he moved, aiming and firing in the space of a single heartbeat. He was loaded with Stunner rounds; the bullet not striking the muggle but dissolving into a pre-cast spell a millimeter before it touched him. A puff of orange light went off—not unlike the flash-powder used in early 1900’s photography—as Harry’s pre-packaged hex was released. The old muggle went stiff, tipping sideways. Nebojsa laid down a Cushioning Charm to break his fall. 

Baltasar and Alina expertly rushed Fawley. Like Harry and Sia, the team split up in order to flank their target. Alina came from behind the cottage while Baltasar ran at Fawley head-on, wand raised, cloaking himself in defensive shielding spells. He was the decoy meant to pull attention, Alina the crouching viper ready to strike.       

Fawley’s actions continued to defy logic. He bellowed a mighty battle cry and charged directly at Harry, running towards gunfire. Alina’s spell missed him by inches and Baltasar dug his boots into the mud, redirecting his momentum in an effort to catch his target sprinting in another direction.

Harry barely turned in time. Fawley bowled him over, taking him to the ground with an improvised, American-football-type tackle. Fawley’s bold hit and their combined momentum sent them crashing into Sia, who had removed his cloaking spell and run up to stand with Harry. The Serb was sent sprawling off to the side as Harry went down, inertia throwing him and Fawley into a roll through the muddy clearing. Thankfully Sia had taken the rancher’s round out of the chamber, so the shotgun in his hand didn’t go off when he fell. Harry’s finger moved away from his own trigger. 

Harry took Remmy Fawley by the front of his robes, wrestling him. In seconds, they were both hopelessly muddy. Hands slick, Harry barely maintained control of his Glock. He held on to Fawley with all his might, using his thighs clamped around the Death Eater’s beefy middle to constrict his lungs and wind him, Harry’s fist in his robes allowing him to slam the heavier wizard to the ground, effectively knocking the air from him, momentarily taking some of the fight out of him. 

Mud sprayed everywhere. Harry squinted to keep the flying muck from getting in his eyes and fucking up his contacts. He glued his lips shut, breathing heavily through his nose. He was in no hurry to learn what German dirt tasted like. 

Fawley growled for being knocked around in kind. Hands free, he didn’t think to use his wand but rather grabbed at Harry’s dragonhide bracers, attempting to get hold of his arms and win back the advantage; instead, Fawley unknowingly tagged himself with the Enemy Combatant Disarming Jinx woven into Harry’s gear, preventing himself from using any magic against the Hit Wizard presently on top of him, prepared to beat the tar out of him if necessary. Harry didn’t want to, but pistol-whipping the wizard might not be out of the question. Especially if Fawley tried to slug him—Fawley had two stone on Harry, and big fists. Harry was a well-trained fighter, but not stupid; Fawley ran at _him_ , so Harry had the right to defend himself. 

“Remington Fawley!” Harry panted, slightly winded himself but following procedure. “You’re being detained by order of the Minis—!” A furious fist swung at Harry. He leaned back, dodging the blow aimed at his face, taking that second to suck a full breath into his stomach and finish his sentence. “Ministry of Great Britain!” 

Then Fawley swung at him again, so Harry rightly slammed the wizard into the ground twice more in rapid succession. Harry was stronger than he ought to be, manhandling a fourteen-stone wizard with one hand—giving Fawley whiplash and distracting him enough to conjure chains around his body which snaked up his arms and down his kicking legs, restraining him in a coiling iron cocoon which only grew the more he struggled. Harry let go of the fugitive’s ragged, mud-encrusted black robe, allowing his magic to do its job. In seconds, Remmy Fawley was subdued without any serious injury to either of them. 

Baltasar’s longer legs got him to Harry ahead of Alina. The tall blond Icelander slid to a stop in the mud, wand out but lowering once he saw Harry had the situation under control. “Good work, Potter.” He offered a hand, pulling a very dirty Harry to his feet. 

Alina was crouched beside Nebojsa, her wand scanning him. With the shotgun occupying one of Sia’s hands when he was knocked over, he would’ve thrown his free arm out to break his fall. From the looks of it, he’d gone down on it funny. The pump-action lay across his upper thighs as he sat in the mud, a gloved hand gripping his opposite elbow, bracing an injury as Alina probed at it. 

“Something broken,” she declared, her German accent significantly softened after twenty years working in the UK. “Can’t tell what. Sorry. Healing isn’t my _forte_.” 

Baltasar Levitated Fawley to an upright position. Their captive was cussing at them all in Scots. For those who didn’t speak English as their first language, it likely all sounded like gibberish. Even Harry couldn’t make out most of what Fawley was saying. 

“Shall we split up?” the Icelander suggested. “Potter and Radić to St. Mungo’s, Alina and me back to the Ministry?” 

From the muddy ground, Nebojsa cocked his head at Baltasar. “No,” he said slowly, disbelieving. “St. Mungo’s. All of us, including him.” He jerked his chin at their prisoner. “Fawley iz not right in his mind. He needs a Healer more zhan I do.” 

Harry nodded. “I agree.” Something about Fawley… reminded him of Draco when he’d picked up Harry’s Beretta. Fawley’s eyes didn’t see everything around him. His decision-making was incomprehensible; he didn’t behave as expected, but rather by some code which only he could comprehend. His behavior was illogical. He needed a Healer, the same as Nebojsa. Maybe more-so.

“Baltasar, let’s take a quick check of the cottage, make sure the muggle’s alright, and get going.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

An efficient MediWizard patched Nebojsa right up. His hard fall broke his radial neck—the upper part of the radius bone of the forearm, near the elbow joint. They had his right arm in a sling with a conjured ice compress. He ought to be back to normal and pain-free in a day or two. 

Their Hit squad sat on a row of chairs outside the examination room where a team of experienced Healers were attempting to examine Remmy Fawley. Harry could hear him kicking and screaming from outside the room. A wizard from Bristol speaking Scots—it was a strange day. 

Harry turned to Nebojsa, giving his partner a critical once-over before pointedly catching his freezing blue eyes. _You alright?_  

 _I’m fine,_ he assured. _I could’ve healed myself reasonably, but my being injured was a better way to convince the others we ought to bring Fawley here instead of leaving him with processing. Office staff and guards aren’t trained to handle this sort of thing. He should be in a hospital, not in a holding area with other prisoners who he might harm._  

 _Yeah_ , Harry readily agreed, listening to Fawley’s shouts echo off the walls. He was aggressive as well as combative. _You’re right. Fawley’s precisely where he needs to be._  

Baltasar gestured to the closed exam room door. “He… is crazy. Lost his mind.” 

“Or ate some wild-growing plant he shouldn’t have,” Harry countered. “Like a psychedelic mushroom or something which made him act strangely.” Just because his great-great-grandfather had been a Herbologist didn’t mean Remmy would know much of anything about non-magical plants. He put whatever he could find or steal in his gob, trying to survive. 

Nebojsa nodded his agreement. “Iz possible. No vay to know for zure.” 

Sia was backing Harry up; as partners, it was his job to support Harry, and vice versa. Of course Sia had his own theories, but he didn’t feel like sharing at the moment. He let out a long breath and leaned against the back of the chair, babying his arm in the sling, adjusting the cold compress. 

Out of the exam room came a familiar face—Irene Stanek, Head of Trauma Care… and the witch helping Harry conceal his mother-in-law’s presence in the hospital. Healer Stanek was good; she didn’t react at seeing Harry, pretending as though they’d never met and he meant nothing to her. Most people had some small reaction upon seeing Harry Potter for the first time. Stanek only bobbed her head, acknowledging the four of them as Hits and nothing more. Her eyes stayed longer on Nebojsa’s sling than on The Boy Who Lived. 

The four of them stood to meet her. 

“I’m Healer Stanek, Head of Trauma,” she introduced herself briskly. She still looked rather harried. “Thank you for bringing him in.” 

Behind her, before the door to the exam room closed completely, Harry caught sight of six Healers having roped Fawley down to a bed—all six with wands on him, insuring their own safety. Fawley thrashed and bellowed, not making much sense at all. Mostly, he just wanted to yell. 

Harry was struck by a wave of… fear, distrust… terror. That was what Fawley felt. He thought the Hit squad had kidnapped him and were going to hurt him. And all those strangers hovering around his bed, so near, wands in his face, his body restrained… he didn’t understand they were trying to help him, tying him down for their own safety, and so he couldn’t hurt himself in his present state. Fawley was like a frightened animal. He didn’t understand what was going on. Fighting back was pure instinct. As far as Fawley was concerned, he was in a battle for his life. 

Harry needed a deep breath in order to tune out the ruckus and focus on what Healer Stanek was saying. 

"…Memory Charm, which can be tricky to begin with. Truly botch job. We suspect it was done by a house elf, based on how his memories are put together. Utter jumble. He has only the barest idea of what it means to be a wizard." 

That explained why—during the course of their scuffle—Fawley never thought to use magic. When they’d searched the cottage, they found his wand. Fawley didn’t think to use it to defend himself because his mind and memories had been severely modified, to the point he lost his dueling instincts and seven years of Durmstrang training; charging at Harry, tackling him rather than dueling like a pureblood wizard would. It was like Fawley had forgotten most of his life. He was a husk of his former self. 

Harry flashed back to being in this same wing a year ago, when he learned that Narcissa used her own house elf Kit to alter Draco's memories, subconsciously planting the seed in his head that when he woke up from his coma he’d he want to escape the Death Eaters for good. Narcissa was so desperate to get Draco away before Voldemort had him killed in some public and gruesome way. She risked using house elf magic—creatures she was raised to believe were inferior to her kind—if it meant her son would live. 

Just like Fawley, Draco too had his consciousness re-arranged by a house elf. All things considered, it was sort of a miracle Draco made it out alright. Harry had long suspected that house elves had their own comprehension which was utterly unlike that of wizards—not inferior by any means, merely different due to the construction of their brains, being their own species. House elves had their own ideas about how relationships worked, and how witches and wizards functioned compared to themselves. And perhaps house elf cognition was less-than-ideally compatible with a human mind. 

Aside from Draco, Harry had never encountered anyone else who had their memory modified by house elf magic. He remembered Gilderoy Lockhart, how messed up he was after his Memory Charm backfired due to using Ron’s malfunctioning wand. A Memory Charm performed by a magical creature rather than another human was surely uncharted territory. 

As the Head of Trauma at a major hospital, Healer Stanek was the most likely person to know more. She saw the worst of the worst, the hopeless cases. That was why she always appeared so stressed out. 

“What about his language?” asked Baltasar. “He is from Bristol. Why is he speaking Scots?” 

Stanek shrugged. “Likely the elf who modified his memories was from the north, assuming Scots to be the language all wizards speak.” 

“Is this typical?” asked Harry, looking for a broader picture. “Are Fawley’s symptoms what you would expect if a house elf modified a wizard’s mind?” 

Stanek confirmed, “I’m afraid so. Being of different species, our memories and neural pathways are so significantly dissimilar… I’m surprised the patient can still speak at all. He can understand us when we speak to him but… Mr. Fawley doesn’t know who he is. I don’t expect him to recover, let alone being able to provide your office with any information. He must remain in the care of Healers for his own safety and well-being. Perhaps indefinitely.” 

Draco turned out far better than Fawley… far better than they had any right to hope, if Fawley’s case was typical of house elves altering wizard brains. Harry’s husband having a come-and-go, seemingly uncontrollable Westie accent, his violent temper and psychotic breaks... maybe some of that was Kit's opinion of what wizards were supposed to be like?

Armed with her observations of Draco as a child, combined with her experiences with the human staff at the Manor, Kit put Draco back together the best she knew how. What she knew of adult wizards was whatever she saw of Lucius and his Death Eater friends, plus the household staff who spoke and behaved very differently amongst themselves than they did around the Master and Mistress of the house. And Kit knew Narcissa well—a quiet witch, artistic and often aloof, sometimes living in her own head. Kit stitched together Lucius Malfoy’s violence and hair-trigger temper, Narcissa’s isolated depression with music as her only outlet, and Draco’s rambunctious Bipolar childhood… and that was how she put Draco back together. 

"Also, we suspect a TBI," said Healer Stanek. “The head injury complicates his condition.” 

Alina and Baltasar looked confused. Nebojsa seemed to know what that was. 

"TBI stands for Traumatic Brain Injury," she explained. "Something we’ve borrowed from muggle medicine, as the condition has to do with the human brain itself regardless of the presence of magic. A TBI is damage to the brain’s tissue, which can cause cognitive dysfunction, memory loss or lapses, and disruptions to personality. Typically a TBI occurs from a significant blow to the head—quidditch, falling, duels—but we also see them with asphyxia. Mr. Fawley shows symptoms of severe smoke inhalation, which we suspect was the initial injury to his brain. The Memory Modification came later." 

Holy Shit. That was Draco, too. His father choking him as a kid probably caused brain damage or a TBI during his early development. And it was likely Draco’s time at Mulciber's hands could’ve done further harm to his already compromised brain. On top of that, a panicked house elf had sifted through his memories and muddled them, inserting thoughts and ideas which weren’t his own. It was a miracle Draco could function. 

Alina interpreted the Healer’s information as it pertained to Fawley. "You’re saying Fawley inhaled too much smoke during a skirmish, or possibly was in a building fire and hit his head. His brain was injured—this TBI you mentioned—and the Death Eaters he was in hiding with would’ve quickly realized he was crazy. He became useless to them. So they used a house elf to modify his memory, scrambling his mind permanently; once he couldn’t divulge their secrets, they dumped him… left him for dead." 

In the Death Eater world, someone with a neurological issue _would_ be considered useless—they’d be ejected immediately, left to fend for themselves rather then become a drain on precious group resources. The Death Eaters practiced euthanasia. Of course Lucius Malfoy worked so hard to cover up Draco’s Bipolar; if anyone knew his only son wasn’t neurologically ‘normal,’ the Malfoys would be cast out of the fold. And it was entirely possible that Lucius himself caused some of the symptoms Draco experienced now; there was no telling what damage he might’ve done, hitting his young son in the head, knocking him unconscious, choking him in a rage.

“I try to steer clear of the word ‘crazy,’” Stanek corrected. “In Healing, it’s best to speak in terms of quality and quantity, things we can measure and perceive, and not incorporate words irrelevant to diagnosis, or weighted by social stigma.” In short, she had a deep compassion for all of her patients, even the Death Eater ones, and she didn’t like it when outsiders called them nut jobs or psychos. In her eyes, they were sick people who needed care. 

“Our minds are delicate organs. And Memory Modification is sadly permanent, a wound to the mind which forever obscures the truth which was once there. Mr. Fawley is no longer himself, nor will he ever be that wizard again. There’s not much we can do, even if we had access to the elf who cast the spell on him. At best, we can stabilize his mood, determine what cognitive level he has remaining and his capability for speech—and once we can communicate with him, it will become easier to make him comfortable. Overall, he’s not dissimilar to someone whose mind has been wiped from extensive exposure to the Cruciatus Curse.” 

Like Neville’s parents. To this day they didn’t recognize their own son. There was a fair bit of torture used in the last war, so Alina and Baltasar would be more familiar with those symptoms. Memory Modification was something wizards did to muggles, rarely practiced on each other because of how much could go wrong. That said a lot about their culture, how far they had yet to go.

“So he won’t be a source for _any_ information?” asked Baltasar pointedly. 

“I’m afraid that’s correct. If you’ll excuse me…” Fawley was hollering again. “I have my patient to attend to.” 

When Draco came back… _if_ Draco wanted to come back… Harry needed to convince him to get tested for a Traumatic Brain Injury, whatever that entailed. And to have Healer Stanek look him over, too; to see if the Memory Charm performed on him by Kit was effecting his behavior just as similarly applied house elf magic had destroyed Fawley’s mind—making him erratic, panicked, thinking he was Scottish. Maybe Draco had it even harder than the average Bipolar person because of the damage to his mind from house elf magic and multiple potential brain injuries.  

It seemed so simple. Of course getting hit in the head had consequences! But they were wizards—they thought of themselves as stronger, better, more than mere human beings. They had magic, but their bodies remained very fragile things, too easily broken in ways magic couldn’t fix. 

As Stanek left them, Baltasar and Alina both looked a bit frustrated that they’d gone through all that for nothing, but… that was the job. They’d return to Fenchurch, give their statements of the mission, be debriefed by Nash, and spend the remainder of their shift drinking tea at their desks, processing what they’d learned that day.

Harry hadn’t learned anything new, but rather had seen something he’d known all along reiterated before his eyes. The Death Eaters didn’t give a shit about the weak or the sick. They only cared for power. That was nothing new.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry didn't think it through. 

His heavy winter uniform armor trapped moisture, plastering his sweaty gi and outer robe to his skin with no hope of evaporating the swamp glued to his torso. He stunk of sweat. And he was continuously finding dried mud in odd places after going for a roll with Fawley. Having typed out his statement and gotten their boss’ thoughts on the matter, Harry desperately wanted to wash up—to have a nice, long, hot shower and put on his clean civilian clothes for the last three hours of his workday.

He forgot that Nebojsa had that same instinct. Growing up muggle, a Cleaning Charm wouldn't feel sufficient to him, either. He'd want hot water pouring over his skin, the same as Harry. 

Harry walked into the Fenchurch showers to find Nebojsa... naked. 

Immediately, Harry looked away— _pop_ went a bone in his neck, he whipped his head so fast. That split second had been... almost too much. He saw Nebojsa's butt. He was made from miles of glowing, bone-white skin swirling with enchanted black ink. Lean muscles. Flexing lats and protruding rib bones as he reached up to touch his silky wet hair. The image of him was forever in Harry's head. Even if he shut his eyes, he'd see it—see Nebojsa's body burned into his mind. 

Harry was almost exclusively heterosexual: he didn't fancy blokes as a rule. So communal showers had never before been an awkward place for him. Until now. Because there was a bloke he liked very much, very naked, massaging his scalp in a stream of hot water—coaxing the remnants of dried mud out of his hair. 

Harry would have to walk by him. He had to do it; had to act normal, had to take his towel off and hang it on one of the hooks by the door, had to walk past Nebojsa and not look _. Don’t look. Don’t look. Just act normal. For the love of God, Potter, be cool! You’re a grown man. You’re married. For fuck’s sake, just be cool for once and don’t fucking look._  

Eyes straight forward, locking out his peripheral vision, one foot in front of the other. Harry stepped up to a shower he deemed an appropriate distance—five over; not on the opposite side of the room because then he'd look awkward and cowardly, but not close enough to be testing personal space when they had the entire room to themselves. 

Nebojsa didn't say a word, ignoring Harry completely. He was washing his long hair; eyes closed, combing narrow fingers through it, working in the special shampoo he used which didn't quite bubble up like other products. It was more of a milky coating which smelled like white chocolate. He rubbed it into his scalp, working it down through his long hair. Harry wasn't watching... he could just feel it, feel his best mate only a few meters away. 

He felt that way with Draco. Harry knew what his husband would be doing, how he moved, how he thought. Harry didn't have to look. He just knew. After a year and a half, he had that sense with Nebojsa, too. He could just sort of... _feel_ him. Down to the slight ache in his elbow when he bent his recently healed arm. Harry felt it, felt everything.

Harry turned the water on. It was freezing at first. He forced himself to walk into it. Compared to a Moldovan prison, it was luxurious.

He needed the cold water. His body hated it but he didn't care—his mind was stronger, and his brain knew this icy blast down his front was indeed necessary. 

The last time he had a stiffy in a communal shower was with Draco, on their honeymoon in France. They'd fucked so hard they destroyed the loo—Harry's errant magic went haywire, knocking off showerheads, busting tiles to powder at their feet, flooding the place. Draco shrieked, begging Harry to fuck him, to hurt him, to let go, let their shared magic take them both over. It was beautiful. And when they were done, Draco Summoned his wand and repaired it all... because whatever Harry broke, Draco could fix. They balanced each other out like that—needing each other to make sense, to hold on to so they wouldn't get swept away by a world which was sometimes too much for their damaged, damned souls. 

Nebojsa wasn't a 'rough fuck in a public loo' sort of bloke. No, he was a lover. He'd have sex in a bed, with plenty of kissing, tender touches and holding hands. 

Harry didn't know that for sure, though. He was imagining—Nebojsa's bony fingers trailing through _his_ hair, teasing his beard or touching his lips, exploring. Nebojsa wouldn't slam him against a wall; Sia would lay him down in bed, kissing him slowly until he lost his mind and screamed, screamed to get fucked. 

Harry put a hand to the shower wall; needing that solid connection to steady himself—reconnecting with the world around him, forcing his attention out of his head, out of that fantasy world he’d let himself slip into. 

 _No!_ He bellowed at himself. If he were alone, he might've slapped himself. _Stop it. Just stop. What the ever-loving fuck is wrong with you?_ He was in a Ministry shower for fuck's sake! And Sia was right there—right fucking there—oblivious, washing his hair. 

Harry couldn't allow himself to fantasize about Nebojsa. Fantasies were powerful things… too powerful for him to be messing with. Fantasies existed in your mind, limitless. No one else could touch them. They set you free—no rules, no restraints, just freedom. Fantasy was how he and Draco connected, showing each other in their minds all the dirty, messed up shite they wanted to do to each other. And it came true. They made it real, together. So this... these racy images in his mind, they couldn't become real. Like the nightmares Voldemort sent him, he had to keep this locked up, confined to his head. They couldn’t leak out into the world: Harry wouldn’t allow it. 

When Harry fantasized, his intuitive magic read those desires and made them come true. He wanted to be powerful enough to defeat his enemies—his magic manifested itself in light around his hands. He wanted to be Draco's partner, his husband, one soul—and his magic made that real, too. When Harry died, they became one in Draco's body. That was the power of his desire. 

So he absolutely had to back off, had to keep these new fantasies in check. He didn't know what he was doing, couldn't control the magic. If he wasn't careful, he'd do to Nebojsa what he'd done to Draco last year. And without Nebojsa's knowledge and consent, that simply wasn't fair. He and Draco made a mistake. They didn't know what they were meddling with, this magic inherited from Voldemort and turned into something else, something bigger and even more powerful thanks to their fumbling interference. Harry didn't get to turn around and dump that mysterious power onto Nebojsa just because he was heart-broken, lonely, and more than a little bit horny. 

Draco claimed Harry’s power was at its greatest when he was aroused. That was also when his willpower was most likely to fail him. He had to work on that. 

He threw the tap back to cold—dousing himself, killing his fledgling erection stone-dead. His teeth chattered, whole body tensing in protest, but it was the right thing to do—the only respectful, grown-up, responsible thing he knew. 

"Bloody hell, Potter." That was John Pucey, an Auror Harry knew from the war who was ten or fifteen years his senior. Pucey had come into the showers while Harry was wrestling with himself. The Auror’s blond hair was darkened considerably by sweat and sticking to his forehead—he'd probably been in the gym. He marveled at Harry, "Cold shower? You're a lot tougher than me.” And he started a showerhead between Harry and Nebojsa, testing that it was warm before he hopped in to rinse off the sweat. 

Nebojsa spoke up, effortlessly explaining Harry’s odd behavior. "Alternating between hot and cold drains zhe lymph system and flushes lactic acid from muscles. Iz best after yoo exercise... if yoo can stand it, anyvay." 

Pucey chortled. "No way! Not for me." 

Harry flipped his own shower back to warm, pretending he'd been doing exactly as Nebojsa suggested. It did feel great—releasing pressure from the tense muscles of his face and throat, a rushing sensation from head to toe. The hot water felt a thousand times better after the contrast of cold, and he was even more thankful for it. 

He wanted to check something—just to be sure. Slicking his hair back, Harry thought clearly and loudly in Nebojsa's direction, _Hey mate. Might I borrow your shampoo, please?_

Nothing. Nebojsa couldn't hear him. He'd been shielding himself the entire time, giving Harry mental privacy. Why? Because he knew Harry fancied him and might have some conflicted thoughts seeing him in the buff? Or did Sia need some psychic peace-and-quiet for himself after the stress of their mission? Either way, Nebojsa hadn't heard Harry's moments of fantasy. If he had—if he knew Harry was struggling to put down unbidden sexual thoughts from seeing him wash up—Nebojsa would’ve walked out. _That_ was the sort of man he was. He wouldn’t knowingly contribute to Harry’s struggle. 

So Harry asked again out loud. "Sia? Borrow your shampoo _, molim vas_?" 

" _Dabòme_ ," he said _of_ _course_ , lobbing the little bottle in a gentle arc over Pucey’s head to land easily in Harry's hand. 

Pucey gave Harry a particular side-ways look—a movement which all blokes who lived in dorms or played quidditch had mastered, the I’m Looking You Right In The Eye So There's No Question of Whether I Can See Your Bits Stare. 

Pucey was the type of wanker who’d hold Harry’s eyes in order to tease him. "Regular shampoo not good enough for you, Potter? Gotta look perfect for your next centerfold in _Witch Weekly_?" 

Harry hadn't voluntarily been featured in a magazine since the TriWizard—it was a traumatic experience; being misquoted by Rita Skeeter, simultaneously objectified and infantilized in the most public way possible at the already painfully awkward age of fourteen. That experience was a major contributor to his stunted sexuality. Harry didn't like being in the public eye to begin with; after the TriWizard, he actively avoided having his picture taken or allowing anyone to quote him. And he never felt attractive. He hid himself under taped-together glasses, wooly Weasley sweaters, and Dudley’s cast-offs. Humiliated, he never wanted to be noticed again. 

When Harry garnered attention, innocent people died in the crossfire. It took him a long time to gain back a sense of control, to accept that the violence surrounding him wasn’t his fault. Media attention still screwed with his fight-or-flight instincts.

Releasing photos of himself felt obscene, and vain. He let his friends do it during the war to vex the Death Eaters, and to get some funds into the hands of those who needed it. Dima and his mates needed gold to survive, and the Creevey brothers had a grandfather who was ill. Harry understood through Valya that the gold helped greatly; their grandfather was expected to live many more years, and would be at Colin and Val’s wedding. 

Harry didn't put his face in newspapers or magazines because he wanted to. And he certainly didn't try to look good so others would lust after him. He wanted to look good for his husband, and for himself, too. Taking pride in his appearance was a relatively new thing, a self-respect he’d fought hard for. He didn’t appreciate being teased for wanting to look his best. 

"I don’t use the shampoo here. Personal preference. Sod off," Harry fired back. Then he stuck his face in the water, serving to get his hair wet, and the water rushing over his ears signaled he had no interest in further conversation if Pucey was gonna be a bell-end.

Nebojsa raised a stern eyebrow at Auror Pucey, but said nothing. He dropped his Occlumency Shield, telling Harry: _Imagine living in a world where everything is designed and intended especially for you. Privilege is blinding._  

And he went back to rinsing his hair, leaving Harry to wonder what exactly he meant by that.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry arrived at Fred and Taylor’s flat that evening with a bouquet of flowers and a box of truffles from an actual _patisserie_. He Apparated to Paris, spoke his broken French, got himself mocked by the French people and everything. He needed to get taken down a few pegs by random muggles, forcibly humbling himself before he made it to their door.

“This doesn’t get you off the hook…” Taylor shook a finger at him. Her other hand was working at the box’s ribbon, wanting to see the confections inside. 

“I know,” Harry conceded. “I… I’m trying to do what I should’ve done all along, you know? You’ve given me a chance to show you who I actually am with my head on straight. I don’t wanna waste your generosity or your time by behaving like a degenerate fuck-up again. Best foot forward, best behavior from now on. You deserved that from the start, and I’m sorry I failed you.” 

She lifted the box lid, swooned, and sniffed the chocolate-scented air. Then she picked one of the truffles and bit into it, moaning. Harry had double-checked that it was alright for pregnant people to have chocolate, and made sure none of the truffles contained any alcohol. 

Taylor was still very pregnant, which was why Harry came to see her. The last time they’d spoken, she’d expressed her intention to become un-pregnant a fast as humanly possible. 

“I just want to make sure you’re getting what you want,” Harry said plainly. “On top of whatever you need.” 

Taylor nodded, a frustration showing as she gestured toward her stomach with the half-eaten truffle. “I’ve interviewed four surgeons but I don’t care for any of them. This person’s gonna cut me open—I take that seriously. I have to trust them. And….” 

Harry understood. “It’s hard to trust again, after what I did.” The same way he struggled to trust others after what the Dursleys had done to him. 

Taylor glared at Harry. “Yeeeeeaaah.” She droned, bone dry, rubbing it in. He deserved that. And then some. She could’ve thrown the chocolates at him and beaten him with the thorny stems of the two dozen white roses he’d brought. She was well within her rights to have any reaction she felt like. He didn’t have a say anymore. His duty was to atone, and that started with restoring her power to her and heeding her voice. 

She ate the rest of her truffle, licking a bit of chocolate which had melted under her fingernail. She was wearing her big diamond ring, and had treated herself to a manicure.

“I’m sure I’ll find a surgeon I can tolerate. There’s usually a waiting list but I’m sure you can grease a few palms. _Right._ ” That wasn’t a question. More like a demand.

Harry bowed his head. “You let me know the name of the clinic or hospital and I’ll send a charitable donation in your name. Everything above-board.” 

Taylor dropped a truly sarcastic curtsey. “Thank you, Evil Wizard. You are literally the opposite of my hero. Do everyone a favor and _never_ rescue a girl again, okay? I don’t care if there’s a fire-breathing dragon about to eat her—you stay the hell out of what isn’t your business.” She pointed at her stomach. “Because this is what happens when you intervene, Chosen One.” 

He’d hated it before when people called him that. From Taylor, it was somehow even worse. She managed to remind him how far he’d fallen, and how much work there was yet to do in puling himself back up. 

"It's too late to stop this train," Taylor said, a hand on her stomach. "Eight months ago...." She gave him a hard look. That was when he, Fred and George made the decision for her—against her wishes. She didn't want to be pregnant and they forced her. She sighed, "I guess even your all-powerful magic can't turn back time and undo what you did. So I'm stuck. I consider this a fair exchange." Taylor wiggled the big diamond on her finger; disappointed, still steaming, but rectified to her satisfaction. "You idiots get your wizard kid, and I get the money." Her expression turned rigid, pointing a warning finger at Harry. "Don't you dare let Fred fuck this kid up. Teach him to be better—Fred, and the baby. You be better, too."

Harry promised her that. "I will. I have to be, if I'm gonna live with myself."

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Nebojsa sat on the edge of his mattress, feet on the concrete floor. Dima was rolling out of bed, too, about to make his way to the loo for their morning ritual. 

From under the blankets, Harry's hand found the small of Nebojsa’s back—tugging at the hem of his shirt, urging him back. 

" _Don't go_ ," he hissed. 

Nebojsa turned back, staring. Dima was looking, too. Harry was talking in his sleep—in Parseltongue. 

" _I don't want to be alone_ ," Harry admitted. From inside his dream? Or his deeper desires poking through? It was impossible to say. " _Stay?_ " he asked. 

Dmitry and Nebojsa locked eyes. They had to figure out what to do, what was right: if Harry knew what he was asking for, or was speaking to a dream. 

Nebojsa turned on the bed, leaning to push a few black waves off of Harry's forehead, settling his hair back. " _We're here_ ," he told Harry. " _Do you want us_ _ss_ _to_ _sssss_ _stay with you?_ " 

" _Yes_." He answered instantly, without any hesitation. That was more than Harry might ever admit while awake. 

Dima glanced at the bathroom door, then back to Nebojsa. Only his eyes moved, gold glimmering in the gloomy pre-dawn light. He didn’t work until noon—still he woke with Nebojsa, before Harry, to be sure they had this time each morning. Dmitry’s day wasn’t right without it. 

"Do we skip?" He knew it wasn't his choice to cry off their ritual, but it was important he make himself heard. He would rather stay here with Harry than duck off to the shower to have sex. "Harry needs us..." 

"More than I need another blowjob," Nebojsa finished honestly. He tucked his legs back under the covers. Immediately Harry was on him—head finding his chest, an arm around his stomach, pulling him in tight. Harry needed someone to hold him, and he didn't know where else to get that. 

Nebojsa tipped his head at Dima, suggesting he crawl in, too, and make a Harry Potter sandwich under the blankets. He gave permission. "Alright, then. Just this once."

He really didn't need the blowjob. It was more for Dima than for him. This reinforced hierarchy the same way.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry volunteered himself, Sia, and the Ionescue brothers—they could use the muscle. Luna Lovegood was moving into her new flat in Hölmfröst, one of the first new residents and business owners to rejuvenate the town. They had a place ready for her, a spacious flat above what would be her printing shop. All of her father's equipment was already installed and fully operational. 

Harry had the opportunity to meet Luna’s boyfriend, who looked oddly familiar. His name was Kyu-won. He was close to Dmitry’s height—which was rather tall for a Korean bloke—with neatly-styled thick black hair, perfectly clear skin, and a fast, lean build. Luna had found herself a good-looking bloke, and very friendly, too; he made sure to take a moment with each of her friends, sincerely thanking everyone for their help with the move. Harry would’ve remembered a nice guy like him had he attended Hogwarts. Kyu-won looked like he played a lot of quidditch wherever he’d gone to school.

His surname, Tokko, gave Harry’s memory the jog it needed.

“Any relation to Hanson Tokko?”

“Yes! He’s my uncle.” Which made perfect sense. Hanson had worked for the Department of Mysteries prior to taking a job proving The Gregorovitch Hypothesis and developing weapon technology in America. Of course Hanson still had family back in England. His nephew Kyu-won looked remarkably like him, only taller.   

Harry was very glad to have Kyu-won’s help. Once things got going, he proved to be an excellent director of traffic, familiar with Luna’s belongings and knowing where she’d like them to go. 

Luna's American cousins had boxed up some spare useful items for her; extras from their own homes like cooking supplies, winter gloves, blankets and such. She had a good number of boxes and some second-hand furniture needing to be brought over to Iceland by way of Apparition. Only the town's main street was open, her new flat warded for her privacy, so they had to transport the boxes and furniture several blocks down the street. 

Undaunted, Kyu-won fired up an assembly line. 

Harry spent a few minutes with Luna, meeting the other new addition to her life. St. Mungo's had provided her with an experimental, magical version of a seeing-eye dog. He was a fluffy-haired terrier, bit of a porky body with stumpy little legs, all white except for a big black nose which dominated his face and sweet brown eyes which begged for treats. Through those eyes, Luna could see the world around them.

She had a complex charm connecting her to the dog. So long as her furry companion was nearby, she could see everything he saw without having to hold him. Still, she had his squirmy half-stone body gathered up in her arms like a baby, keeping him out of the way. He was a wily little one and surely would’ve gotten himself underfoot in the commotion of so many people lifting boxes and moving furniture. 

As soon as the dog saw Harry, his tail started to go, thumping against Luna's stomach, needing to say hi to every new person. 

"Congrats," Harry told her. "He's really cute. Your dog, too," he joked, a quick twist of words implying he thought her boyfriend was handsome. A few months ago, Harry wouldn’t have been comfortable making that joke. He’d come a long way in accepting who he was. 

Luna beamed at him. She was incredibly happy. 

White had completely overtaken her eyes. For a while she was self-conscious about that ghostly look and kept her eyelids closed. Now she'd come into it. She even figured out how to use the dog's vision in order to apply makeup—her cheeks brightened by a bit of rouge, eye shadow creating a darker frame around her white eyes, and sparkly snowflake earrings dangling from her ears. She was getting on just fine, getting her life and independence back one day at a time. Having her service dog really helped. 

"I think so, too." She scratched her dog behind his ear, which made his tiny pink tongue hang from the side of his mouth, panting out his pleasure, perfectly happy in her arms. 

"Have you decided what you’ll call him?" 

Her eyebrows dropped, nearly frowning. "His name is Yago," she stated clearly. "He told me." 

Harry balked, holding up his hands. He wasn't about to argue. Yago didn't look magical to Harry, but what did he know? Maybe Luna's connection to his eyesight also provided other information. The dog could well have informed her what he wanted to be called. 

"Any idea what breed he is?" 

It was a fine question to ask about a dog. There was no equivalent people-version; or at least, no version which wouldn't get you slapped. Harry sort of wanted to ask if her boyfriend Kyu-won was mixed-race—Korean and British parents—if perhaps being bi-racial was the reason he was so much taller and more athletically built than his uncle. But Harry didn’t know how to frame the question without being rude. 

Luna shrugged. "We’re not entirely sure about Yago. Possibly miniature Maltese. The Healers at St. Mungo's found him in a muggle rescue. He was the first dog to be deemed compatible with the spells, so I said yes. His breed doesn’t make a difference to me. Looks aren't really relevant to a blind person, you know? Losing your sight, you focus on other qualities." 

And with that, she put Harry squarely in his place. It didn’t matter why Kyu-won was in his early twenties and yet was a foot taller than his adult Uncle Hanson—and it was none of Harry’s business, anyway.

 

 

 

 

Once they had all the boxes and furniture moved in, they closed the exterior door and let Yago loose in his new home. That fluffy, yappy monster chased after everyone looking for love; meanwhile his owner had taken a liking to Nebojsa.

Luna and Sia were holed up in the kitchen, her hand on the Serb's arm, using him for his vision as they decided where she wanted various pots and plates to live in her kitchen. Sia wandlessly levitated her possessions into place for her, not needing to use his hands at all. He controlled languorously floating china with the power of his mind, dishes and spoons dancing around him like a sorcerer in a muggle cartoon. His magic was unreal, and he was using it to help Luna, to entertain her and make her challenging life a bit easier. Harry was glad he’d stopped carrying boxes, relying instead on his magic to give his recently-broken arm a rest. 

Standing together, the two of them looked like the magical version of a Benetton advert: her pale blonde hair and his sleek black, her white eyes and his murky blue, the swirls of tattoos on his skin versus her mixed floral-on-stripes-with-polka-dot-pattern-garments, both of them wearing makeup. Harry was relatively sure Sia was wearing a woman's shirt, too, as the buttons were on the wrong side. If Kyu-won joined them, they’d really look like a multicultural advertisement. 

Luna’s boyfriend didn’t seem to mind that she was off with Sia in the kitchen. Kyu-won appreciated her independent spirit, that she did whatever she pleased and didn’t care what anyone thought of her, including her boyfriend. His options were to be supportive of her choices or to sod off. He knew he was damn lucky to be in her life. 

Kyu-won pulled Harry aside after they’d unrolled Luna's living room rug, wanting to have a private word with The Boy Who Lived. 

"I've been meaning to ask," he spoke leaning into Harry, keeping his voice down. "Your friend Nebojsa. What are their pronouns, again?" 

Harry didn't understand the question. "Huh?" 

Kyu-won rephrased his question. "Do I use 'she' or 'he'? Or stick with 'they'? I feel awkward not knowing for sure, if I'm offending them or..." Harry's face didn't move. He didn't know how to react, and staying perfectly still seemed the right move. In his silence, Kyu-won kept nervously babbling. "They're... I mean, Nebojsa is trans, right? I wanna be sure to use the pronouns they prefer, not just assume based on..." Kyu-won gestured down his own body, not as narrow as Sia’s, and no tattoos that Harry could see. 

Harry had to admit that Kyu-won had lost him a while back. "Sorry. I don't get out much, so I don't know what 'trans' means." 

"Transgender. You know, like when someone's born a girl, but they know in their head and in their heart," he put a hand over his breastbone, "that they're really a bloke. So they use hormone injections and have surgeries, to live as the gender they're supposed to be. Like my Uncle Hanson. Your friend Nebojsa is gender-transitioning."

First of all, Harry had no idea that Hanson had been born as female. That did explain his shorter stature compared to his nephew! Harry tried to imagine the years of medication and countless painful surgeries that would be needed to go from a body born female to the Hanson he’d always known. His already significant respect for the guy quadrupled.

Which meant Kyu-won thought that Sia used to be a woman, too... or was on his way to become a woman. Because Nebojsa truly did look female from certain angles—when his chin was down so that his Adam's apple became invisible, his delicate features, and his ability to draw wicked 1970's-type winged eyeliner... Harry understood why Kyu-won might be unsure how to proceed, and would go to a friend for clarification. 

Kyu-won had no indication that Sia and Dima were a couple thanks to Dima’s cold-as-ice manners towards his partner whenever there were strangers around. But even a stranger could tell that Harry and Sia were close, and Kyu-won figured Harry would be the best person to ask discreetly for guidance. 

Most blokes didn’t look like Sia. Most blokes didn't go about casually wearing women's clothes. Most blokes wouldn't know what to do with eyeliner, let alone be able to draw like that next to their own eyeball. Kyu-won wasn't sure what to think. All he knew was that he didn't want to be rude and use the wrong words to Nebojsa's face, embarrassing him. Kyu-won was especially sensitive after watching his uncle— _what was the word?_ Gender-transition. 

Finally, Harry understood what was being asked. "Nebojsa's not transitioning. He's always been a bloke, no intention to change that. He's just... ridiculously pretty. And he wears makeup 'cause he fancies the way he looks. Sia's androgynous, and... kinda goth. That's all." 

"Oh! Gender non-conforming," Kyu-won knew the more correct and succinct way to describe what Sia was. "But with male pronouns. Gotcha. Cheers." 

Harry let his eyes widen. “No—thank _you_ ,” he emphasized. He really meant it. “I appreciate you checking. That’s… incredibly kind of you.”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

At work the following day, Harry and Nebojsa were headed in one direction, Ron and Dmitry in another. They wore their uniforms while Harry and Sia were in plain clothes. 

Dolores Umbridge was being arrested today. Ron and Dmitry were part of the force of Hit Wizards assigned to the mission. They didn’t anticipate Umbridge becoming violent or attempting to flee; rather, Nash and Director Robards were concerned for crowd-control. 

When she was turned down for a job at the Ministry, Umbridge accepted a position at a magical library in Ostrava—a hidden town physically located in the muggle Czech Republic, but on the magical side the settlement was considered part of wizarding Poland. She had to go a very long ways away from home before she found employers with no knowledge of her disastrous tenure at Hogwarts. Most people approved of Albus Dumbledore, and disliked that she’d ousted the beloved headmaster. Poland was far enough away to find a job… but not far enough that she couldn’t be found and brought back to stand trial. 

The Polish Ministry was providing four Aurors of their own to make the arrest, then hand her over to the Brits for extradition. Knowing it would be a PR frenzy, Nash and Robards chose their own representatives carefully. Leading the force were seasoned Hit Witches Bryndís Bjarkardóttir and Daniella Owens; in their thirties, neither witch had any affiliation to Umbridge’s victims. The second team was Karine de la Salle and Dana Jørgensen; Karine had attended Beauxbatons, and Dana went to Durmstrang before playng pro quidditch. Ron and Dima were probably selected for their public recognition factor—the camera loved Dmitry, and Ron’s vivid red hair made him instantly recognizable as Harry Potter’s best friend. Ron and Dmitry weren’t the most neutral choices for the third team but Nash didn’t have many other bodies on-hand and was making due. 

Ron kept glancing at Harry. Eventually, he made his way over to mutter, “So… my first mission. Where’s my pep talk?” 

He didn’t want to look too excited. His was a somber business. He would be arresting the witch who tortured his little sister and so many others, including Harry. Ron had to be feeling a lot. 

"Keep your head," Harry offered. "I know she's infuriating but the time for reactivity is over. You're bringing her in, plain and simple. Justice will take it's course and doesn't need your help, yeah?" 

Ron nodded. "Yeah. I think she's as evil as Voldemort, but I won't have the satisfaction of letting a bystander hex her if it jeopardizes the trial."

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Neither Harry nor Nebojsa had ever been to Blackpool, north of Liverpool and Manchester. Sia checked the map several times before he did the Side-Along Apparition, wanting to be sure he got it right. 

He never mentioned—but never-the-less correcty assumed—that Harry wouldn’t feel up to Apparating on his own, his mind distracted by what was going on in Poland. Neither of them wanted to end up in the wrong place by mistake, or Splinched. 

They were assigned to guard duty, watching over Neville and Astoria in their safe-house. The building was once a family home converted into flats, one per level. With the Fidelus Charm in place, the muggles who lived there simply forgot there was a fourth floor, once the attic; in their minds, the staircase didn’t exist past the third floor. Harry and Nebojsa climbed the stairs. To anyone watching, magical or muggle, they’d simply disappear. 

Harry knocked. They were relieving the previous shift—a Danish wizard, and the other from Turks and Caicos. Harry had never met them before, as they typically worked the overnight.   

Neville answered the door. Harry was surprised. 

“Thank goodness you’re here!” he said breathlessly, stepping out of their way. “Come in,” and he waved them by. 

Seeing Harry and Nebojsa had arrived, the other Hit Wizards collected their things and took their leave, not behaving in any way as though something was wrong—that was just Neville. It was late for them, and they looked tired, eager to get back home and get some sleep. 

As they left, Neville looked after them. “They didn’t sleep,” he said. “I thought they’d take shifts or something but they didn’t sleep at all.” 

“Night shift,” Harry explained quickly. “They’re used to it.” Nebojsa closed and bolted the door as Harry dealt with Neville. “Please don’t answer the door again, okay? That’s our job, to keep you and Astoria safe. Speaking of… where is she?” 

Neville nodded. “I was waiting for you. I don’t know those other wizards. No offense, but… this is private.” 

Harry nodded back. “Okay. What’s up?” 

“Astoria’s not feeling well. She's been in bed all morning. It’s uh… female stuff," Neville admitted. Astoria had her period. 

Harry and Sia shared a look—Harry’s instinct was to go in to see her, but he also thought Nebojsa might do a better job checking on her. Sia grew up around women, was better with them; gentler, more understanding, and far better with words. Sia had a quality that made people feel safe, let them know he was someone you could pour your heart out to and he'd never judge you. He'd have made an excellent priest. 

And… on the off chance Astoria was faking it, if she’d bolted, Nebojsa could attempt to track her while Harry cornered Neville for details. He sincerely hoped that wasn’t the case. 

Nebojsa bowed his head in silent agreement. He went down the narrow hall to knock on Astoria's door, asking her permission to come in.

 

 

 

A few minutes later, Sia was back. 

“She needs a doktor.” His tone was assertive, and Harry wasn’t about to argue. The fact that he said ‘a doctor’ and not a Healer or MediWitch was equally telling. “She iz in pain.” 

Neville paled. “You mean it’s bad?” 

Nebojsa’s eyes wandered, lacking focus as he searched for the proper words in English. “Iz…” his hand fluttered over his own stomach. “A reproductive issue. Perhaps a cyst, or infection. She needz a muggle doktor. And zhe… _abdominal ultrasound_ ,” he said in Serbian, knowing Harry could understand and translate. 

Harry only knew one doctor he'd trust. 

He forgot to shield his thoughts. The nebulous plot taking shape in his head made it to Nebojsa, who nodded. 

“You’re sure?” Harry checked himself. “We’d be breaking the law.” After the situation with Taylor and the baby, Harry wasn’t exactly keen on diving back into criminal action. He was trying to stop all that underhanded shit, to be a better person. Breaking the law again wasn’t a bright idea, especially now that he was a Hit Wizard. He’d be taking Nebojsa down with him if he ever got caught. 

Nebojsa let out a long breath. “Zome laws need to be broken, when zhey are unjust. Zhis vonce… it can only help. It harms no vone. And zhe purpose of zhe law iz to prevent harm and maintain zhe safety of our people.” 

“We’re… in agreement, then?” If they were in it, they had to be in it together. It would take two Hit Wizards, a team, to conceal what Harry was about to do. He was asking Nebojsa to lie for him, to break international law and commit a sin in order to help Astoria. 

For Sia, anything done to help people couldn’t really be sinful. That was probably how he justified everything from consensual rough sex all the way to his own history as a prostitute. Laws which hurt people needed to be broken—even religious laws. The brave people who sheltered and hid the persecuted during the Holocaust were breaking the law, committing a sin when lying to the authorities about the lives they were saving in the process. Like Sia said: when laws were unjust, and no one was hurt by breaking them, it was your duty to smash them to bits. That was one of the hardest parts of being a good person; recognizing when it was time to bust through a barrier, and when it was better to hold back. 

This was something they needed to break. This time, they’d be doing it together, with full knowledge and disclosure before they broke the law as a team. If Harry ever got caught, they’d both go to Azkaban for this. 

“Yes,” Sia agreed. This was worth prison. Helping Astoria was that important—Harry picked out from a jumble swelling through Sia’s heart a rising fear… that if Astoria didn’t see a doctor, she could get an infection, or start bleeding, and possibly die. Out loud, he told Harry, “Go. Get zhe help she needs. I’ve got your back.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

 _Swoosh_ went the automatic doors. _Ping_ went the sensor. And in walked trouble. 

“Pssst! Hottie alert!” 

“Where?” 

The receptionists were younger, some of them in nursing school. They were always on the look-out for cute guys to break up the mundanity of the day-shift. 

“Your three o’clock. Slick suit, thick hair, _gorgeous…_ eyes.” She meant to say ‘body’ but probably got distracted when he turned towards her desk, showing his face. A guy didn’t have to show his face to be cute. 

“Oh! _Yes_ , baby. Walk, you handsome beast. Walk it right over here.” 

I haven’t had a boyfriend since I was pre-med. That’s a long fucking time to not get laid. With double shifts on top of odd hours, it’s tricky to meet men. So I wasn’t above peeking around the partition to have a gander at a hot guy if the front desk girls thought he was something to look at. 

My stomach dropped. _Motherfucker._

His deep voice was the same. And that accent… a few degrees south of posh, a real proper English lad rather than what you heard in the movies.  

“Sorry,” he began, the British equivalent to hello. “I’m looking for a doctor who works here. Her name’s Cassie. Long blonde hair, about so tall—” 

I stuffed my files back into the drawer, slammed it shut, and stepped around the partial wall where Sexy British Jesus could see me. 

“Right here, buddy,” I announced myself. He started, green eyes widening. 

He was dressed better than when I bumped into him at Home Depot two weeks ago. He wore glasses, and pleasantly tight-tailored grey trousers paired with a matching vest and tie, carrying a leather jacket folded over his arm. There was a detective’s gun holster peeking out from his muscular shoulder, and a badge visible on his hip—the handgun would be at his back, under the vest but easily accessible. 

I knew him to be eighteen but he looked twenty-something, especially with a beard. Height suited him, made him that much more formidable. He'd grown into his voice.

He smiled at me, and I needed to lean against the wall. _Jesus_. That was a panty-dropping smile on a barely-legal British boy. My knees barely held. 

“Hey Cas. Is there somewhere we can talk for a mo’?” He lifted his eyebrows. 

Christ. The entire front desk was gonna think he was my boyfriend if he kept talking like that. It sounded like he was asking for a quick fuck, not a quick chat. Then again… maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing? If the front desk girls assumed he was my boo, they wouldn’t think he was a cop here to ask me questions. 

I curled my hand, signaling he should meet me through the double doors separating the lobby from triage. “Come on, then. I’ve got a few minutes.” 

I didn’t. But for a man who could bring people back from the dead with his bare hands… you made time.  

 

 

 

 

Harry wasn’t very good at coming clean. He was even worse at asking for help. He was about to do both—with Cassie, the American doctor who’d saved his life last year after Nagini tore into his leg. He hated asking for another favor after everything he’d already put her through. But she was the only medical doctor he knew. 

He forked a hand through his hair and got started. "Alright, so... what I'm about to say is extremely illegal and could get me arrested. But there's a woman who needs medical attention, and I think that outweighs the law. Do we agree?" 

She nodded. They were in a device storage room, standing next to a spare ultrasound machine on a wheeled cart. It was Harry’s intention to… borrow it, and Dr. Cassie, for just a bit. 

"I treat the patient in front of me, no exceptions," said Cassie firmly. "You're in front of me as a proxy. Let's go." 

"Okay." Harry swallowed. Coming clean was a skill, a muscle he hadn't used much. He was getting better, but only through practice. "All the freaky shit you've seen... there's one simple explanation for it all." 

"Occam's Razor," she named the theory—that the simplest explanation was often the truth. "You're the Messiah." 

Harry burst out laughing. He couldn't help it. In a way, Cassie was right. 

"Among my people... yeah, kinda. What you've seen me do... I'm far from the only one. There are roughly eight-hundred thousand of us in the word. Draco. Nebojsa. Me. We have magic," he said simply. "Magic is real." 

Cassie stared at him. "You're _not_ the son of God?" 

Smiling to keep from laughing again, Harry shook his head. "No! My dad was James, a magical law enforcement officer, like me. I'm Harry, by the way." 

Her mouth dropped open. "You can't be a God, then. No self-respecting God would call himself 'Harry.' That's a big fat zero on the fear-scale… no offense." 

Harry snorted. He couldn’t help it. "None taken. As far as names go, they call me The Boy Who Lived. Because, apparently, I can't die. In that, I'm…." He almost said he was the only one, but that wasn’t true either. The magic which had preserved his life through Draco also existed in Nebojsa. Harry hoped that, for his friend’s sake, they’d never have to test it. Nor did Harry want to find out whether Draco’s soul would splinter and go into him if he died. The only good in that would be that at least they’d be even… and maybe Draco might get a little taller. Still not worth a test which could kill him. 

"You can’t die. Well _that_ I believe," Cassie mumbled, eyebrows wiggling. She’d seen him defy death in front of her eyes, waking up from a coma which ought to have killed him according to the records they confiscated and later destroyed. 

Cassie took everything remarkably well. Then again, she’d already seen proof and had something like nine months to stew on it, inventing her own theories as to how Harry and Nebojsa lived when they ought to have died, and how the entire building could be made to forget… everyone except her, by some accident or happy fluke which Harry was now taking advantage of. 

Harry got right to the point. "So, there's a witch—women have magic too, by the way. Women are called witches, and men are wizards. This witch who’s in trouble, her name's Astoria. She's a witness in a case I'm working, and she's in a safe-house until she can testify. She's in a lot of pain. We think it's a cyst somewhere in her reproductive system. That's why we need you, and the ultrasound machine." 

"Alright. How do we get to her?" 

Harry slipped his coat on. "Easy. With magic." He touched the handle of the cart on which the machine was mounted, offering his other arm to Cassie. "Hold onto me. Tight. You might feel car-sick. But I promise, it's safe and you'll be okay. This is how most witches and wizards travel." 

"Witches and wizards," Cassie repeated, grabbing his arm with both hands and holding on, just like he'd told her to. " _Fuck_." 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Vaginal ultrasounds were one of the more invasive and deeply personal examinations a woman could undergo. Cas didn’t usually perform them—they had technicians at the hospital, but she knew how. There was no polite way to shove a wand up another woman’s vagina and move it around, looking for anything which ought not to be there. 

Astoria was tiny; five feet tall and maybe ninety pounds. The wand wasn’t going to be comfortable. She tolerated it, lying in her bed and staring at the ceiling. Her room was in the attic, with two small windows looking at another taller building. Not much of a view. But Harry said this was a safe-house procured by his government. It wasn’t meant to be hospitable; it merely needed to be safe. 

Astoria’s small body told a story. It was far from a happy one. 

Cas removed the wand. “We’re all done now, honey,” she offered. “Why don’t you lay down, be comfortable, and I’ll tell you what I found.” 

It was Endometriosis. Astoria’s uterine lining had begun to grow on organs outside of her uterus, causing her periods to become increasingly painful. The condition elevated her risk of developing cysts every time she ovulated, which was what happened this cycle. “Endometriosis may also make it much harder to have children in the future,” Cas added.

"That explains a lot," the girl—witch!—sighed. 

"Astoria... are you okay? Are you safe here?" Cas asked. Because in addition to the cyst, she saw intense and extensive scar tissue... evidence of past trauma. Astoria was raped. Violently. Probably many times. There was a very good chance she’d miscarried as well. She couldn’t have been older than sixteen. 

"Oh, of course," Astoria said blandly. She actually rolled her eyes. Like most teenagers, she was a bit theatrical, dramatic. At least she had her spirits up. "They've got Harry Potter watching me—war hero, bastion of the revolution, The Boy Who Lived Twice, and the single most powerful wizard in the world. Trust me, I've never been safer in my life." 

Finally, a name. Harry Potter. Ethnically-Ambiguous Jesus was still more appropriate, especially all grown up, looking like a proper snack with longer hair and a tan. 

But a war between people with magic? Harry Potter was some kind of miracle worker, because surely the world should've exploded.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Cassie emerged from Astoria’s room. She left her ultrasound machine and the electricity converter Harry had purchased behind, intending to have a word with the wizards who waited to know if Astoria would be alright. Three wizards and a witch needed a muggle’s help to solve a mystery. 

The doctor shared what she could with Astoria’s permission. "It’s an ovarian cyst. It hasn't ruptured, which is good. There's a low risk of infection. It's just gonna be majorly uncomfortable for a few days. She'll need something for the pain. And an anti-inflammatory like ibuprofen will help her pass the cyst more quickly." 

"I can run to Boots," Harry said. "A chemists—pharmacy," he added for Cassie's sake, knowing what they were called in America. 

"I'm bollocks at Potions," admitted Neville, looking to Sia for help brewing something for Astoria’s comfort, not wanting to screw it up by doing it himself. Neville correctly assumed that Sia was better than him at Potions. But his toad Trevor was possibly better at Potions than Neville, so it wasn’t much of a stretch. 

As the boyfriend of a renown Potion Master’s son, Sia probably knew a few tricks without lighting his robes on fire as Neville did roughly once a year. Hermione actually started casting flame-retardant spells on his uniforms back in third year. The days she forgot or was ill were the days Neville went up in smoke. Sometimes Seamus, too, when they partnered together. 

Harry missed Seamus. He missed a lot of people, and a lot of things from his schooldays. He still wanted to move forward, not to live in the past.   

Sia told Neville to make a list of whatever ingredients they needed, and he'd get them once Harry ran his errand. They had to have at least one Hit Wizard in the safe house at all times. 

Neville went to the kitchen to review their ingredient supply, leaving Harry and Sia alone with Cassie. The three of them hadn't been in a room together since that frightening day a year ago. Nebojsa had deduced that somehow Cassie escaped the Mass Memory Modification Charms slathered over the hospital that day, which was why Harry trusted her to come and help now without being overwhelmed. 

Cassie looked between them, trying to assemble the puzzle pieces she had. "Who did that to Astoria?" she asked, her voice low, worried... scared. She had every right to be. "The same people who got Draco?" 

She knew—Draco bore the scars of a POW, a torture victim. In her exam, she must have found some evidence of Astoria's repeated assaults which even magic couldn't fix. 

Harry nodded, confirming it. He glanced at Sia, wondering, _W_ _hat's the most succinct way to explain Death Eaters to a muggle?_  

Nebojsa picked up on Harry's struggle for words, taking the burden of explaining onto himself. 

Sia told Cassie, "Ve have a problem vith magical Nazis." Which was horrifyingly accurate in its simplicity. "An organized, cult-like militia who temporarily overzhrew most of our governments and zlaughtered vone quarter of our population in less zhan two years. Zhey believe zhose vith magic are genetically superior to non-magic peoples, and impose zheir beliefs vith lethal force. Ve have our governments back and many of zheir highest officers are dead or in our prisons but… zhe fight iz far from over." 

Harry added his own take. "A million of us, with the five billion of you non-magical people as our slaves. That was their goal, anyway." Harry pushed his hair back, pulling a gulp of air into his lungs. It was complex, and hard to explain but... at the same time it was pretty simple, especially once he wasn't in it up to his eyeballs. "Their leader tried to kill me multiple times—hence the name, Boy Who Lived. Draco's the one who took out the Nazi boss and officially ended the war." 

Gods, it felt good every time he said it. _Draco_ was the hero. _Draco_ bore the karmic weight. _Draco_ carried that immeasurable power inside him. It was Draco, not him. Draco saved them all in the end—the young wizard most people had cast out and written off as beyond redemption. Rather than become like Voldemort, Draco instead harnessed the pain he felt and used it for good. He saved everyone. 

Cassie’s eyes were wide, looking between Harry and Sia, trying to piece together what they might’ve gone through as soldiers in a magic war. "Magical Nazis..." a shaky breath lifted her chest and shoulders as she tried to imagine what that would entail. "Full-on fascists?" 

Harry nodded. 

"Genocide?" 

"Yeah, unfortunately. Two hundred thousand magical people dead in two years, and at least five thousand non-magical people that we know about. Not just military or armed combatants, either. We’re talking public execution of civilians. Women, the elderly, even kids." 

Her eyebrows skyrocketed. "What about propaganda? And making people disappear?"

"A lot of zhat," Nebojsa agreed—he was one of the countless people made to disappear. 

Cassie looked pretty freaked out… with good reason. Her voice was getting thinner and thinner.   

"Swastikas?" That was the next item on her Nazi check-list, apparently, because what was a movement without a recognizable symbol? 

Harry just kept nodding. "In a way. Their icon is a skull with a snake coming out of the mouth. They tattooed it on their forearms, or conjured it in the sky when they killed someone so that everyone would know it was them—like a gang tagging the scene of a crime. They called it the Dark Mark, and if you were one of them, a Death Eater, only their leader could mark you. Draco has it. He... he hates it. He wasn’t quite sixteen, and they forced him while his dad was in wizard prison. They threatened his mum if he didn't join up." And really, what _wouldn’t_ a scared, abused sixteen-year-old do if a bunch of convicted murderers said they’d hurt your mom? 

"What about..." the doc flinched, empathy written all over her face. "Experiments on _people?_ " 

As a doctor, someone who’d taken a vow to help the sick and treat them with dignity, of course Cassie considered human experimentation to be one of the Nazi movement’s most terrible war crimes. She glanced unconsciously back at Astoria’s room—no doubt wondering if that poor girl had disobeyed her family or gone against the tyrants around her, if she'd be handed over to some magical doctor with enchanted scalpels and unimaginable poisons with which to torture her to death. Medical torture was different than rape; Harry couldn’t begin to imagine which was worse. He’d learned in therapy that there was no point in trying to weigh different traumatic experiences against one another. All trauma was valid. There was no comparison. Both were frightful, especially to a fifteen year old girl with no support and no way out. 

Harry knew some of what Voldemort did with his prisoners, the witches and wizards he had his followers kidnap. Some he captured and questioned, thinking they had information he needed regarding horcruxes. Others he took to frighten their families into giving him gold. Some he took because he could, because they wouldn't be missed, turning them into Inferi, his own lobotomized undead servants to guard his secrets and do his bidding. 

Cassie didn't need to know any of that. The truth would only scare her more. Harry didn't know the answer to her question about forced human experimentation. 

Nebojsa knew. "Yes," he whispered. 

Harry hadn’t known for sure: now he did. He had a lot more thinking to do on the subject.

"Magic Nazis..." Cassie repeated, winded. "You, Harry Potter, went to magical war against wizard Nazis who wanted to enslave everyone like me?" 

Embarrassed, Harry nodded some more. His cheeks got a bit hot. 

"Teenagers got caught up in this war?" 

Harry and Nebojsa kept nodding. "Our age for adulthood iz zeventeen," Sia offered, which didn't make it much better. 

"So, Astoria...?" 

Harry confirmed. "Her parents are Death Eaters. That’s the name of their group. The Death Eaters. Even her sister who’s my age supports the cause. They made Astoria go along. She’s a clever witch—she purposefully played dumb so they wouldn’t waste resources keeping an eye on her. That's how she got hold of us. When her security got lazy enough, she was able to get a letter to me and we helped her get out. The information she's given us is probably going to take down a number of their strongholds. The main war is over but the clean-up...” Harry flinched. “It's gonna take years." 

Cassie nodded slowly, needing time to absorb everything they were telling her. Nebojsa’s idea to frame everything as a magical version of World War II was very smart—Cas could understand the similarity, the goals of each side, and many of the tactics employed. It had been devastating. And it wasn’t exactly over, just… quiet. For now. The Death Eater ideas were still out there. New leaders were taking up the movement every day. 

Cassie got it. She understood the magnitude. And she could see how brave Astoria’s actions truly were, going in the face of her family and everything she’d been raised believing. 

"You all have an entire underground society. Your own laws. Your own cops. Wars and culture and technology and... holy fucking shit. I know you’re on the tail-end of a war, here, but… this is amazing." 

This was the opposite of what the Death Eaters wanted. Magical people and muggles working together for a common goal. If muggles knew, they could fight back. Which gave Harry another one of his Significantly Un-Brilliant Ideas.

 

 

 

 


	23. Close Your Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dialogue, and the slow death of denial.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** internalized homophobia, shame, catharsis, compersion, discussion of polyamory, recollection of a battlefield, description of corpses, mental health, emotional support network, recognizing gaslighting behavior, cult-related trauma recovery, pedophilia, recounting of child abuse and neglect, out-of-body experience

 

 

_Maybe I, Maybe I_

_Am just as scared as you. It’s alright. Stay by my side._

_On the edge, On the edge_

_Of everything we know. It’s alright. Just don’t look down._

_When I look back, I look back_

_On the times you tried to hide inside your delicate mind._

_In the end, In the end_

_I’m just the same as you, and it’s alright. Just stay by my side._

_And I will hold on_

_And never let go. You’re right beside me. So just close your eyes._

_I’ll never let go_

_You’re all that I need. So just close your eyes._

 

 

"[Close Your Eyes](https://youtu.be/IPv4urVno8M?t=26)"

David Rhodes

 

 

 

 

 

Harry and Sia were on guard duty, watching over Neville and Astoria in their flat. They had a bit of an overlap with each guard shift, and one of their responsibilities was to go grocery shopping, picking up the odds and sods Astoria and her guardian needed before making their way over. 

Hit Wizards Sean Moran and Alexi Petyushkin were there now. Alexi emailed Harry the errand list: mostly basics, though they’d need to visit the chemist for a few items. 

Harry hand-transcribed the list, tucking it into his pocket. Having a shopping list printed off of a computer would look strange at the store. He nearly missed his pocket on the first try—still borrowing clothes, supplementing his wardrobe from Misha and Sia’s closets… too chicken to set foot in an empty Grimmauld Place. He’d rather not confront a home without Draco in it. 

Harry and Nebojsa left the office to run their errands in London before heading to the secure flat hidden in Blackpool.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry had never purchased tampons before. He and Sia stood in the aisle at Boots, looking between their list in Harry’s untidy scrawl and the overwhelming display of different brands, varieties, and types available. There were at least thirty different kinds, which struck him as thoroughly unreasonable.

Harry didn’t know what to do. There was too much to choose from. He was paralyzed, not wanting to guess wrong. 

At a time like this, he’d have gone to Hermione. Like the riddle they needed to solve to get to the Philosopher’s Stone back in first year, Hermione could figure this sort of thing out far faster than Harry ever could. As a soldier, Harry had been trained to defer to others when he recognized the limits of his own knowledge; that was a great instinct to have on a battlefield but… now that he was out of danger, that freeze-and-wait-for-orders mentality sometimes made him look like a spacking idiot. As an eighteen-year-old man with a basic education, he _ought_ to be able to figure out how tampons were labeled without working himself into a state. 

Recognizing when to apply his training and when not to was gonna take time. He forced himself to calm the fuck down and use his eyes, looking for the specifications Astoria asked for. 

Nebojsa knew what he was doing. Double-checking Astoria’s instructions, he quickly selected the correct type and scent— _why were they scented?_ Harry couldn’t fathom—and put the box into the plastic shopping basket over his arm.

“How’d you recognize what kind?” asked Harry.

Nebojsa was already looking for the next item on the list. “I uzed to buy for my _tetka_. She vorked, I did shopping.”

Harry’s brain informed him that a _tetka_ was a blood-related aunt. In Serbian, an aunt-in-law was called _strina_ or _ujna_ depending on which side of the family she was on. Harry wasn’t sure which side of Sia’s family was magical and which were muggle, but he’d been raised by a non-magical aunt and uncle the same as Harry. Dima told Harry as much the night they met. So as a student at Durmstrang Sia faced the same struggle as Harry, learning to adapt to the magical world after having been raised outside of it, not knowing that their parents had magic.

Harry wondered how Sia’s aunt and uncle had reacted when they found out their nephew whom they’d raised was actually a wizard. Had it been a surprise? Or like the Dursleys, did they know all along and keep it from him out of fear?

“She was married to… your _stric, ujak,_ or _teča_?” Those were the three versions of Serbian names for uncles—father’s brother, mother’s brother, or brother-in-law.

“ _Teča,_ ” Sia answered stiffly.

Harry was no closer to knowing anything about Sia’s home-life as a kid. He got the sense to stop asking questions—Nebojsa’s family was a touchy subject, the same as Harry didn’t care to talk about the Dursleys. On-the-job wasn’t the best place to bring it up, either, so he dropped the subject for some other time.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

At the safe-house, Harry presented Neville with a simple wand box. It wasn’t as elaborate as the lacquered black one he’d given to Draco for his seventeenth birthday; Harry didn’t know what kind Astoria would prefer, and the stipend the Ministry provided for her care wasn’t exactly ample. A simple case was within Neville’s budget. While in hiding, he wasn’t getting his salary from St. Mungo’s, either, though they’d promised him his job when this was over. 

Neville said Astoria needed a wand. Harry agreed—it was a basic right, something she was entitled to as a witch. Restoring her ability to do magic was like reviving some of her dignity, returning autonomy by providing her the tool she needed to exist on her own. She deserved a wand inherently, as a magical person. They weren’t even terribly expensive considering most people only had one or two over the course of their lives… perhaps three if they were clumsy or unlucky. This would be Astoria’s second wand at just sixteen. 

Neville peeked inside the box, letting out a gasp. “Oh Harry! It’s beautiful! But… we can’t afford this.” 

Harry shook his head. Still, Neville closed the box and tried to hand it back to him, adding, “I dunno _how_ you managed to find a Gregorovitch. I can’t accept this—it’s too much.” 

Licking his lips, Harry corrected that false-assumption. “It’s a Batushansky. Yuri was Gregorovitch’s apprentice, engaged to his granddaughter Darya before the war. Yuri’s work looks a lot like his teacher’s, but I promise you—it’s an original Batushansky.” 

With some specifications from Neville, Harry wrote to his war buddy asking for a favor. Neville could afford the cost of materials, and Yuri volunteered his services for free once Harry told him it was for a young witch who’d been stripped of her wand by her own parents. He’d already crafted a few for Hogwarts kids whose families couldn’t afford them, and muggle-borns who didn’t make it to Diagon Alley for a wand before school started. One wand wasn’t much work to a craftsman who once made them by the dozens. 

Yuri understood how powerful a wand was as a symbol for one’s freedom; that was part of why he made wands and other magic-imbued objects. As someone who garnered very little respect due to his family’s humble background, he knew that wands were an equalizer. They were representative of the person who carried them, a source of personal strength and pride. 

Astoria’s new wand was olive wood—signifying peace and new beginnings—with a woven core of Unicorn and Thestral hairs representing a good person who’d been through tough times, coming out the other side forever changed. He wrapped the handle in white leather, with delicate silver metalwork, including tiny _pas d’âne_ at the guard; two ring-like circles meant for her fingers to slip through, securing it in her palm just like a sword. No one would be able to take that instrument away from Astoria ever again. Lacquered in a soft silver, it looked like a miniature sword. 

“Well… thank you. I appreciate you doing this.” Neville offered to shake Harry’s hand. 

Harry gave him a good grip and a few solid pumps. “It’s the least I can do.”

 

 

 

 

When Neville gave Astoria her new wand, she threw her arms around his middle—which effectively scared the piss out of him. He didn’t know how to respond at first, as though he hadn’t been hugged in a long time. Slowly, with trepidation and plenty of caution, he put one hand around her shoulder, touching gently against her upper back. Aware that she had her period, he didn’t want to touch any lower on her body and risk hurting her. 

Letting go of Neville—wiping a trace of dampness from her eyes with her robe sleeve—Astoria took her new wand and gave a few experimental flicks. From the tip dropped a stream of orange and yellow rose petals, drifting down to the ground around her feet. 

She laughed, turning excitedly to Nebojsa. “Did you bring us yeast?” More petals flew from her wand, a manifestation of her happiness. “Let’s make a bread!” And she took the Serbian Hit Wizard’s hand, dragging him off with surprising force, into the flat’s tiny kitchen to bake with her.

 

 

 

 

Harry and Neville kept out of the way. For lack of anything else to do, they turned on the muggle tele. Neville found a travel program, featuring remote and exotic destinations. It ended up being educational for Neville, showing him more of the different types of airplanes and helicopters, trains, busses, cars, boats and the like which muggles used to get from Point A to Point B. Wizards didn’t always understand how much time and effort was necessary for muggles to travel.

On the program, the host was riding on a rickety buggy with no windows, hurtling around mountain roads in Thailand barely wide enough for two cars to pass one another, with the edge of a mountain cliff millimeters away. 

Neville sighed. “We’re so lucky. All we need is an Apparition License and we can go anywhere. You don’t really appreciate that until it’s taken away.” 

He and Astoria were probably bored, cooped up in this apartment night and day. Neville couldn’t even go to work or talk to his Gran by floo. Stuck in this plain flat, he didn’t have a single plant to care for. Astoria was stuck, too, having exchanged one prison for a more humane kind. At least she had a kitchen to bake in, and a fellow cook in Nebojsa to help pass the time. 

“When all this is over,” Harry gestured inexactly, meaning the trial and their hiding because of it. “You can go wherever you fancy. Astoria, too. The two of you ought to make a list or something—things you wanna do, places you wanna see. It’ll be something to look forward to; plan some adventures, keep your spirits up.” 

“Good idea!” agreed Neville, pulling out his wand to Summon a pen and parchment. He’d taken to using muggle pens he’d found in the flat rather than a quill and ink pot. It wasn’t traditional, but pens were more efficient to use. 

Harry made a mental note of his own. He ought to make a similar list for himself and Draco—all the places they had yet to see together, the experiences they could share. 

If Draco came back, they’d tackle that list. And… if Draco didn’t come back, then… Harry needed to do those things anyway. For himself. If Draco deserved it, then so did he. With or without his husband, Harry had to have a go at life.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Leaving Blackpool, Harry and Nebojsa Apparated to Golder’s Green to catch the tube. Being done for the day, they could skip checking in at Fenchurch and go home. 

Standing on the underground platform waiting for the next train, Harry wanted to strike up a conversation. There was a line between what they discussed at work and what was private, meant for home. A tube station was neither work nor home, so Harry wasn’t quite sure. 

“Would now be an appropriate time for a… personal conversation?” 

Sia nodded. 

Harry dropped into Serbian—in case they mentioned anything magical in nature. There was a one-in-a-million shot that the other commuters on the platform spoke the language. Harry felt safe approaching a delicate subject with the cloak of a foreign language obscuring their words. “I wanted to ask about your relationship with Iga. I know you two are friends, but… at school… was there something more than friendship?” 

Sia was completely honest. "I think the word one would use is 'date.' We dated." 

Yuri had been right, then. Sia and Iga _were_ an item at school. It’s wasn’t all for show. 

“Because… you and Dima, you have an open relationship, right?” 

They’d never discussed it before. To Death-Eater-adjacent purebloods like Yuri, Iga, the Ionescue brothers and Draco, having multiple relationships was _de rigueur_ —normalized to the point of becoming fashionable, a staple of their culture. The same way European kings had both a queen and a designated mistress, purebloods often had a public marriage, the person with whom they co-habitated and reproduced, and another relationship which was possibly more passionate or temporary, intended for their pleasure rather than for power. 

The model should’ve been unthinkable for a religious person like Nebojsa. Harry wanted to understand how someone could go from believing in chastity and the sanctity of marriage to… well, the exact opposite, a relationship with little restraint, including the freedom to date or have sex outside the relationship. 

Nebojsa dipped his chin. “ _Da._ ” Yes, their relationship was non-monogamous. 

He wasn’t going to elaborate—not until Harry asked something more steering than a yes-or-no question. “Could you maybe tell me about it? Why you decided to have that kind of relationship? What your rules are? I want to understand how it works for you.” 

“Well… it was necessary,” Nebojsa said simply, slowly. He’d lived this way for so long that it became normal to him, the first relationship he’d ever been in and he was still in it, still happy, six years later. “We’d always need to be around women at the very least—to keep us safe as long as Tiho was alive, as long as two men being together was illegal in our home countries.” Harry read that Serbia decriminalized homosexuality in 1994, so even though it was legal now, Sia would’ve grown up seeing gay people arrested for loving each other. 

“Thirteen was our first kiss. We decided, then, to hide… to publicly date women despite our feelings for each other. It was too dangerous not to. Our agreement was never to lead anyone on. If a girl expressed her interest in Dima, he would take her aside and let her down gently; explain that a real relationship was never going to happen, that they could only ever be friends who flirted or held hands in public. That was as much as he could tolerate to keep up appearances.” 

“You dated women for real,” Harry summarized. “Dima just pretended. Wasn't that... rather lopsided?”

Nebojsa explained; his wording was brutally honest, shocking Harry a bit. “Dmitry has sex with other men when he wants to. He prefers casual sex: I prefer relationships. When either of us becomes interested in someone, we have a conversation about it. Back then, the women I liked, I could date openly; any male relationships I had to keep discreet, the same as Dima. 

“From the beginning, we always discussed it. Many hours back and forth, trial and error, hurt feelings and arguments. It is far from perfect; no relationship is perfect. You keep trying, keep learning, so long as you believe what you have is worth trying for. Our rules are very simple: if Dima doesn’t care for a person I’m into, I don't pursue them. To me, no other relationship is worth upsetting Dima. And if I have a bad impression of a man Dima wants, he usually doesn't move forward… although I suppose I’ve never expressly said that he couldn't.” That wasn’t Nebojsa’s style. He didn’t like forcing people to obey him if it wasn’t life-or-death. Part of why he was so easy to be around was that he let people do their own thing, make their own mistakes. He didn’t try to control you, didn’t judge you, only tried to point in a healthy direction. 

That was a great quality for raising a guy like Misha, or bringing Draco out of his shell; both of them were recovering from overbearing, manipulative fathers who policed their every move. Nebojsa’s laid-back style of support helped them rebuild their ability to trust and regain their independence. But maybe Dmitry’s defiant and unruly nature needed a firmer hand than Sia was willing to wield back then. They were so young when they got started with all this—thirteen years old, still figuring themselves out. They had six years of practice under their belts… the entirety of their relationship, and a third of their lives. 

"I want Dima to have his needs met," Sia expanded. "I want him to have a full life, to sleep with whom he chooses, to have experiences I may not be interested in. I trust him. Most of the time he chooses wisely, and sometimes he does not. He’s not perfect,” Nebojsa chuckled darkly, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he admitted his partner’s short-comings. “Sometimes all the blood goes to one head and he makes choices I would rather he didn't. I trust him to do his best, to acknowledge when he makes mistakes and improve for the next time. And he trusts me in the same way." 

"So with Iga..." Harry really wanted to understand what it was like to have a boyfriend, a man you loved with all your heart, then turn around and date an amazing woman like Iga. How did Sia split his heart like that? 

"Our relationship was intellectual, emotional... and romantic. We dated," he repeated that designation. "We went to dances together, went on dates, held hands, had little names for each other, stayed up late talking about life. Sometimes things got physical—when you know someone for years and you care for them, are attracted to them... you kiss them. They run hands under your shirt. Nothing more," he shrugged. "We never had sex because, in that way, we are not ideal." 

That was why Nebojsa kept saying they dated, but never referred to Iga as his girlfriend or lover. They kissed. They did couple-type activities together. They were into each other. But there was a line within their relationship which they didn’t cross. They didn’t have sex, or go beyond touching with clothes on. That was Nebojsa’s limit. He only allowed their relationship to develop so far, holding some of himself back. 

"You're both dominant," Harry observed out loud, the word feeling strange in his mouth. But it was the word he needed to use to convey his understanding.

Both Iga and Sia would want to take a leadership role during sex, would want to be in charge, to see the other squirm or submit. So neither of them would be completely satisfied. Out of respect for how the other person liked to fuck—understanding what got them off mentally—and for wanting each other’s full spectrum of desires to be fulfilled, they didn't fuck each other. 

Nebojsa corrected him gently. "Not because we’re dominant, but because we enjoy different things sexually, only some of which have to do with power orientation. I have never thought of Iga as anything but one of my closest friends. She will never be my 'ex-girlfriend.' We have so many similar experiences, so much to talk about, so much which connects us. I learn from her, and she from me. We grow together." 

There was one more thing Harry needed to know. It was really personal. He stared at the rubbish on the train tracks, asking his question to the chilly underground air. "Do you love her?" 

" _Da_. Not erotic love," he cautioned, "but what the Greeks call _philia_ —love and loyalty between friends. And _pragma_ —love made stronger by time and sharing our lives together. I love her, and she loves me. We don't want to marry each other or have children together. That wouldn’t make either of us happy. She will forever be a special and honored person in my life, and I to her. That is the love we share." 

That was how Harry felt about Ginny. He still loved her in those same ways. He wanted to be in her life, to make memories and share new experiences. He wanted her to live her best life. Like Sia, Harry recognized he wasn’t the best partner for her—so he stepped aside, wouldn’t stand in the way of her having everything she wanted out of life. Gin loved him in an erotic way, which Harry never returned. He had to find and accept his demisexuality before that even made sense, that he could feel strong love for someone but not want to go to bed with them because the devotion he felt was _philia_ and _pragma_ , rather than _eros_. He’d never contemplated the difference before. 

Wind on Harry’s face meant one thing—at last, their train was arriving. He and Sia managed to find seats. They had a long ride, something like forty minutes, but at least they could relax a bit, not having to switch trains. 

They kept an eye out just the same, making sure they weren’t followed. The long ride was strategic, giving themselves the opportunity to observe faces getting on and off the train, making it easier to see if anyone was tailing them. 

As the carriage swayed, Harry kept the conversation going. The more he learned, the more questions came up in his mind. In some ways, Nebojsa was better than Dr. Beasley. His psychiatrist was great and all, but her largely book-based knowledge didn’t always match up to Nebojsa’s raw, real-world savvy. 

Harry admitted, “Until very recently, I never considered romance and sex as different things. Separate inclinations. I was raised that romantic feelings were a part of sexual attraction. I was taught that romance was something guys had to do to get laid, so I felt odd for actually enjoying it and wanting more of it with Draco, you know? I’m just starting to see how they’re different desires… that you can want to make someone feel good in a romantic way—take them out on a date or something, hold their hand, compliment them, see them smile or blush—and have no sexual inclination attached to that. Just romance—emotional, intellectual,” he repeated Sia’s words describing his feelings for Iga, tacking on one of his own. “Maybe even spiritual. But not crossing into something sexual. Romance for the joy of romance, showing your love for the other person.” 

Draco was the first person he'd ever felt any interest in being romantic towards. Now he felt guilty for having romantic inclinations towards anyone other than his husband because his brain told him that romance and sex were different twigs on the same broomstick, when in fact sex and romance were entirely different vehicles. The information he’d internalized about relationships was completely wrong. It was perfectly possible to have romantic interest but not want to fuck, or choose not to fuck, or even act on romantic feelings without being sexual. No one ever told him that. In a way, he needed to see it to know it was possible. 

Draco was capable of the opposite. Dima, too. They regularly screwed around with complete strangers, having sex without a whiff of romantic interest. They didn’t need romance; it was a luxury, whereas to Harry and Nebojsa, they needed it. Romance made them feel wanted, gave them a sense of security and emotional intimacy. Society classified the need for romance as a distinctly feminine attribute, but it wasn’t. Men could be interested in romance the same as women. It was other men who belittled Harry, leading him to think there was something wrong with him for having a romantic side. Even Draco made him feel bad about himself sometimes, rejecting his ovations or ridiculing his motivations, forcing him to conform their relationship to that hyper-masculine dynamic which Draco preferred. 

Dividing romance and sex as different urges made Harry feel a lot better about his demisexuality and homoromantic leaning. He could say that what he felt for Nebojsa was romantic more than sexual… although his feelings had to graduate to a highly sexual level before he figured it out. 

“Sex and romance are different callings,” Nebojsa agreed. “We can feel one without the other, or both at the same time. Some people only experience one: asexual with romantic interest, or sexual but aromantic.” Harry had never heard of someone being ‘aromantic’ before; it perfectly described how he’d felt prior to being with Draco. “We all feel it uniquely, so no two people’s experiences can be the same. Dima taught me that. Being poly has reinforced it.” 

Dmitry went outside of their relationship for sexual variety. He craved stimulation and fresh contact. Sia’s needs were different; away from Dima he sought romance, emotional connection… things his partner wasn’t as naturally inclined to provide. 

Nebojsa bowed his head. “This is something I’ve worked on, but I’m not perfect either. I make mistakes. Sometimes the line gets blurred.” 

"Polyjuice," Harry said simply. “You… got your wires crossed, did something you didn’t mean to, because Dima… as a girl, he fucked with your heart in a way he’d never done as a man.” 

" _Da_ ," Nebojsa nodded, his cheeks hollowing, a remorseful downturn to the corners of his mouth. "That potion... it made us who we needed to be for our survival but... we did not become the bigger men we needed to be on the inside. We thought of ourselves, not of others."

Harry had to protest. " _Brate_ , you thought you were gonna die." 

Harry understood the feeling, knew how constant danger and death threats could make a person act completely outside their character, defy their morals, pivot into monstrous action to save themselves. He'd gunned down fifty-eight people. Draco let Death Eaters into the castle at sixteen, then killed members of his own family a year later. _Self-defence_ was a term used by people who hadn’t been there, trying to understand the experience. You couldn’t. It was a state of mind, a rush of chemicals and instinct which defied all logic and sense. You became whatever you needed to be. 

Of all people, Harry knew what it was like to exist relentlessly fearing for your life, and what that kind of unremitting mortal pressure could do to your mind and heart. Mortal peril triggered a response which was pure impulse; no one could think clearly when they thought they were about to die. Soldiers trained their entire lives and even they weren’t perfect. Expecting Dmitry and Nebojsa to respond appropriately under their circumstances… that wasn’t reasonable. They weren’t soldiers—they were terrified eighteen-year-old kids, refugees coming off the streets, hunted like animals, thinking they were about to die every single day for more than a year. They were tired and terrified; in that state, it was all too easy to hurt others, to make bad decisions and lose your grip on your judgment. 

People who’d never been that close to their own violent death simply didn’t understand what it did to you… it turned you into an animal, fighting for survival at any cost. You’d cut your own leg off, hurt or kill anyone who stood between you and escape. As wizards, they became even more dangerous when cornered. 

Nebojsa always tried to hold himself to the highest possible standard. But he was only human. Occasionally he fucked up. His faith made him harder on himself than most other people. 

"That is an excuse, not a reason," Sia argued back, sounding tired—fed up with himself, what he perceived to be his weakness. “There is no apology or act of contrition which can make up for my failing.” 

"I dunno," Harry countered. "Being humble and respectful without a sense of context can lead to glorifying martyrdom to the point you let others murder you for no reason.” And, quite suddenly, he wasn’t just talking about Sia anymore, but speaking of his own life, too. “We can't expect a rational person to just march off to their own death without a fight. Sometimes the fight to survive gets ugly. We do what we have to. Sometimes we hurt other people in the process of saving ourselves.” Of that, they were both equally guilty. But the very human drive to live couldn’t be called a good or a bad thing—it simply existed, something they couldn’t help for being mortal. “You made a bad call under horrifying circumstances. But I don't think it's fair to punish yourself for having a survival instinct." 

Sia rolled his eyes. His lips thinned, turning up at the sides, a wicked joke making its way out. "Having my cock in Dima is not necessary for survival." 

"Not _physical_ survival," Harry conceded, smirking a bit himself because they were talking about Nebojsa’s dick. "But maybe for your sanity? For the survival of your relationship—which contributes to a lot of great things, by the way. You're basically Misha's parents; if you split up, he'd be lost. You help so many people. And honestly… if you and Dima weren't together, I don't think Draco and I would be, either." 

Sia's head tilted away, his loose hair cascading over his shoulder like a waterfall pouring over a rock. He treated Harry to some serious side-eye in profile. He didn’t say a word, forcing Harry to elaborate or let the silence between them grow uncomfortable. 

Harry flushed a bit. He couldn’t help that. “What? You two have been a huge influence on us. It’s so rare to find other people, another couple, who are so similar. Of course we’ve taken a lot of cues from you, learned from you. Not just because you’re older,” he added. It wasn’t about age, but rather wisdom and experience. Some people could live to be two hundred years old and never acquire a drop of wisdom. Nebojsa’s unique mind, combined with his practice of meditation and reflection, allowed him to see things differently than other people. In war, Harry learned the value of an alternate perspective. He taught himself to listen to those who saw the world differently.

Harry spoke a truth he’d been dancing around for ages. “It’s good to have a guide, a mentor, who’s also a friend and an equal.” 

He never had that before. His mentors were significantly older, father figures like Remus and Sirius, or grandfatherly Leon Harper. When Harry looked up to blokes his own age, it was always with a hint of competitiveness, jealousy, or resentment. He felt nervous around chaps like Viktor Krum, Cedric Diggory, and Bill Weasley. He was never able to develop a deeper relationship with them because of his own hang-ups. Their good-looks and accomplishments made Harry feel inferior. He latched on to Nebojsa and Dmitry because they were the first blokes he respected and wanted to learn from who managed not to trigger his massive insecurities… probably because they got drunk with him and dropped their pants, acting like proper idiots. 

The first time Harry met Sirius, he’d kidnapped Ron and was trying to murder Peter Pettigrew. And his godfather still managed to turn that situation around, gaining Harry’s trust and respect in a single night. Dumbledore let Harry run off into almost certain death dozens of times, and Harry never lost faith. Having a mentor who sometimes made bad judgment calls wasn’t a problem for Harry in the past; his caveat now being that his mentors proved themselves capable of learning from their mistakes and trying to do better when given a fresh chance. 

The magical world was fucked up and confusing—even more-so when you were pervy and not-quite-straight. So Harry held tight to people who were like himself, and he’d never met anyone more like him than Draco, Dima and Sia. Their similarities made a kind of bond he’d never expected or imagined.

He’d managed to render Nebojsa speechless. They swayed with the train. People got on and off around them. The normality of it all helped their surroundings disappear, leaving just the two of them, sharing how they felt. 

“I’m… honored you think of me that way,” Sia whispered to his shoes. “I would never offer myself to be anyone’s mentor. I try to do better, to be a good person, but… ” 

Harry elbowed him, cutting off the self-deprecation he knew was coming. In that, he and Sia were very much alike. They never learned how to take a compliment without negating it, beating themselves back down. In a way, they didn’t believe they deserved to hear nice things, to feel good about themselves, because that pride could be taken away in an instant. Better they strip themselves voluntarily than let someone else do it to them. It was a way of coping with repeated emotional pain. 

Harry countered, “That’s why you’re so good at it. No one dropped a prophecy on your head and declared you were going to be a great wizard. You worked really hard and became one all on your own.” 

Nebojsa kept looking at his shoes. His response was a murmur Harry barely heard over the noise of the carriage on the rails. “If you say so, Harry.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

They stopped at the market on the way home. Harry felt a twinge of guilt buying meat which Sia wouldn’t eat, but his friend assured him it was fine, that it didn’t bother him to see meat or be around it. He just didn’t eat it. 

Harry often fabricated reasons to take Draco out into the muggle world, and food had been his go-to excuse. They had to eat, after all. He loved seeing Draco step outside of his element, exploring muggle culture which had for so long been off-limits to him. 

With Sia, visiting muggle places was different. With Sia, Harry imagined the feeling was a bit like revisiting your childhood home after your parents and everyone else you knew had moved away. They were in the muggle world together, where they’d grown up, but neither of them really belonged here anymore. 

They knew they were different. It wasn’t just magic they were hiding, either. 

A bloke in his twenties gave Harry a sneering look—eyes darting from Harry’s wedding ring to Nebojsa’s bare hands… mistaking Harry for a man cheating on his wife, secretly gay and lying about it, or perhaps recently out and not quite divorced yet. The muggle man disapproved of whatever the two long-haired queers were up to. Harry glared back, unflinching—a face he’d made at Draco and Death Eaters for so many years, refusing to back down when someone didn’t care for his existence. The bloke visibly shivered, and moved on. 

They walked home with their groceries. It was chilly, their breath making clouds as they walked. Nebojsa had his chin buried in a thick scarf wrapped several times around his neck. 

After some time to reflect, Harry found he had more questions. 

"I wanted to ask how you and Dima... uh... how you manage it," he spat out awkwardly, returning to Serbian. "Dating and having sex with other people without... getting jealous of the person he’s with. Or feeling like you're not enough." 

That was what it boiled down to for Harry, the real reason he wanted to be monogamous. When Draco expressed interest in other people, it made Harry feel he wasn’t good enough—like he was failing his husband somehow, failing to be sexually appealing, failing to provide adequate stimulus. Nothing frightened Harry more than failing the ones he loved. Every time Draco eyed a girl’s tits or some other bloke’s bum, Harry felt inadequate. He took it personally. Monogamy wasn’t about Draco, but rather a fortification constructed around Harry’s deep insecurity about his own worth.

Nebojsa had to think for a bit. "Let's say—hypothetically—that having someone cook a meal for me turned me on. Nice food, candlelight, a bottle of wine," he gestured vaguely, his gloved hands weighed down by shopping bags. "All of it. But Dima is a terrible cook. I swear, that man could burn water. I might know someone who is an excellent cook, someone I like and get along with. What Dima and I have always practiced is that, so long as he is comfortable and approves of that person, I can talk to them about cooking for me. I can have that experience with that person—they make me a meal, we spend time together, drink, laugh, eat good food. I get turned on. Then I go home and have sex with Dima." 

"I kinda get that," said Harry. "Partly, maybe because someone cooking is actually a thing for me—emotionally more than sexually. I like it, so I can understand it. It works because you're getting what you need, what makes you feel good, without asking Dima to change who he is. You're not making him feel bad for being an awful cook, or demanding he take up cooking just to satisfy you. You're getting that fulfillment with someone else so that you can come home and have a better experience with him, so he can enjoy the high with you." 

" _Da_." 

Harry found a point of contention. "Cooking someone dinner can be lovely and all. But it's a far ways from having sex with them." 

"Maybe you haven't had a really good dinner!" Nebojsa couldn’t resist the opportunity to make a lewd joke, and Harry had left that wide open. Sia didn’t always make sexual references, though. He only showed that side of himself when he was comfortable with someone; otherwise he was a proper monk, concealing his sexual side from the world. That public stoniness protected him and Dima, protected the secret of their lifestyle as well as shielding their love from discovery. Sia could make a dirty joke in front of Harry because they trusted each other. It was kind of a big deal. 

" _Zao mi je_. I'm kidding." He started over. "Sex can be as impersonal or as emotional as you make it. Yes, some experiences we have outside of each other are quite meaningful, others are superficial. As to jealousy, I have found that, in the same way a parent loves all their children differently but equally because they are individuals, so too do Dmitry and I open ourselves up to other people. My feelings for someone else would never take away or diminish what I have in my heart for Dima. He understands that because he’s experienced it for himself: when he has sex with another guy, it doesn’t change how he feels about me.” 

Sia often thought in metaphors, and this was no different. “Society teaches us that our capacity for sexual love is a finite resource, like a glass of water—that we have to conserve it, only giving to our partner, not to waste it on people who are unworthy, to keep it pure and untainted, bottled up inside our hearts. I think love is a hose in a garden; I have unlimited affection, enough for everyone who desires and accepts it from me, whether society thinks they are ‘worthy’ of my love or not. A hose may not be as neat or elegant, but it functions the same way. I am more than enough to fill many glasses; whoever comes seeking me. The only real limit to love is my reach—who chooses to be in my life, who steps away, and who I choose to keep out.” 

Like a seasoned financial investor, Sia rejected the social model of scarcity. He knew there was plenty to share. Instead of listening to others who wanted him to be malleable and afraid, Sia positioned himself as the authority over his own love life, choosing who he let in and who he kept out. That was a powerful stance. If he wanted to have more than one boyfriend, more than one lover, that was between himself and the people he was with. Complete honesty and transparency within those relationships made it possible. He refused to let other people dictate who he loved, or how many overlapping loves he might have. He wouldn’t cut off pieces of his heart just to make other people happy, or to follow an arbitrary rule set down by others. 

“Having love in my life is good for everyone involved. Sex is something Dmitry and I both enjoy, and not exclusively with each other. So long as my relationships away from him aren't bringing problems back into us; then I would end it, of course. I have no business watering the edges of the garden if my hose is leaking and the center of my being needs attention. If Dima ever became jealous of my other relationships or felt neglected, we would become monogamous again until we worked through that. He is my priority—I am committed to him first. The jealousy would be his problem; however as his partner I want to help him through that. So I’ve ended relationships for his benefit, so that he can work on his issues privately, with me, my time and attention undivided." 

Nebojsa wasn't just talking about sex or jealousy. He meant Dmitry's psychological health. If Dima wasn't doing well, Sia put his other relationships on hold to take care of his boyfriend. As he said, Dmitry took priority. Misha too, when he needed Sia as a parent. That was their agreement, the promise they made to each other. Their family looked very different than other people’s because their needs weren’t traditional. Sia wouldn’t try to fix a leaking sink with a hammer. 

"Having the occasional outlet allows me to be a better partner to Dima, to appreciate him more, to be thankful that he wants my happiness. He trusts me to have other relationships besides him, and to conduct myself responsibly. We both want each other to be happy, and to have good experiences in life. We also recognize one another's shortcomings, flaws, and preferences. Rather than cut off parts of ourselves for the sake of the other, we find outlets for the few of our preferences which don't match up." 

Harry adjusted his grip on the bags he carried, the plastic digging into his hands through his gloves. "You liking women, for example." 

" _Da_. Or some of Dima's fetishes which I don't share." 

Harry fought the childish urge to cover his face. He had fetishes of his own, yet the word remained inappropriate in his head—dirty somehow, something to be ashamed of rather than declare out loud. Of course Dmitry had a few fetishes, too, being with a guy like Sia.

Harry tried not to think of Dima or Misha in a sexual capacity; it was too awkward for him, Dmitry being the boyfriend of the bloke Harry had a crush on, and Misha dating Harry’s one and only ex-girlfriend. They were handsome blokes, and they were his best mates in the whole world. They were highly sexual guys, but Harry managed to block that out. Misha’s sex life was just about the only thing he _was_ shy about, keeping it under wraps. And Dima wasn’t comfortable being sexual at all unless he was confident he wouldn’t be outed. He was alright being sexual around Harry, but it was rare that he acted on what he felt—really, only when he was drunk, or when fear took over his rational mind, like when his life was at-risk. 

“Would it be rude to ask if either of you are in other relationships right now?” 

Sia’s shoulders tilted in a kind of shrug. “You’re family; it’s your right to know.” That was perpetual permission. Being a part of the family, Harry was entitled to that level of transparency. Any time he wanted to know their relationship status, all he had to do was ask. “Neither of us are seeing anyone.” 

Harry figured as much. And he thought he knew why. “Because of Dima, right?” After a summer working as a prostitute, he needed time to decompress. That was _a lot_ of sex, even for a guy who enjoyed it. Nebojsa was giving all of his attention to Dima and Misha… and now Harry, too. 

He felt a bit greedy pulling Sia’s focus away from his partner to help him through his separation. If it ever got to be too much… Harry knew Nebojsa would say something. 

Because they were polyamorous, Sia’s promise to Dima was that come what may, Dima was his number one. Dima would never be expected to go without for someone else’s sake. They were especially adept at balancing multiple relationships, allocating their time and communicating their needs and expectations. So of course Nebojsa would ask Harry to leave their flat if he thought Harry was a detriment to Dima; Sia would sacrifice their close friendship, asking for distance between them, in order to honor his word to his partner.

Harry wasn’t polyamorous, but he understood that. He’d created a lot of distance in many relationships in order to put his own spouse above all others. The difference was that Harry pushed his loved ones away without adequately telling them _why_. Polyamory taught Nebojsa how to alter the terms of his relationships with more clarity, letting his loved ones know that his pulling back was for Dmitry’s sake, to keep his promise and focus his entire self on his partner’s well-being. Harry just disappeared with no explanation—he didn’t think he owed anybody that. He had a lot to learn about relationships. 

Nebojsa’s answer was nebulous. He wasn’t going to cite Dima directly as the reason they weren’t seeing other people. “We’ve closed our relationship for a number of reasons. We agreed: now isn’t the right time to look outside of us. We’re focused on each other, and our family.” 

They’d talked it over and decided: their definition of ‘family’ included Harry. 

They were nearly back at the flat. Nebojsa paused a moment to dig out his keys. Harry took his bags to free up his hands… refusing to give the bags back once Sia had his keys. 

Maybe that was over-stepping on Harry’s part, a possibly ‘romantic’ gesture? Harry wanted to carry the damn bags. Nebojsa broke his arm a few days ago—he shouldn’t overexert himself when his body was still healing. Sia always did everything for his family. Harry saw in Sia his own flaw of wrecking himself, disregarding basic needs and driving themselves into the ground, calling it duty or responsibility to those they loved—but really it was self-inflicted punishment, a kind of groveling, seeking salvation through physical trials and self-deprivation. They both needed to prove how strong they were, how good. The process could destroy you. Having died himself, Harry knew too well. Destroying yourself didn’t make anything better. 

Harry wanted to do this one stupid thing, to take the weight for these last two blocks. He refused to stand idly by and let Nebojsa grind himself down to nothing. 

There was one other thing which Harry wanted to know. He held the bags hostage, asking his question. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. Always, you know that. But… have either of you ever fallen in love with somebody else? Loved them the way you love each other?" 

He was reaching. More than taking the bags, Harry was imposing with how he phrased the question. He’d never actually heard Dima or Sia say “I love you” to each other. Nebojsa and Misha said it in more than a brotherly way—closer to a parent and child. Misha regarded Sia as a parent-figure, more-so than his own brother. They all loved each other deeply. But Dima never used those specific words, and Sia didn’t say them to Dima. Harry was putting words in their mouths—the words _he_ wanted to hear. 

“I….” As Sia searched for what he felt comfortable saying, he tilted his head. Harry could read that body language without any mental connection. _It’s cold. Let’s start walking_. Once their feet were moving, it got easier for him to speak… maybe because they were shoulder-to-shoulder like they’d been on the battlefield rather than face-to-face. 

“I don’t believe it’s possible to fall in love without a foundation of respect. I would never initiate any relationship or have sex with someone I didn't respect... bearing in mind that a superior person might earn my respect within five minutes of meeting them, while another might take far longer to come to know and trust." 

He was talking, very carefully, about their one and only kiss—locking lips the night they met. Harry didn't want to blush, but he couldn't help it as the memory rose up. Cold wind bit at his red cheeks. _He_ was one of those rare, superior persons to earn Sia's respect almost immediately; because his friend saw Harry was capable of falling in love with a Death Eater's son, able to forgive Draco and accept him as he was. And to Sia, Harry’s compassion and the depth of his heart made him a worthy prospect. Perhaps… maybe _more_ than a sexual partner? Nebojsa recognized Harry as something like… boyfriend material. 

“Falling in love takes two people,” Nebojsa professed. “Mutual desire and knowing effort on both sides. Water a dead plant all you like—it won’t grow anything but mold.” He meant that dwelling on unrequited affection was toxic. He’d thought himself in love before, but didn’t consider it real because it wasn’t returned. If someone didn’t reciprocate your feelings, it was best to move on for your own well-being. 

That was as clear of an answer as Harry was gonna get. Nebojsa unlocked the outer door and they slipped inside the building, Harry locking it behind them. 

The employees of the limo company were working on the main floor; the sounds of car engines and chatter, the garage bay creaking open as someone left to pick up a fare. Harry suspected that having such mundane muggle sounds in the vicinity was comforting to Nebojsa; having grown up in the city, he was accustomed to constant background noise. 

Nebojsa was half-way up the first flight of stairs. Harry followed after him with the bags. 

"Has Dima ever loved someone else?" Harry blurted out. Because Sia only answered for himself. 

Sia didn’t turn around, walking slowly so that Harry could catch him up. He spoke even more circumspectly when it came to Dima’s past—less cryptic, but choosing his words with equal care, making sure his meaning would be clear this time. 

"Um... Dima is more susceptible to sexual infatuation than I am. He's had many conquests. They did not always treat him well." Harry could sense there were some memories there, times when Nebojsa and perhaps even Vuk had intervened—Sia to protect Dima's heart or pick up the pieces after it got smashed, and Vuk to help Dima stay in the closet and avoid their father's wrath; Sia protected Dima’s heart while his brothers looked out for his life. 

Dmitry got screwed—physically he liked to have sex, and metaphorically-speaking he had bad luck with partners, things falling apart or not being the right fit. He never had the chance to fall in love more than once. 

Life had been comparably easy for Harry; with a moderately high sex drive but almost no measurable interest in other people, he'd been content jerking off by himself until Draco came along. 

In Harry's mind, opposing ideas collided—a part of him wondered why Dima had to go out and sleep with other people, stirring up so much trouble for those who loved him, when he could've just masturbated to fantasies of other guys while being exclusive with Nebojsa. That was what Sia talked about before, the muggle belief that erotic-romantic love was finite, not something to be spread around between multiple partners at the same time. Harry still subscribed to that model of sexual and emotional exclusivity, thinking it was inherently better; that keeping your trousers on around other people was more respectful towards your partner, saving all of your sexuality and emotional urges for them alone. 

A part of Harry felt that Dmitry making himself readily available to other men was disrespectful to Sia—but that was up to _Sia_ to say, not Harry. If Sia was cool with it, Harry didn’t get to jump in and be offended on his behalf. They made their own rules because it was their relationship. Harry didn’t get a say in the matter because he wasn’t either of their boyfriends. 

His other more sexually-awakened half wondered if Dima felt for others the way Harry felt about Draco early in their relationship; the fixation and wonder he'd experienced, like a drug addict chasing a high. Draco had been Harry's drug at first, until their relationship settled in and they started feeling spiritual connectivity as much as sexual perfection. 

If Dima's sex life with other chaps was anything like Harry's life-changing experience with Draco, then Harry couldn't blame Dima for chasing it all the way outside of his main relationship. It was easy to get addicted to sex when it was that good, to chase the high. Harry chased it with Draco. Maybe Dima found it everywhere?

"What's it like to watch Dima go after somebody else?" asked Harry as they made the landing to their flat. "Is it scary?" 

Sia was done speaking in riddles. He sounded like a proper wizard when he did that. It was something he and Draco shared. Harry found it fascinating, but when it came to emotional conversations he preferred when they spoke their minds and hearts plainly. 

It was easier for Nebojsa to be objective talking about Dmitry’s actions and choices, how those experiences made him feel. 

"Dima has not always exercised the best judgment. His behavior outside of our relationship does make me nervous sometimes. He's an impulsive man. He is also so beautiful; many people lust after him, which gives him a sense of power he at times links to his identity. Many people want to take advantage of him, use him. There’s always potential for him to get hurt, or be outed. I can make myself sick with worry, considering the motivations of whomever he wants to sleep with, whomever he chases or desires deeply. But I try to be rational, not to intervene without solid evidence. And even then, I have to let him make mistakes. That is how he learns.” 

That was exactly how Harry felt about Draco after the war. He wanted his husband to explore, to see the world, to do anything and everything his heart desired. But it simultaneously frightened Harry to his core every time Draco stepped out their front door. Death Eaters had tried to kill his husband, had used Draco as bait and come after them so many times. His instincts said to smother Draco in bubble wrap and stick him in a vault at Gringotts protected by twenty dragons where no one could ever touch him again, let alone hurt him. But his heart… Harry’s heart told him to gently wipe the tears and the blood off Draco’s cheeks and throw him back out into the world; watching his back always and forever, but encouraging him to keep going… even if the direction Draco needed to go was away from him.

He understood every word of what Nebojsa was saying. Controlling others was the Death Eater way, which they soundly rejected. Letting your partner be free was one of the highest expressions of your love for them. Sometimes that hurt… but it was worth it. 

“It's hard to see Dima get his feelings hurt. I take no pleasure in that. I love him, so I trust him to go out and enjoy the world however he chooses. I love him, so I also forgive him when he makes mistakes, when he hurts me or others. I know he does not mean it; I know he wants to be good. I try to help him find his best self." 

"... Dominance," Harry said. The weight of his realization had him leaning against the wall outside the flat door. He couldn’t cross the threshold until he got this off his chest. "It's a kind of love. Dominance isn’t actually about controlling another person. It's having control over yourself, respecting and honoring from the inside-out. Setting expectations for how you're treated and how you'll treat others. Holding yourself to that personal standard. Seeing that the rules are followed, or admitting when they need to be changed and guiding that rebuilding process. Keeping your promises. And providing guidance and discipline for your partner when they're ready to receive it." 

Eyes closed, Nebojsa bowed his head. "That's the greatest secret of all. Dominance is a state, not an action. Dominance is self-knowledge, self-discipline. It does not require anyone's submission, but rather an ownership of self. Master yourself before attempting to be the master of another. Sometimes we never feel ready, other times we leap." 

Harry got that. He was living it, the consequences of jumping in without comprehending first. “You just hope you can figure it out—figure yourself out—and make peace in mid-air.”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

It was only a matter of time before Dr. Beasley started asking after Harry’s living situation. “Right now you're staying with your friends, for support?” 

“Yeah, my mates Nebojsa and Dmitry, and Dima’s little brother Misha. I say ‘little’ but he’s my size—we share clothes.” He was wearing Misha’s jumper at the moment. “They have a flat in London, near the office.” 

“What’s it like living with them again?” 

Harry shrugged. “It’s a smaller space. But we’re at work most of the time, so….” 

Akilah had a pen and note pad in her hand. She turned, putting them aside on the desk behind her—knowing Harry could read upside-down and that anything she wrote would only distract him.

“Harry,” she cautioned, folding her hands peacefully in her lap. She always did that before confronting him. “Are you uncomfortable talking about your roommates?” 

Busted. He purposefully avoided talking about his mates in his therapy sessions because he didn’t understand his own feelings for Nebojsa, and Dima’s presence only complicated things. Now that Harry had figured out his position, he was nervous about his therapist’s reaction… which was silly! But that nervousness was just one emotion he held in. His feelings were unreasonable little monsters running around inside him. He did his best to cage and study them, as though his therapy sessions were a Care of Magical Creatures lesson. He had a better understanding of his feeling, but he still reacted when they bit him. He wasn’t quite confident enough to release them on Dr. Beasley without some kind of check in place. He didn’t want to have an outburst, and he recognized that sorting through his complicated relationship with Dima and Sia in a clinical manner might be upsetting. 

Akilah could probably tell something was up. He talked about the Weasleys or Hermione without any reservations. The fact that he instinctively put walls up between his therapist and his best mates was extremely telling. 

He settled for saying, “Dima and Sia are my best friends, the people I feel closest to outside of my marriage. They’re very special to me. That makes them hard to talk about. I’m conflicted; I wanna be up-front with you, but I also work and live with them, and it wouldn’t be right of me to air their dirty laundry to you without their permission. I’m not entirely sure where those boundaries are. I don’t want to betray their trust.” 

Akilah hummed and nodded. There was a fine line to walk between being a good friend and roommate, and making progress in this room. “Why don’t you tell me about them? Your observations. What _you_ think. Leave out anything which you feel needs to be kept in confidence.”

“Okay,” Harry agreed. If he put up any more of a fight, Akilah would know he was dodging. “I think part of why I feel so close to them is how frighteningly similar they are to me and Draco. Dmitry's past and Draco's are mirror images sometimes. Nebojsa and I grew up the same way too, with muggle relatives. Nebojsa is the only natural Parselmouth in the world—he was born with it, whereas Draco and I have it through transference. Because of our shared magic, Dmitry can understand us when we speak the language, but he can’t speak back; I dunno if that’s because he hasn’t had as much exposure as Draco, or because of… Dima’s an Animagus,” Harry revealed what he could, though by no means the truth. “So his creature form might be blocking it, because he’s not a snake. 

“We're all secretive people by nature—emotionally closed-off. We bottle things up and sit on them until it explodes. I've seen their tempers a few times.” He was thinking of their time in Romania, the family fights over money and pride… fights which Harry had been a part of. They got mad at each other, but they never walked away. 

“Dima gets yelled at the most. He deserves it, tho. His personality is more like mine. Straightforward, keeps to himself, not very emotive unless you really press him about it. He can be insensitive at times; he forgets to consider other people's feelings, which is something I’ve struggled with, too. 

“Nebojsa reminds me of Draco—kinda, um, high-strung at times? But really charismatic. He can draw you in and make you feel what he's feeling. He's creative like Draco; being musicians was the first thing they bonded over back at Hogwarts. They’d play piano together. But Nebojsa is very… mature. More-so than Draco. In touch with his feminine side, I guess. He’s not afraid to show his emotions to people he trusts, unlike Draco who thinks emotions are largely useless. Sia’s focused on being a good person. He encourages everyone around him to be their best selves. I think that’s what I like most about him; he’ll accept you wherever you are and try to lift you up. He and Dima are good for each other—Sia enforces the rules, while Dima reminds him to relax and not take everything so seriously.  

“So living with them is like being in a parallel universe of my own marriage, with all our traits mixed together. It's hard, because I see echoes and flashes of Draco in both of them.” 

He'd always thought of his friends in terms of being similar to himself and Draco. But he’d missed a more appropriate comparison. He had to step back and analyze their behavior before he could see it. 

“Dima and Sia are… like my mum and dad. Their personalities, even their sense of humor from what I'm told. My dad was a big prankster at school, a bully at times—aggressive because he was insecure—and really tight with his mates… just like Dima. And my mum was the only one strong enough to control my dad; but she did it with kindness, with compassion. My mum never strong-armed people like my dad would—she’d try to reach them, convince them, help them see the world from a different perspective. That's Nebojsa for sure. 

“I guess it makes sense I wanted to be near them when Draco…” Harry forced himself to say it, “when he left. I didn't go to the Weasleys, or the Harpers, or even Tonks. I wanted… I was craving a mum and dad, and those two are the closest I've got to the parents I lost.” 

“Your friends remind you of the relationship dynamic between your parents,” Akilah repeated, taking a mental note. “Do you think that association makes you want to be closer to them?” 

Harry chewed his lip. He didn't know. Until he said it out loud, he hadn't realized just how much Dima reminded him of his dad—the spoiled, rebellious, secretly self-doubting sons of pureblood houses. But he _had_ compared Sia to Lily more than once. And of course they'd both put their lives on the line for him. The stark contrast between Nebojsa and Lily—gender, appearance, upbringing, and of course nationality—made it harder for others to recognize their strong similarities. 

When blokes lusted after their mums, or women like their mums, muggles called that an Oedipus Complex. This was something a bit different. Maybe a Mostly-Straight Orphan Blood Sorcery Complex. 

“I don't know,” he admitted. “I’d never considered it before. With Dima… he's like a brother to me. I love him like family. I treat him like he’s my brother—I listen to him and offer advice, try to help when I can. I try to point out to him when he’s being unreasonable. If he’s ignoring Sia and Misha, sometimes he’ll hear me. He’s… not always easy to be around. More often than not, I can’t tell what he’s thinking. He’s so closed off. He does stuff I’d never do, things which make no sense to me.” Selling drugs and having sex to survive rather than write one owl asking for help sprung to mind. “I try to understand what’s going on in his head whenever he’ll let me in. I want to help him—that’s what keeps me around even when his judgment scares me, when I question his actions. I think there’s a good man inside him, but because of everything he’s been through, maybe the goodness in him has gotten covered up. 

“I think, with Sia, it's the combination of his androgyny and his more feminine qualities that suck me under his wing. The way he guides people. His spirituality… mysticism, really. The respect shown to him. He just… his presence is so different than anything I've ever experienced coming out of a guy. He reminds me of my mum because he has that willingness to put himself on the line for his family. His name means ‘fearless,’ and he is. When we duel, he laughs; to everyone else it looks like we’re about to kill each other, but he’s just amazed how much we’ve developed, what we’ve surpassed in so short a time. Sia’s run out of fear, like he cut it out of his brain to survive and replaced it with his faith. Those qualities represent what my mother was to me; fearless in the face of evil. My mum did the same thing, except what drove her was her love for me and my dad.” Lily’s love had saved Harry’s life, and Draco’s life too. Love was an unimaginably powerful magic. 

Akilah had been listening intently. Her next question was aimed at understanding him better. “How do you feel when you're with them?” 

“Like a clueless little kid most of the time,” Harry admitted with a sigh. “They remind me how much I really don’t know about life. Dima gave me my first cigarette. Sia was almost a foot taller than me—he had to lean down just to talk to me. At least the height disparity isn’t as extreme these days.” 

Akilah had only known him post-horcrux, after the war. She’d never seen short Harry Potter in person. He had to admit in retrospect that having friends his age who looked so much more mature had been both a shot to his ego and a simultaneous kick to one of his weakest spots. Harry hated being short almost as much as Draco still hated it, loathing how young he looked compared to the rest of their group. Misha was the youngest by birth, but now Draco looked like the baby of the family and Harry wasn’t right there with him anymore. Draco was attracted to older guys, so Harry looking older wasn’t that big of a deal—except that Draco felt left behind. Harry had joined their friends in looking like an adult. Draco wanted to know when his turn would come, to look like the powerful wizard he was on the inside. 

“I was, um,” Harry converted to American measurements in his head, “about five-foot-four. My dad was average height though, not short at all. On my mum's side of the family the men are kinda tall-ish. I never understood why I was so short. Then last spring, when Voldemort destroyed the horcrux in my body, I suddenly shot up to five-ten. Leon Harper says I'm built like my dad now—same body, same height. We're thinking I was actually meant to look this way all along, but maybe carrying a horcrux for sixteen years was stunting my growth—like a side effect, the horcrux stealing some of my energy for itself. Once the horcrux was gone, my body was able to do what it wanted, becoming what it was supposed to be all along.” 

The last time they’d measured at work, he was creeping closer to six feet—he was still growing, which was perfectly normal for an eighteen year old bloke. It was strange to Harry to stand as tall as Mr. Weasley and Bill. He’d never imagined a future where he looked like his dad. Even in his fantasies about his adult life, he'd always pictured himself a slight chap like Draco. Sometimes he caught his own reflection and started, not recognizing the wizard looking back at him. Each day he looked less like a copy of James Potter and more like his own man. 

Akilah suggested, “Do you think being shorter than your peers effected your self-image? Or your confidence?” 

Harry groaned an acknowledgement. “Being smaller than everyone else perpetually made me feel like a kid. I definitely had a chip on my shoulder, wanting to act grown up and be taken seriously. My height made me the butt of jokes, which is bad enough when you’re a teenager and your peers whisper behind your back; Draco and his Slytherin mates repeated those jokes to newspapers and magazines during the TriWizard Tournament, knowing it would fuck with my confidence in the tasks. Draco knew exactly how to go after me because he’s insecure about his height and looks, too. When we met Dima and Sia we literally looked up to them. They never gave us crap for our looks, though.” 

Harry analyzed himself, realizing, “It was all in my head. I made myself feel inferior because I wasn't as masculine or developed as other guys my age… when it was Voldemort’s horcrux the entire time, holding me back. I wanted to look like Dima and his mates—older, badass, with piercings and tattoos—because people were afraid of them. Wherever they went, wizard or muggle, they commanded people’s immediate respect. I never felt that the way I looked commanded respect. People only reacted to my name; physically, I felt like a joke. 

“The night we met, I thought Dima looked like a guy people would call The Chosen One. Someone to follow into war. Dima's just built like a castle, with a face right out of Hollywood. But Nebojsa... he's...” Harry had to search for accurate words to describe his mate. “I guess people might say goth? He’s tall, very slim, long black hair…” Harry broke out a new phrase he’d learned. “Gender non-conforming. He’s pretty—to the point he gets mistaken for a woman even though he’s over six feet tall. Most of his body is covered in all-black tattoos, which is probably what people notice after his face.” 

Harry gestured down his own chest, his sleeves pushed up and the ink on his arm peeking out… a tattoo he’d gotten with Nebojsa. “He's got piercings—in his ears, his lips, his nose. Ink on his neck and hands where he can’t cover it up. Just… stuff I never would've thought to do to my own body. I was never around anybody who was into punk stuff or body modification. I only ever saw that on tele, or in magazines, and my Aunt Petunia usually had something nasty to say about it. When I met Sia, he didn’t seem real to me. No one in Surrey looks like him.” 

The sort of people Uncle Vernon played golf with would sooner disown their child than allow them to look or dress like Sia did. That was one of the few advantages of being an orphan. Nebojsa could get all the tattoos and piercings his heart desired. When he became a monk, it would all be absolved, anyway. 

Harry thought back. “The first person I ever knew who had tattoos was Sirius. So maybe subconsciously I started associating tattoos with people who were lonely, suffering, because of my traumatic memories of my godfather.” Of course, both Sirius and Sia had expanded their ink whilst imprisoned for false crimes—Sirius never killed Peter Pettigrew, and Nebojsa couldn’t help being bisexual. 

Akilah looked Harry over. She was looking at his clothes… Misha’s jumper, Sia’s belt and leather boots, very little of his old wardrobe remaining. She’d seen his style evolve over the last seven months. He’d outgrown his collection of loose denims and ratty tshirts, his new body forcing him into new clothes, adopting more tailored, grown-up fashions. He wore darker, earthy colors, with leather and silver accents to subtly compliment his wedding ring. He wasn’t taking his ring off unless Draco said that was what he wanted. It was created by Draco’s spell, so it was right that he end it. They were pushing four weeks apart. 

“Your friends encourage you to experiment more with your looks?” 

Harry nodded. “My social circle at Hogwarts were kinda generic as far as self-expression, with the exception of Luna Lovegood. She’s a wild dresser, always did her own thing. We wore uniforms all the time, and on mufti days... I was in Dudley's cast-offs, then stuff Ron or his brothers had outgrown. In Gryffindor, clothes were just kinda there so we weren't naked. There was no consciousness or art in it... before I got close to Draco, anyway. Draco’s the one who got me thinking about the way I look, questioning things. 

“Draco's always been sharp. He had a defined aesthetic at school—preppy, kinda stuffy, conservative. He started wearing suits and ties around fourteen. Silly, right?” Akilah could appreciate how odd it was for a chap that young to start dressing that way. You had to be an outsider to see it. Draco began dressing more formally after his summer with Philippe, considering himself to have become a man, wanting to command respect in the same way they did. 

In the pressure-cooker that was Hogwarts and wizarding England, a fourteen-year-old in a tailored suit wasn’t that odd. It took a muggle perspective like Harry’s, like Akilah’s, to see it. “That was his dad's influence, and Philippe’s. Draco’s way of preparing himself, to be taken seriously as a future Death Eater. Once Draco came to live with me, we started rebuilding his supplies and I got to know more of who he is underneath what he affected at school. 

“Draco can be really sensual. He expresses that through his style. He'll wear silk or cashmere—something soft so I can't stop touching him.” Harry bit his lip, remembering. He had so much trouble keeping his hands off of Draco. The inviting materials he wore were a tease, a suggestion of the truly luxurious touch of his skin underneath. Draco knew how to draw a person in with only his style choices, communicating when he wanted attention and when he meant business. Something so simple as switching his shirt could change his entire demeanor, bringing out his playfulness or his temper, all from what he was wearing. Like the Yule Ball—Draco’s robes which made him look like a stuffy vicar had been intentional, a silent middle finger to his rapist. 

Draco didn’t want to look sexy that night—he wanted to emanate power. Looking like a priest, he still managed to get drunk, orchestrate a threesome and get laid by a couple of the deadliest underage wizards in the castle. Even disguised by his outer layers, Draco’s true self shone through. He’d always been a powerhouse of emotion—sex was how he fought back. 

“Even though he's smaller, Draco figured out very young how to present himself as this fully-formed adult wizard. He's an inherently sexual person and he expresses that. I didn’t understand anything about sexual energy at the time, so seeing him wear my clothes last year was strange—because he'd never been casual before, but also because my clothes were very neutral and asexual. Like I'd never thought to accentuate myself or make myself attractive. I was just kinda... there.

“I didn't realize any of this at the time. I was thinking about Voldemort and the war and not getting killed. I really didn't know or care if my denims were in fashion, so long as they didn't fall down in the middle of a fight. Draco got me thinking about my body, and how I wanted to present myself—and that was right around the time Dima and Sia came into our lives. I think, for the first time I wanted someone to be attracted to me. Draco influenced me in clothes and stuff. He got me to grow sideburns, which was a radically-adult thing for me at the time. 

“Facial hair,” he ran his fingertips against his short beard, contemplating. “It seems stupid. For me, it was the start of a rebellion. I was gonna go to bars, get drunk, wear tight clothes, fight in a war… have sex with a guy. I followed Draco into this new, grown-up world where things were sexual. I'd never been allowed to be a part of that before. I was in one way or another under control for most of my life—by my aunt and uncle, then by school and Dumbledore and the prophecy. I think those experiences de-sexualized me. This last year I've started changing things about my body, my clothes, my habits, who I spend my time with and what we do. To other people these seem like small, normal changes for an eighteen-year-old bloke. For me... it's been a profound transformation. I'm not a sexless child anymore.”

Harry blew out a long breath. “With all these changes… I look at Dima and Misha and Sia, and I still don't feel totally caught up to them. I don't feel grown. There's still something missing… something about me that’s unfinished. 

“I see Nebojsa working out every day, getting back to where he used to be before being held hostage by the Death Eaters. I don’t think he's ever been the strongest, physically, but he’s determined to build himself back up. I respect the work he’s putting in. But… I look at him and he's already so developed and so clear about his aesthetic, just like Draco. He has his own very distinct style no matter what his body looks like. He knows who he is, and how he wants that represented to other people. He’s shed his identity as a monk and he’s living completely as himself now.” 

Harry slumped back in his chair. He put his hand over his lips, staring at nothing. In speaking, he'd found so many tiny truths he hadn't realized were there. Even though he was married, had a great job, had a house and all of these trappings of grown-up life... he didn't feel completely at home yet. In a way, he was acting like an adult, hoping he might start to feel like one. Any day now. He was still very much a kid on the inside.

“I'm still not sure. I don’t always know what I want for myself. I was my own kind of monk for so long that I never really developed that sense for self-expression. I never really took the time to get to know myself, to explore. I saw Draco’s sense of self expressed through his style and wanted him to lead me. So maybe, with Sia, I’m hiding behind his stronger aesthetic—wanting to be like him. Until I figure out what I want… at least I know that in copying him, I’m pointing myself in the right direction.” 

Akilah observed him. “Harry… you don’t need to respond if you’re not comfortable. But I want to put an idea out there for your consideration.” She folded her hands calmly in her lap once more, looking right at him. He wasn’t gonna like this one bit. “Do you think you're feeling attracted to Nebojsa?” 

Fuck. He'd talked about the guy too much, and Akilah saw the uncomfortable point he'd been dancing his way around. She saw his bullshit denial like there was a light-up neon sign pointing the way. _Harry Potter Is An Emotionally Stunted Prat_ _,_ it read. A prat with an obvious crush on his best mate. 

Of course he had a thing for Nebojsa. Also, the sky was blue. His refusal to talk about it didn’t stop it from being true. 

Harry's guts shook. It was still so hard to hear, and harder yet to admit. His own thoughts caused him to feel disgusted with himself; disgusted that he let prudish people like the Dursleys dictate his feelings, tell him how he ought to live his life even now. He was the second-most powerful sorcerer alive—second to Draco, of course. He might be married to a bloke, but there was still a homophobic voice in his head—bellowing like his Uncle Vernon used to, shouting like a never-ending stream of Howlers—telling him what he ought not to do. 

 _Don’t_ _wear a pink shirt, that’s gay. Cut_ _your hair_ _, you look like a fag_ _got_ _. And you’d better not look at a skinny boy in tight_ _trousers_ _and_ _eyeliner_ _and think he’s shaggable._  

He did think Sia was shaggable. He really did. And for Harry, that desire was still a bad thing. He was punishing himself for what he perceived as infidelity but, deep down, it was just ingrained homophobia—fear of being even gayer. 

“I, uh… that's really hard for me,” he professed, owning his discomfort. “Nebojsa and I… we've had these experiences together. Sia saved my life. He literally carried me to safety, saved me from bleeding to death. He nearly died saving me. We have this bond... losing our parents to Voldemort, growing up muggle, the war, torture… being with the sons of Death Eaters and all the stigma attached to that choice, on top of being into blokes on occasion. I can't even describe how close I feel to him.”

Akilah didn't say anything. She waited for Harry to answer her question—which he hadn't done. He'd deflected, talking about his past and the war rather than admit how he felt. 

Talking about almost dying was easier than admitting he was attracted to someone... yeah, that was fucked up. 

Harry summoned his courage. If he was silent, if he caged his feelings, then the people who abused him could claim another victory over him. Speaking his mind was how he fought back: the only way to drown out the Howlers of criticism in his head was to replace their words with his own. 

“Yes. I _do_ fancy him. Nebojsa has taken care of me, supported me, and never asked for anything more than my respect in return. He's starting to let me in, mentally and... emotionally. He’s learning to lean on me. That vulnerability is a huge fucking turn-on for me. The more he confides in me, the more I feel for him. 

“I think he's stronger than I am—his mind, his will. He’s wiser, and a lot more experienced. He’s someone I can always turn to for help. He just _knows_ how to make me feel better. He doesn't have to touch me, even. And if I'm totally honest... yeah, he does something for me: he's sexy—in a dangerous sorta way. The reformed bad boy, or whatever. I recognize my habit of developing an interest in people I can’t or shouldn’t pursue; I’m drawn to people who aren’t available to me, who’re spoken for. As my best friend and my work partner, Sia's the most off-limits of all.

“With Draco I was able to ignore everything telling me ‘no’ act on my feelings, my attraction, but… not now. This is the first time I'm having to tell myself ‘no’ and enforce that. It's frustrating. We work together, and we live together right now; Sia’s with me all the time, he understands me so well, and I know we’re only gonna get closer." 

For some reason, his mind returned to the TriWizard… what the tournament might’ve been like if Sia were two years older, if he’d been able to put his name into the Goblet of Fire. Surely as Durmstrang’s reigning dueling champion since age thirteen, Sia could’ve beaten out Viktor Krum. Harry wondered what it would’ve been like to compete against _him_ instead. If it had been Nebojsa and Iga dancing together at the Yule Ball instead of Viktor and Hermione. Would Harry’s eye still have turned to Cho Chang with Nebojsa around? Probably not. Would he have started questioning his sexual and romantic orientations a lot sooner? Definitely. 

It only took a few months being around Nebojsa before these feelings started to surface. He’d never felt anything so fast or so hard—even with Draco, it had taken years as rivals followed by weeks living in close quarters before he even noticed he was into Draco. So when this attraction to Sia reared up out of nowhere, he’d smashed his feelings into a deep dark hole because of his relationship with Draco and the war but… with little else in the way now, everything he’d buried was coming back up like a plant breaking from the dirt in the spring. 

He’d planted this mess, buried his feelings. Now they were back, stronger than ever, having had time to grow deep roots.

Harry rested his forehead in his hands, his lightning bolt scar against his sweaty palm. He hated himself for having feelings for his best friend—one more monster he’d fathered was running wild, having escaped its carefully-constructed pen. It was out in the world now, and he had to deal with it. No more hiding. No more pretending this wasn’t really happening. 

He spoke with his eyes closed; hating his feelings because he feared where they might lead, and he feared he'd never be rid of them. More than anything, Harry didn’t want to be the impulsive wanker who cheated when his husband ran out on him. He wanted to keep his word, to honor his promise and be faithful to Draco. In order to do that, he had to be honest with himself, to face what he’d buried for too long.

“I’m… crazy about him. I would kiss the hell out of him. God damn it, I’d fuck him. No—I think he’s strictly a top,” Harry corrected himself, making his words deadly honest. “I'd beg him to fuck me. If I wasn't married. If I didn't have Draco to be faithful to. If Sia wasn't with Dmitry.” Harry mashed his palm against his forehead, as though he could drive the truth out of his head and never have these thoughts ever again. “But I _am_ married. I gave Draco my word. I’m not gonna cheat. Ever. That’s not who I am.” He set those boundaries—announced them, declaring who he wanted to be. “I have to learn to live with these feelings, these thoughts in my head, the… fantasies I push away when I look at him.” 

That was hard to admit. He’d only ever shared his sexual fantasies with Draco, only ever envisioned himself with his spouse. _Thinking_ about someone else while he was still married felt like a kind of betrayal. 

“I've been trying not to beat myself up about caring for him. I know it's natural to be attracted to people other than my spouse. I _know_ that,” he repeated. His fingers snuck under his glasses, rubbing at his eyes. “But for me, sexual attraction is like getting hit by lightning. I've only ever felt this before with Draco. Feeling it again for somebody else makes me anxious. Guilty, even. It _feels_ like cheating. It scares me. I want to hide it—bury it, drown it, kill it before it hurts anyone else.”

It was his job to protect others… and one of the things he needed to protect the world from was himself, especially when he was at war with himself like this. A state of exhaustion and imbalance caused him to make his very worst decisions. Recognizing when he was prone to making bad choices was the first step to correcting the behavior. 

“I don’t want these feelings,” Harry pleaded with himself. “I only want to be drawn to my husband. It was easier when I literally only felt this stuff for Draco—romantic, spiritual, sexual… everything. I don’t know how to get rid of what I feel.” 

Akilah nodded her understanding. “Have you discussed your feelings with Nebojsa?” 

A bark escaped Harry’s throat. “Oh fuck no!” His breath huffed. He licked his lips. “I should tho, right? That's the grown-up thing to do. Ignoring these feelings and hoping they’ll go away… that’s not practical. I’m being a bloody coward. My bad habit of lying and avoiding tough conversations is the reason Draco left me. If I keep on like this,” Harry made a prediction which churned his guts. “I’m gonna end up hurting my best mate the same way I hurt my husband. I refuse to go down that road. So I… I have to tell him.” 

For a split second, Harry went blind. That was fear turning his vision black while his eyes were wide open. He’d killed people; he’d been on the verge of bleeding to death multiple times; he’d escaped a Moldovan prison; he’d taken a Killing Curse to the chest, giving his life for love. And still the prospect of telling another bloke he fancied him was so much scarier than any of that. Because he’d been trained his entire life that he didn’t matter, so putting his life on the line felt normal. He bought into the lie that he wasn’t worth very much. He didn’t believe he deserved honest relationships, or happiness, or emotional support. He could only do it when Draco pushed him—it took Draco leaving for Harry to buck up and be honest.

To be a man worthy of Draco, worth coming back to… he had to face this. He had to tell Nebojsa, to clear the air between them and set some boundaries. No more playing dumb. 

Dr. Beasley asked, “Are you concerned about how Nebojsa might react? His temper?”

Harry shook his head. From the safety of darkness, he reached into his own heart. “No. Sia would be cool about it. This is on me. I'm… fucking terrified.” He identified the emotion underneath it all. He was frightened. His whole body was shaking like someone had a gun to his head—like Draco had a Beretta under his chin all over again, willing the truth out of him. “I don't know if _I'm_ strong enough for Sia to know. Especially right now, with Draco gone and our future up in the air. I would be… tempted. If he knows how I feel, then he can give his consent. We could be more than friends—because he and Dima aren’t monogamous. With consent, it would be way too easy to just grab him one morning and start kissing him… and then fall into bed with him. Once I start I won't stop.” 

That was a part of himself he wasn't proud of. Once he initiated sex he had very little conscious control over his carnal impulses. Draco called him a hedonist. Sometimes he felt like less than an animal; he was a kind of monster, unable to exercise the least bit of self-restraint. Hormones and lust took him over—possessed him like Voldemort infiltrating his dreams. He couldn’t think. He never practiced willing abstinence—never had a reason to, not when Draco loved that madness as much as he did. They nurtured it, Harry’s sexuality developing around his lack of control. Like a predator in bloodlust, once Harry got his hands on his prey his prick took over, and all rational thought ceased to exist until he came his brains out. It was not a particularly dominant quality, or even healthy psychologically. He needed better restraint.

This predicament with Nebojsa was an opportunity to consciously practice some self-control. 

“My lack of self-control is a huge flaw: I’m recognizing it and trying to act accordingly. I know myself well enough to say that. Telling Sia I fancy him would feel too much like a crack in my already very weak armor. I don’t feel ready. It’s… hard to trust myself, after I’ve made bad decisions and hurt people.” He didn’t want to hurt Sia the way he hurt Draco or Taylor—that he was capable of inflicting that much anguish was unbearable. He wouldn’t hurt anyone else like that ever again. “I don’t wanna bollocks this. I can’t lose Sia as a friend. I need him too much right now, for moral support. If I told him I fancy him and he asked for time apart, I… I don’t like the man I’d be without his influence in my life.”

Akilah gave a slow nod. They’d discussed many times the value in surrounding one’s self with like-minded individuals; people who understood what it was like living with PTSD, who could help ground him while keeping him accountable. At the same time, Harry had a bad habit of seeking out people whose perspectives lined up with his own. He could seek out support, but he needed to keep himself open to criticism. 

“Do you think…” she proposed, “there's a chance he’s into you, too?” 

Harry rubbed his eyes harder. “I don't wanna think about that, doc. Let’s not poke the beast—it’s trouble waiting to happen.” He wouldn't allow himself to entertain the thought. It didn't matter whether Sia fancied him or not… or at least, it shouldn't matter. Nothing was going to happen. Harry intended to keep his word, to honor his vows. Anything else was a meaningless fantasy—a fantasy which under no circumstances would he allow himself a wank to. 

Akilah recognized she’d pushed the topic as far as Harry would allow. 

“You mentioned your hair as a way to express yourself,” she said—changing the subject, for which Harry was thankful. Finally, he could pull in a full breath, and possibly stop shaking. “I notice you’re growing it out. Trying a new style?” 

True. His hair was so long he could tie most of it back, tucking the strays behind his ears. He was always pushing it back, raking his fingers through it, settling it to one side so he could fill out paperwork or read without it falling in his eyes. He’d always worn his hair shorter, since it was so difficult to manage. Like his feelings, he wasn't sure what direction he ought to take it in: revert to what he knew, or abandon himself and let nature take its course. His ten-year-old self who lived in a closet said to play it safe—while his sorcerer side sounded like Voldemort, hissing at him to give in to temptation, to let himself loose and see what might happen. 

Maybe he was growing his hair out to be more like Sia? Emulating the fellow sorcerer he admired so much. Without Draco around, Harry took his cues from Sia. 

Very rude feelings kicked Harry in the guts. He chewed his lip, unable to speak for several breaths. 

“Draco used to cut my hair. After we left Hogwarts, I would ask him to trim it and he’d just blow me off, or forget, or… get depressed and not wanna do anything. I think I stopped caring, too, and just let it grow. I got lazy.” 

Akilah offered a solution. “Would you feel more comfortable going to a stylist to have it cut?” 

“Nah.” 

She raised a knowing eyebrow. “Don’t want to be touched?” 

It was true—he was especially stodgy about who was allowed to touch him these days. He’d finally learned how to enforce proper physical boundaries. There would be no more Cho Changs or Ginnys snogging him before he wanted to, or pretty girls getting handsy on him in bars. He finally figured out how to say no. He first had to accept that his thoughts and feelings mattered, that he mattered. Only then could he assert his wishes with confidence and certainty. Using the excuse that he was married was a cop-out. He had to take ownership of himself. He had to speak up, to believe that his saying the word ‘no’ had meaning, that he alone was enough. 

Harry ran his fingers through his beard again, cradling his jaw, his chin in his palm. “It’s more a matter of expression. And… control. I don’t want a stranger influencing what I look like.” He lifted his eyebrows, signaling a joke—self-deprecating humor was his touchstone. “Which means I end up looking like a mess. Draco used to keep us both on top of how we looked. And I liked having his influence expressed on my body. Like my tattoo, his style choices were a way to carry a piece of him with me, something other people would see and know I was his. Having someone else cut my hair would be like… replacing Draco. Like taking off my wedding ring. Certain things belong to my husband. If he’s not around, then… I guess they belong to me alone.” 

Harry sat back in his chair, gazing out the window at the still waters. He wanted to feel calm, but he couldn’t find that stillness inside himself. 

“Nebojsa cuts Dima’s hair,” he spoke to fill the silence. “Misha’s too. He’s good at it. He uses magic, like Draco. Maybe I’ll ask him.” Harry raised his eyebrows, asking a question of his therapist instead. “Do you think that’s healthy? Asking Sia? Or am I just muddying the waters?”

“I think…” Akilah pressed her lips, considering sincerely. “You’re the expert on going into battle. So maybe it’s time to start getting better at taking off your own armor and exposing your wounds, that way you’re not relying on others to do your emotional labor for you. Part of self-reliance is learning to lean on others in a healthy way. Asking for a haircut could be a good place to start.”

She wanted him to do it… to get comfortable with Nebojsa and test the waters, to get better at trusting his friend even in a sticky situation like having feelings for him. If Harry could keep his shit together getting his hair cut—which was a fraught experience for him to begin with, given his history with his Aunt Petunia—then maybe he’d be better prepared for the much harder and deeper work he’d need to do in patching up his marriage.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

The halls of Malfoy Manor were always gloomy. It didn’t matter if the curtains were drawn back and the sun shone through the high windows’ clear glass. Something about the dark woodwork and ornately-patterned wallpaper made an oppressive, omnipresent darkness about the place. 

Draco stood in the hall outside his father’s study, listening. Faintly, he could hear voices.

Creeping closer, he at last made out his mother’s thin, anxious whisper—she was pleading that Draco only needed more time, that he would not fail the Dark Lord. All he needed was a few more days to complete his mission.

 Aunt Bella laughed at her—that high titter, twisted and cruel. 

“Oh, Cissy! You pretty, stupid little fool,” she teased. “We never thought he would succeed. The boy is a mere distraction. Our Master does not care whether he lives or dies. He is less than nothing.” 

Draco threw open the door, storming into the room wand-first. It was a move without honor, but he was able to catch his aunt from behind, knocking her down. 

From the ground, she fired back, a merciless, “ _Crucio!_ ” 

Draco went down. There was no defence against the Torture Curse. Helpless, his head snapped back as he screamed. 

It wasn’t even a duel. He attacked, and Aunt Bella put him in his place. He was no match for her skill. 

She would kill him. Surely, she would. Mother was crying; desperate, clawing, trying to get to him. Aunt Bella held her back, having taken Mother’s wand to use against Draco. His own life-giver’s wand siphoning the soul out of him through that unending scream.

 

 

 

 

He bolted upright when a strange smell entered his nose. 

It was flooding him, choking him. Smoke. 

He was nowhere near Malfoy Manor. He was lying sprawled on the sofa in Blaise Zabini’s sitting room. He’d fallen asleep at last. And in his nightmare panic, his errant magic had seen fit to light Blaise’s coffee table on fire. There were flames. Smoke filled the room. Draco’s subconscious sorcerer-self was a bloody arsonist. 

“Draco!” That was Blaise, trying to get to him. Because Draco’s magic had also locked his only friend in his bedroom—trapping him, unable to help. He heard repeated, incensed incantations to no avail. Blaise was spell-bound in his room. He raised his voice again, calling out. “Mordred—fucking fuck—answer me! Draco, are you alright?!” 

Draco reached under his pillow for a wand which wasn’t there. He could demand that Harry  send it but… why?

“ _Auguamenti_ ,” he whispered, dousing the burning table. The flames hissed and died. Then, “ _Coloportus_ ,” to unlock the door, allowing Blaise to race in and see the damage Draco had inadvertently caused. 

Dark eyes surveyed the room through a hanging haze of smoke. Blaise’s hands landed on the back of his sofa, peering over the high back to check on Draco. He probably smelled like a chimney, but was utterly unharmed. 

Upon seeing his coffee table reduced to a charred skeleton, Blaise groaned. “Fuck you. That was brand new.” 

“I know,” Draco muttered, fallen back to his pillow, his face covered by his hands. He stayed where he was, spent. He’d only had an hour or two of fitful sleep. “I’ll replace it, I promise.” Because Malfoys didn’t apologize, and neither did Slytherins. You acknowledged what you’d done, yet there was no expectation of remorse—only justice to the one wronged, and a chance to move on. 

“Does this happen often?” Blaise inquired, implying the ruin of his sitting room. He shook his wand to open the windows, venting the smoke before the muggle detectors went off. Draco had watched his mate disable the devices in the past, whenever they smoked in the flat. Blaise said they screeched like a tiny banshee, but disconnecting their electricity supply prevented their noise. Blaise’s knowledge of muggle technology left Draco in the dust. 

Wordless, Draco twitched his fingers, clearing out the smoke through the opened windows. The grey shadows in the air were stinging his eyes, clogging his throat. He needed to breathe freely. 

Blaise’s eyebrows rose at Draco’s casual display. When it became clear Draco was going to ignore his question about errant sleep magic, Blaise shifted tack. 

“Draco,” he said soberly. “You… you truly don’t need a wand anymore, do you?”

The sorcerer in question shook his head against his pillow. He couldn’t be arsed to get up. It felt as though his body weighed as much as an Abraxian, and he hadn’t the strength to move himself an inch. 

“When did that start?” Because Blaise remembered Draco using a wand last year as Head Boy. 

Just because he’d used a wand didn’t mean he’d needed it; he could’ve been like Nebojsa, keeping up appearances by carrying one even when it became superfluous. That hadn’t been the case. His ability to perform wandless, incantation-less magic started with Harry… with that soft glow around his hands, holding The Boy Who Lived in bed every night. After the battle, Draco started forgetting his wand. That was when it shifted—after Harry’s soul possessed his body. Harry’s horcrux made him… whatever the fuck he was now. A Blood Sorcerer. Or a Dark Lord. Because he wasn’t just a wizard anymore. 

He’d never lit anything on fire in his sleep before. Just little useful things while awake, like mindlessly Summoning an ale from the ice box, or dressing himself. Every now and then Harry challenged him, such as blocking the wall of water at Thief’s Falls in Gringotts. Supposedly only house elf magic was able to get around the falls—because theirs was fundamentally different from a wizard’s magic or that of any other wand-wielder. Apparently what he, Harry, and Nebojsa shared was beyond what was considered human. Or perhaps hadn’t been seen for so long in their own species that it was forgotten about. It was very much within Voldemort’s known behavior to assemble every written source of information only to destroy it. They might never know what he knew. 

Blaise parked his arse against the back of the sofa, looking down at silent, unanswering Draco. The motion was one of concern, but Blaise wouldn’t convey that particular emotion unless there was a wand to his throat. He looked as alarmed as a Slytherin chap would allow himself to put across—so his expression was something like distrust and curiosity rolled into high cheekbones and his sleek, straight eyebrows. His eyes were black in the night, though Draco knew them to be a shade of brown as deep as wet earth. 

Blaise deduced the source of Draco’s new abilities. “What the hell did Potter do to you, mate?” 

Once more, Draco didn’t answer. 

Blaise pressed. “Are you… safe? He doesn’t hurt you?” 

He had to ask. Because the last time Draco had thought himself in love had been Philippe, and then he got himself taken to the back woods and his heart cut out for his trouble. As far as Blaise was concerned, Draco never recovered from that failed relationship; he might well have been throwing himself at another tyrant hell-bent on ruling his life. Even if Blaise suspected Draco’s partner-selecting skills were broken, it was rare he’d voice anything. So instead he cut to the point, needing only to know that whatever went down between Draco and his husband didn’t require intervention. 

Draco shook his head. Dry-washing his face with his hands, he at last confessed, “No. Nothing like that. Harry’s never laid a finger on me if I didn’t want it.”

“Good,” Blaise said flatly. “I didn’t exactly fancy the prospect of dying in a duel with Harry Fucking Potter.” 

Draco opened one eye, peeking through his fingers. “Don’t defend my blasted honor like I’m some poor beaten house-witch in need of a rescue. It’s bad enough everyone thinks of me as his bitch after that rubbish song—not you too.”

His old friend sighed out a long breath. “So, if he’s not running some twisted power-enhancing experiment on you, then… how’d this happen?” He tilted his head, mouth pressing into a thin line which nearly tipped up into a smirk—that was how Blaise delivered his true opinions, with a grain of detachment, as though he wasn’t committed to anything including his own thoughts. “Because, no offense mate, you don’t just become a sorcerer by accident. Rumor had it Dumbledore was getting close but… he had over a hundred years of work into it. We haven’t had true sorcery in something like four hundred years.” 

A muscle under Draco’s left eye twitched. “I’m aware.” The fact that magic in their species was rapidly regressing was the primary focus of Death Eater culture—intense research, investigating actionable steps, determining what could be engineered or put into practice in order to return their powers to what they once were. Breeding came first and foremost. Then the careful maintenance and observation of bloodlines. A search, sometimes through trial and error, for what made witches and wizards their most powerful. Intermingling with muggles was thought to weaken their powers significantly, within a generation or two. That was the science which Draco was fed his entire life. Except it wasn’t true; the Dark Lord himself was a half-blood, and so was Harry.

Apparently what made the most potent sorcerer of all was seventeen years of being used and abused by powerful wizards like Voldemort and Dumbledore. By that logic, of course Draco was as proficient as Harry. He spent his life under Lucius Malfoy, second-in-command to Voldemort himself. Not a bigger cunt to be found in all of England. 

Draco loved his father once. Worshiped and adored him in spite of everything he did. Draco couldn’t remember why—after all, he barely knew the man. Nor could he recall when his opinion shifted so drastically. Even when Father left them, went to jail for the cause… Draco still loved him then, sought his approval more than anyone’s. In a blink, that need for attention, that desire to be loved in return… it shifted, finding a new home in Harry. 

Blaise repeated himself. “So what did Potter do to you?” 

Draco forced himself to sit up, swinging his legs off the sofa to rest his elbows over his knees, hands hanging down between his thighs. In the weak light from the street, silver rings flashed on his hand. The busted black stone of the Gaunt family ring, a relic of Voldemort. And his wedding ring, a relic of Harry. 

Weakly, he asked his bare feet. “Would ya believe me if I said it _was_ an accident?” 

Blaise looked away. “…Maybe. That would be one mad accident, tho.” 

“It was.” 

The battle had been mad. Their whole relationship was mad. Nearly everyone was against their being together—Harry’s friends, the general public, and Draco’s old crowd didn’t understand… though they at least reserved judgment, thinking it was just some fling. A fling you played house with. A fling you married. A fling you risked everything for. A fling you defended with your life.

What it came down to was that no one—not even his so-called mates—believed that Draco Malfoy was capable of loving any other being more than himself. And it was an equally tall hurdle to comprehend that Harry could not just overlook but outright acknowledge and forgive how Draco had treated him for six years, how Draco had hurt him and so many others. Harry hadn’t been an angel, either; like Draco, he did what he thought he had to—to please those above them, to stay alive. Neither of them were innocent. It was why they understood each other so damn well. 

But because Draco’s crimes were known publicly, whilst Harry’s were done in private, _he_ was the villain and Wonder Boy the hero-saint worshiped by all. Only the two of them were in possession of the full facts. 

“He didn’t do this to me on purpose,” Draco admitted after a long silence which Blaise allowed to drag on. “It was left-over magic from the Dark Lord. We knew it was there, but no one understood what-all it did. Alone, it wasn’t much. Like a cauldron with a crack, it leaked magic into Harry over the years, giving him some of the Dark Lord’s aptitude—speaking Parseltongue, an affinity for wandless magic and Legilimency, a leg-up in the Dark Arts. But as Harry and I started….” 

“Buggering,” Blaise supplied; with no opinion or emotion about it, as though he were naming a tree or a plant as he saw it on a walk outdoors: the Buggery Bush, with its prick-shaped leaves and arseholes for flowers. He named their sex life for what it was.

Draco narrowly resisted the urge to make a face at him, confirming thinly, “Yes. As we began to exchange magic on a regular basis—dueling practice, Side-Along Apparition, lubrication, and what-have-you—some of what Harry had began to trickle into me. The longer we were together, and the more sorcery we used on each other, the faster it went. Eventually, during the fighting, Harry was able to give me all of his abilities, all of his power, by… he….” 

Draco couldn’t bring himself to say it. It had happened. He berated Harry about it for weeks after. It had been a terrible, bloody romantic, piece of shite thing Harry did. But Draco couldn’t get the words out.

Harry died for him. It was too much to say. He didn’t deserve that kind of stupid, pure love. 

“It’s fine,” offered Blaise. “I don’t need to know the details. I believe you,” he added. “It _was_ an accident: unknowing, and not malicious.” 

“That lummox was trying to protect me!” Draco spat. He both loved and hated it when Harry treated him as a child. It _did_ make him feel safe, looked after, loved. It also gave him a great unease that he was being manipulated, or denied parts of the truth because he was too young or too incompetent to be involved. His father did it his entire life. Harry did it too. But Draco always found out in the end. It was somehow worse—that much more demeaning and insulting—when his own husband kept him in the dark. As though he wasn’t good enough; after everything, he still hadn’t proved himself worthy of Harry’s trust. 

Draco had his husband’s unconditional love. He was the safe-keeper of Harry’s heart. But so many of his secrets were kept out of reach. Harry could give up his own soul, handing it to Draco in that frightening moment, yet he couldn’t humble himself enough to hand over the truth. He trusted Draco; but only when he felt like it, only on his own terms. 

“He may’ve made me what I am. But _I_ let him. _I_ encouraged it. _I_ wanted it more than anything.” Draco sighed. He told the rings on his fingers, “Power is something I’ve always wanted. Now that I have it, I… I don’t want to use it. The chances of my fucking everything up are too bloody high. So I do nothing. And even when I do nothing, my ruddy nightmares light your coffee table on fire.” He forked his fingers through his hair, gripping hard, tugging his head down between his knees. “It’s like I can’t do anything right. I can’t win. I used to think power was the key to everything. But it’s a curse… one you can’t break. You’re fucked if you use it, and fucked when you refuse.”

Blaise replied, “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” 

Draco turned his face up to his friend, regarding him with one red-rimmed silver eye. “That’s remarkably wise of you.” 

Black eyebrows went up. “A muggle said that. A historian, Lord Acton.”

A snort left Draco’s nose. “Every proper pompous pillock needs a title.” If you were the biggest pillock of them all, they even called you The Chosen One. 

“You got what you wanted,” countered Blaise, ignoring Draco’s well-honed alliterative quip. “Plus a few things you didn’t know you wanted ‘til you tasted them. And you’re bitching because it’s not everything you dreamed it would be. Boo hoo for you.”  

“I’m not bitching,” Draco snapped. “Your dumb arse asked me.” 

Blaise pushed off the couch. Another dip and swish of his wand closed the windows, otherwise come morning there would be birds to spell out of the flat. 

Walking back to his bedroom, Blaise offered in parting: “Forget I asked. But do us a favor? Tell your repressed feelings and freakish Harry Potter Powers not to burn down my flat.” 

Draco’s mouth twisted, his upper lip curling to a sneer. “ _Capiche_.” 

When Blaise left him, he was relegated to staring at the furniture he’d destroyed. 

The wood was charred black and cracked, uneven rows of blistered nubs like a log in a fire. He was surprised it remained upright, suspecting that if he touched it the whole thing might crumble to ash on the singed carpet. Apparently his magic had it in for the table alone—everything else in Blaise’s flat had survived his ‘repressed feelings.’ 

Draco closed his eyes, pulling a long breath. He focused his mind on how Blaise’s precious coffee table had looked before his lashed sleep-sorcery got to it. 

The lines had been beautiful; walnut inlaid with a white-blond wood he couldn’t identify in diamond patterns forming spokes almost like flowers over the surface. The piece was a blend of masculine and feminine, craftsmanship and artistry. The muggles who made it were quite good. It was a shame he’d destroyed such a carefully constructed bit of art. 

When his eyes opened, the table was whole again, every trace of the fire gone. 

He’d never performed a Time Syphon before. It was advanced neutral magic. He studied it, of course, but never had occasion to use it. There were always house elves or staff to do his bidding, picking up after him when he turned his wrath on the upholstery or his own mountain of toys. When Draco destroyed something in the past, he’d never wanted it back. 

He touched the wood—matte finished, smooth to the touch, unblemished. His fingers followed the grain of the wood until he reached one of those geometric swirls, hand splaying to its full breadth to touch the nearly-white wood petals. 

It was a small thing, to resurrect Blaise’s coffee table. It felt good to save things. 

Harry could come back from the dead. And if Draco could do anything and everything which Harry was capable of, then it stood to reason that he too could bring things back… even things believed beyond redemption. He managed to bring himself back, from Death Eater to The Real Chosen One. Perhaps, to repair, one had to be a part of its pain and destruction. Perhaps it took that knowledge and intimacy in order to restore what was lost. Or it was the aversion to destruction, having known it too well, which drove a man towards peace.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

 

Harry Apparated to Shell Cottage. He knew the name of Bill and Fleur’s home, yet he’d never been.

This was where Mrs. Weasley and Remus wanted him to go and hide himself when the war first broke out; instead he’d absconded, throwing himself headlong into what was now known as the Battle of Ravenwood—the fifth most deadly battle in wizarding history, with over a thousand casualties including those who later died of their injuries. There’d been bodies draped over the balconies, stacks of corpses reaching to the second story. The Death Eaters just kept coming as the defenders fell back, retreating, dispersing across the globe. The fire which destroyed the house burned many of the dead beyond recognition. Families were given ashes to bury. 

The decision to fight at Ravenwood had changed Harry’s life forever. It was his ingrained instinct to run towards danger… which too often meant he was moving in the opposite direction of his family and the people he loved, putting distance between them. His soldier’s instinct to protect didn’t always guard his own heart. 

In a way, Bill and Fleur were infinitely smarter than him. Their more mature intuitions informed them when it was time to pull back, to lick their wounds and begin to heal. Fleur had been quiet since the TriWizard, focusing on her relationship with Bill, their wedding, and establishing this tranquil country home they now shared. And Bill had taken extra time before returning to work as a Curse Breaker, now accepting less exciting assignments in order to have more time to spend with his new wife. 

Their simple home by the sea was an open concept, with the kitchen a part of the main living space. A bank of overlarge windows took advantage of the ocean views. They filled their house with books on every surface, dried herbs and flowers from their garden hanging from the ceiling. Harry imagined the pair of them cooking dinner together, Bill reaching up to grab a few leaves of whatever herb they needed to season their food. They painted a beautiful domestic picture, not unlike the image Harry held in his head as a kid, imagining a future like this to keep himself going. 

The fantasy he’d woven for himself about marriage and kids and domestic tranquility made it that much harder to accept his own illness, and his spouse’s. They could still have a great life together—they’d just have to work a hell of a lot harder for it, and their version of marital stability might not look like everyone else’s. 

Harry sat at their small table, only four chairs compared to the Burrow. He breathed in a mug of hot tea. As a gift he’d brought a tin of loose-leaf from a posh shop in London—his manners becoming more and more Balkan, bringing a host gift any time he arrived at someone else’s home. After Fleur’s history, showing up with flowers was a very bad idea. Harry figured tea was safe. 

He began with, “I believe I owe you both an apology, which is long overdue.” 

“Harry,” Bill chastised him. 

“Please,” he insisted. “I was an inconsiderate, insensitive pillock. I brought Draco to your wedding without ever talking to the two of you about it, never taking into account _your_ feelings on having him there after his involvement with your near-death attac—” 

Fleur reached across the table, tapping her fingertips against Harry’s knuckles to get him to stop talking. She wouldn’t interrupt—it went against everything she believed. She didn’t want Harry to beat himself up a moment longer. Not in her house. She didn’t think it necessary. 

“’Arry. No.”

He recognized it was time to shut his gob and listen.

Bill took over. “When you and Draco first started seeing each other, I’ll admit I didn’t get it. I couldn’t see him as you do.” The way Bill looked at Fleur… Harry could tell they were holding hands under the table, the angle of Bill’s arm suggesting Fleur had his hand clasped in her lap. “I needed Fleur to help me. I really knew nothing about the Death Eaters, how people who believe in the blood purist ideology behave behind closed doors.” 

Fleur knew that culture intimately. Arnett and Laron Didier were her uncles, her mother’s half-brothers. Philippe was her cousin. As a young girl, Fleur’s holidays and special occasions were spent surrounded by those people: Death Eaters and sympathizers to the cause. As a Death-Eater-adjacent woman, Fleur was taught to keep her head down and her mouth shut, to remain demure, to accept whatever her betters told her was right.

In marrying Bill, she’d made her escape—choosing a man who valued her opinions, who would never silence her or expect unconditional obedience. Bill fell in love with Fleur watching her fight a dragon, frantic for the safety of her sister, rebounding after being set upon by a Death Eater. Bill recognized how strong she was, how brave, how loving, how resilient. He saw past her reserved exterior the same way Harry learned to see beyond Draco’s ice and pith.

But Bill didn’t know just how much his wife had overcome. Fleur had to teach him what growing up in proximity to the cult of blood purity really did to a person. Being family to ruthless Death Eaters like the Didiers, Fleur was in a unique position to deeply understand the hell that had been Draco’s upbringing, and what he might’ve been exposed to being Philippe’s human toy for a summer.

Fleur knew these people were monsters because she’d run from them herself. She knew how much of a miracle it was that Draco hadn’t lost his mind like Narcissa or the Longbottoms, hadn’t killed himself after everything he’d been through.    

“I needed her to teach me,” acknowledged Bill. “To explain what Draco’s life would’ve been like. To help me see that he was an abused, manipulated, frightened kid whose father was in prison, he and his mother left to fend for themselves when a group of hardened criminals showed up to lean on him, threatening him and his mum if he didn’t go along with their plans. Draco had an impossible choice before him, and he did what he thought he had to to protect himself and his mother. I don’t blame him. I still won’t condone the way he treated you and my siblings at school—I don’t have to forgive him for that, because those choices were his own, emulating his father and the idols he’d been given. But I now understand the culture and… the brainwashing which made him think his behavior at the time was acceptable.

‘Brainwashing’ was of course a muggle term, not one Fleur or Bill could’ve learned in the wizarding world. Many of the books on their shelves were non-magical. If Harry had to guess, he’d say there were a few psychology and self-improvement books amongst the recipes and Curse Breaker guides.   

In a way, Bill was on the same path as Harry; learning about psychology and mental health in an effort to better support his spouse. 

“Fleur helped me see that in his relationship with you, Draco is reaching for his better self. That he truly wanted to get away from all that—the same way that marrying me helped push Fleur’s extremist relatives out of her life. People like the Death Eaters will only back off if confronted by someone they fear, like you and me. They don’t fear Fleur or Draco—but they should.” Bill gave her hand a visible squeeze of approval. He knew how bloody tough she was. “Draco needs a partner who can keep those awful people at bay, to make sure he has room to breathe. He’s in recovery, and he will be for a long time—maybe forever, and that’s alright.” 

Fleur pushed her shoulder into Bill, connecting their bodies. She gave a little nudge with her nose against his stubbled jaw—her way of asking for a kiss. Bill planted a quick chaste one on her forehead. His wife was recovering in many of the ways Draco was. Both of them were discovering what life outside the cause could be, finding their own way after a life lived in a gilded cage. 

“Ozhers don’t understand,” Fleur said slowly, reflecting, her eyes closed. “Zhey see Draco as ‘aving been a willing participant. Zhey do not know coercion, duress, destabilization, constant threats of violence and disownment… zhat is ‘ow zhe Death Eaters operate. It iz a cult, ‘Arry,” she professed with force. They really were in the truest sense. Harry had been saying that for a while. “An entire abusive culture. Ozhers see Draco ‘as escaped, but zhey want ‘im to fit _zheir_ definition of bravery, to adopt _zheir_ morals and way of thinking right away. Zhey do not think escaping with one’s life is enough to be proud of.” 

People like Fleur, Draco, and Astoria were unheard of. Most who tried to escape the Death Eater cult ended up like Narcissa at best—more often than not they were killed, and never known about. Last year, Philippe and Laron had gone after Fleur on purpose. They wanted to use her to send a message to Draco—that no one ever escaped. Not really. Even at her own wedding, Fleur became a puppet to the cause she viewed that sacred ceremony as formally severing herself from. 

The cult could still reach her even on her wedding day. She wasn’t safe. Ever. Nor was Draco. The Death Eaters needed to _feel_ inescapable. That was part of how they maintained their power, ensuring the obedience of every member. Defiance was a death sentence. 

There was no estimate of how many people hadn’t made it out alive. That fed into the pro-Death-Eater narrative that no one ever wanted out; when in fact there were probably hundreds of Dracos, Fleurs, and Astorias out there biding their time, plotting their exit strategy. They were so desperate, they only needed the opportunity to get away—or for someone like Harry or Bill or Neville to come along, a person who believed in them and was ready to help them free themselves. 

“I know a bit about ‘ow Draco must feel,” Fleur added, dropping her chin. She was probably squeezing Bill’s hand extra tight. “I ‘ave faced difficult trials and failed to do my best. I know what it is to live with regret, to ‘ave zhese very public incidents which you aren't proud of.”

The tournament. She wanted to compete, to be seen as operating on the same level as the male champions. Yet she wasn’t able to finish two of the trials, and was Stunned by Barty Crouch Jr. in disguise. She’d wanted to put in a better showing, to represent her school, her country, and her gender. By not finishing, she felt she’d let herself down. 

Like Draco, some of her greatest regrets were forever on public display, subjected to debates, discussed openly by strangers. It was a lot of pressure for someone so young. Like Draco, she retreated. She didn’t want to subject herself to further public scrutiny. 

She was able to talk to Bill about her experiences and feelings, helping him come to a place of empathy and understanding where he too could understand Draco's part in the invasion of Hogwarts. Knowing all the facts, Bill was willing to have Draco around despite his grievous past mistakes. Bill saw Draco much as he saw his wife—a refugee of a wizarding cult, a survivor, attempting to put their lives back together after the center of their universe had proved false. That was how Harry saw Draco, too; seeing not the cracks in their armor but the strength which lay beneath. 

“You don’t owe us an apology, Harry,” Bill reiterated. “We get what you were doing—the same as me when I invited Fleur to come live at The Burrow. You wanted Draco to be around good people. To be safe and supported in his recovery. And you wanted everyone to know how you felt about him. Your belief in him helped build back his faith in himself. That’s exactly _why_ we wanted you both at our wedding; to show our support of him, too. So please stop apologizing.” 

Harry thought he was helping Draco by giving him the same love and supportive environment which had gotten him through the last six years; instead, his family saw him ushering the violent, bullying, unstable son of a known psychopath into their innermost circle. Harry was trying to do the right thing—but he went about it in completely the wrong way, to the point that his family stopped trusting his judgment and wanted nothing to do with him. Rather than work things out, he chose to walk away with Draco. 

Bill and Fleur understood his intentions—perhaps more than he did at the time. 

His family really loved him. They circled back, attempting to try again once tempers cooled and emotions were processed. Harry still didn't feel worthy of that kind of unconditional love. The same way he was trying to get Draco to accept real love, he had to let it in, too. He had to accept that his family can still love him after he frightened them so badly.

Harry nodded, picking up his tea. “Well, I… thank you. I really appreciate you understanding where I’m coming from. And… I’m gonna need your support again tonight.” 

He’d asked for a family dinner at the Burrow. _Everyone_ would be there. There was a lot he needed to say, many apologies to be made. This apology to Bill and Fleur had been a warm-up, the tip of the iceberg. He felt a bit like the Titanic steaming out to sea. Tonight could tear his relationship with the Weasleys apart… or it could save them. Only time and a dose of honesty would tell. 

“Oh, Merlin!” Bill’s eyes widened. “You’re talking to Mum and Dad about this?” He flinched. His parents had purposefully sheltered Bill and his siblings from the reality of the Death Eaters. Now they were all grown, Harry knew it was time to get everything out in the open. There was a lot to discuss. Harry planned to come completely clean. 

“There’s more, if you can believe. But let’s save it until everyone’s together.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The Burrow was nearly too small—especially as the Weasley boys aged into adult bodies, many of them pushing six feet tall. Sitting together in their mother’s living room, there were legs seemingly _everywhere_.   

Ron and Ginny were the only kids still living at home, and Gin was presently at Hogwarts. The house was more than spacious for three people. But it became a bit of a squeeze with everyone called back home—Bill and Fleur, Charlie in from Bulgaria with Viktor, Fred and George, Tonks with little Teddy on her lap, Hermione, plus Harry. There’d be plenty of food to go around but seating was scarce in the main room. 

Ron took a place on the floor, giving Hermione a proper seat on the sofa. He was mirroring Harry, who’d already give up his chair to Tonks and the baby. 

Harry could’ve conjured a chair for himself, but speaking from the floor seemed right. 

“Thank you all for coming,” he began. “And thank you for your support all these years.” Everyone in this room had been there for him—offering advice, teaching him, listening even when he screamed in their faces. He’d been selfish, never considering how his temper made his loved ones feel. “I’ve asked you all to come together tonight… I’m gonna need your support again because....” He took a deep breath. The truth was ugly. A part of him still wanted to bury it. “Draco isn’t with us tonight because he's thinking about ending our marriage.” 

He gave that a minute to land. Fleur was the most distraught, comprehending most acutely the bodily danger of Draco apart from Harry. Fred and George exchanged silent looks, keeping their faces carefully neutral as they silently wondered whether Harry had come clean to Draco about the situation with Taylor—and considering if Harry was about to blab to the family now. He caught Fred’s eye across the room and minutely shook his head; no, he wasn’t rolling on them. It was their secret to tell, not his. Tonight was about admitting his mistakes, acknowledging how his words and actions hurt his family, but that particular fuck-up was not on the chopping block.    

"Draco's safe,” Harry addressed the most immediate concern first, before anyone could interrupt him. “He’s in Italy with Blaise Zabini. I've had owls from Blaise. Draco is upset, but physically he's fine. 

"We had a tremendous row, which was more than partially my fault, and... Draco left me." It made his guts twist and his face heat to admit it, but he fought the part of him which lied to make things easier on other people; he fought it by remembering what if felt like to be lied to by omission. When Dobby kept his letters. When Ron and Hermione were commanded by Dumbledore not to tell him about the Order of The Phoenix. When everyone said what a great man his dad had been, leaving out James having been a bully all through Hogwarts.

Harry made himself tell the truth no matter how much it hurt, because that was the wizard he wanted to be. 

"I told Draco what I'm telling you now: that I've been seeing a therapist to help with my communication and my behavior. Because I don't like the way I treat my family. I want to stop creating these situations that hurt you and make me feel alone. That starts with recognizing that a lot of the problems we have are my doing. I pushed you guys away. I lied. I did things which hurt you and acted like I didn't care. I threw down the ultimatum that you had to immediately forgive and accept Draco, or lose me. I asked you guys to trust me... but I wouldn't trust you with sufficient information to make a good decision. That was rather autocratic of me, and I'm not proud of how I acted. But I thought I was doing what was best for Draco. And I think we all understand losing our heads, being emotional and a bit illogical, when it comes to our family, the people we love. 

"I love my husband, and I went to therapy to make our marriage better. What I realized was that my marriage wasn't the only relationship I'm really bad at. So before I can talk more about Draco, I have to ask for your forgiveness for my own behavior."

He should’ve raided Dima and Sia’s medicine cabinet before he came—his stomach was informing him it might be time to throw up. He forced himself to speak anyway. If he chundered, so what? It wouldn’t change the truth, just delay his speaking it. He still had to go through with this, to kill his ego and strip away his pride if he wanted his relationship with his family to survive. 

He spoke with his eyes closed, head bowed with shame. “I am… a compulsive liar. I lie all the time. Probably every day. Sometimes about stuff which doesn’t even matter. Sometimes about really big stuff. I tell myself I do it to spare people’s feelings but… it’s really just to make myself feel better. It’s a symptom of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is what I’ve been working through in therapy. It’s a condition which changes your brain, makes you see the world very differently and interpret things in unusual ways. When you have CPTSD and you’re faced with something that makes you uncomfortable or reminds you of painful stuff that’s happened in the past, rather than relive it, sometimes you put yourself in the shoes of the person who hurt you—because acting like the abuser makes you feel like you’re in control instead of being the victim again.

“The Dursleys lied to me my whole life. Dumbledore lied to me. He even convinced you guys to lie to me at various points—and I’ve let go of that grudge, because I understand now the urges you felt to protect me and shield me by occasionally being less-than-honest. You weren’t trying to hurt me, the same way my dishonesty isn’t aimed at causing any of you pain. I do it as a reflex to protect myself, to block out parts of my past or things I’m not proud of, or to ignore what I’m feeling.” 

It really didn’t help that the wizarding world condoned so much lying between wizards and muggles. Saying it was alright to lie to a muggle to protect wizardkind made it that much easier to start lying to each other, too. It was a false narrative that lies kept you safe; lies could preserve information, but at the price of destroying a relationship, obliterating trust. Harry had to see his lies destroy his marriage and nearly cost him his family, too, before he accepted how damaging a behavior it really was. 

It was hard to tell his adoptive culture—and his first real family—that something they believed in was in fact harming them all psychologically, far more than it was helping. 

“When I feel like a situation is slipping out of my control, or if I feel scared or cornered or just uncomfortable, I start to lie. Because powerful people lie; so if I do it, then I have power, too. I see how fucked up this is, and I see how much it hurts you guys. I’m sorry,” he said plainly. It was important to say the words and mean them truly. “It’s not my intention to hurt you or be untruthful. I’m thinking of myself when I do it. This is a part of my condition. It’ a compulsion. I can’t always stop myself. I’ve been working with a muggle psychotherapist since May, and I’m making progress.”

He locked eyes with Hermione across the living room. Her mouth was opening, about to congratulate him for getting help with his issues. If she interrupted him now—even to say something nice—he knew he’d get de-railed, and probably bail on telling the whole truth. So he shook his head, a slight but clear communication. He wasn’t nearly done, and what he needed was for Hermione to keep her praise to herself. 

“Lying isn’t the worst abusive behavior I emulate. I regularly make decisions on behalf of others without their knowledge or consent. Muggles call it a God Complex, or just being overbearing as hell. Whatever you wanna call it, I’m guilty of it. Because Dumbledore used to make all kinds of choices about my life, I see myself as fighting back and taking control of my own life when I turn around and do the same shit to other people. By ‘empowering myself,’ I’m wreaking havoc on other people’s lives and emotions. I’ve done it to you guys, and I’ve done it to Draco. I’m sorry. It’s a shitty thing to do. I was only thinking of myself, trying to avoid pain, trying to feel some semblance of control over the war by forcing my will on you guys. That’s awful, and unfair, and I wish I hadn’t done it.” 

“I’m aware these are major problems with my behavior. I’m working on them. I can’t even ask you to forgive me. All I can say is that I’m trying to get better. And I’m probably gonna mess up again. I will keep doing this—lying to you, playing God, trying to avoid pain. I’ll do it even though I know it’s wrong. I’m learning how to stop myself… but if I’m being totally honest, I don’t have confidence in my ability to analyze and control my behavior in real time. Not yet. I’m getting there. 

“I’m sorry to put you through this. I’m sorry that I’ve allowed myself to become this person. I bonded with Draco because, when it comes to PTSD, we’re exactly the same. We push the people who love us away so no one can see what’s really going on. You were all willing to put up with me because you love me—thank you for that. I see why Draco was a stretch too far for you. But really, all the reasons you might dislike or disapprove of him are just my own faults and failures amplified, then stripped of the compassion you have for me. Think about that,” he encouraged. 

“Draco was a bully, right? He used Crabbe and Goyle to do his dirty work. He said awful things to us. He cheated. He let his father buy his way onto the quidditch team and out of trouble with the Board of Governors. The way Draco behaved at school was a cry for help—a poorly executed one, and vague as hell, because he knew he was more likely to be killed for disobedience than to get out from under his father and the Death Eaters alive. But he _needed_ to be noticed. I know because I did the exact same thing. I constantly put myself in danger, recklessly hurt others, hid behind Dumbledore… wanting to be seen myself, because no one was helping me in my own situation. I was screaming the only way I knew how, and so was Draco. I know you all tried, but Dumbledore didn't want me getting away from the Dursleys. He kept me there the same way Lucius kept Draco in hell. Draco and I were both so hard to be abound because the abuse at home was making us miserable—we were furious that no one seemed willing or able to help us.” 

Slowly, not wanting to distract, Viktor lifted his hand for Harry’s attention. “Zorry. Vot iz a Dursley?”

Molly couldn’t stop herself. “Harry’s muggle family. Hateful people. They feared his magic.” She’d wanted to murder them when Ron explained how Harry wasn’t getting enough to eat. Mrs. Weasley could’ve done serious damage to the Dursleys if she tried. Dumbledore must’ve intervened, convincing Molly to send food instead. Harry could’ve died were it not for Mrs. Weasley’s baked goods. 

Eventually Molly and Arthur persuaded Dumbledore that Harry could live with them at least part of the summer. They got him away from Privet Drive but… was that enough? The Dursleys had already done their lasting damage. It was like escaping a battle only to die of blood loss. To this day Harry was still bleeding out in ways he was only starting to understand.

Harry took the reigns back. It was his story to tell. "I think you all know or have suspected that my Uncle Vernon and cousin Dudley used to beat the tar out of me. The rumors at school were true—my Aunt Petunia really did starve me and lock me in that cupboard under the stairs. It was my bedroom for years, and they told me to be thankful for it even as they stuffed me inside.” 

He’d never said it out loud, plainly, without some significant hint of shame. He knew now that it wasn’t his fault. What they’d done was wrong. His feeling bad about it only played into their hands, let them get away with what they’d done. He had to shout it, to embrace his anger. Even now, his hands flickered. 

“This went on as far back as I can remember—since I was three or four years old. They regularly denied me food, confined me without a bathroom or any basic hygiene. I was treated worse than a pet. Muggles call it neglect, and it’s illegal by their international human rights laws. The Dursleys belittled me, made me keep their house, banned me from speaking; punishing me if I wasn’t good enough or upset them, or simply if they felt like it… treating me the way wizards do house elves. That’s why I push so hard for house elf reform—I know what it’s like to have a grown up convince you that you’re their slave, and hurt you every time you try to fight back.” 

Viktor looked livid. Fleur and Tonks, too. They had no idea Harry had grown up under such unforgivable conditions. This was the first that any of them had heard the complete truth—because Harry was ashamed, keeping it a secret. Even when Draco teased him, spreading rumors at school, Harry always denied it. Now he was done covering up for people who hurt him. 

“That was all I knew before Hogwarts. In a way the Dursleys were priming me for what Dumbledore had in store; he needed me to look up to him as my rescuer, to trust him, because he was about to throw me out into danger like a canary in a coal mine—but he needed me to report back if I survived, to seek him out and share information. People who’re abused as kids become desperate for attention and approval.” He knew not just from therapy but lived experience. He sought Dumbledore’s love the same way Draco idolized his abusive father, attaching themselves to the person who used and hurt them. 

“The way the Dursleys treated me made me cling to Dumbledore that much harder… even when he sent me back there summer after summer, knowing what they did to me. He scolded them once, getting me my own bedroom but… I idolized him for that, his kindness, when in actuality he was grooming me to be fond of him, to trust him, so that he could use me. If Dumbledore really wanted to protect me, he’d have gotten me out of that hell and let me live here, damn the consequences.” 

Harry would’ve been so happy growing up at the Burrow, with so many brothers and Ginny as his little sister to dote on. He didn’t need a bedroom; he could’ve happily slept on the floor in front of their fireplace like a wizard Cinderella. That’s what he’d been to the Dursleys. They warped him, making him desperate for affection but unable to ask for it, barely understanding what it was he craved; willing to accept Dumbledore’s abuse because it felt like love compared to their neglect. 

Molly and Arthur were nodding fervently. They’d _wanted_ Harry since the day they met him—they still wished that he could’ve been their son. Dumbledore leaned on them, talking the couple out of following their hearts. 

Dumbledore made these sweeping decisions for what Harry’s life was going to be like when no one gave him that right. As Harry’s godfather, it should’ve been up to Sirius what happened to him—no matter that Sirius was about to go on trial for murder at the time. He remained Harry’s godfather, the only guardian his parents had named. Wizarding law was so fucked up that as Headmaster of Hogwarts and a member of the Wizengamot Dumbledore could step in, leveraging his power and social clout, controlling Harry’s life for the foreseeable future. From prison there was nothing Sirius could do to stop it, to exert his parental rights. 

It truly was a good thing for Harry when Dumbledore died. In retrospect, he might need to thank Severus Snape. Harry and the new Headmaster never got along—and they would forever disagree on soft skills and methodology—but when Snape was backed into an untenable situation, he didn’t just act to save Narcissa’s son, but Lily’s child too. Killing Dumbledore might’ve been the only way to end Harry’s suffering. With Dumbledore dead, the first thing Harry’d done was fulfill his dream of moving out of Privet Drive for good. 

“Quirinus Quirrell attacked me when I was eleven—he was our Defence Against The Dark Arts professor, loyal to Voldemort and acting on his orders,” Harry added for Viktor, Fleur and Tonks. “I ended up taking Quirrell’s life. Dumbledore covered the whole thing up but, being honest, I killed Professor Quirrell in self-defence, then Dumbledore swore me to secrecy which is why this is the first time many of you are hearing about the extent of my involvement. There's been plenty of nasty shit after that, and it’s not necessarily relevant; ask me some other time if you like, and I’ll tell you. What you need to know right now is that those experiences with the Dursleys and under Dumbledore taught me to conceal my thoughts and feelings at all costs, so that my emotions couldn't be used against me. That's a deeply ingrained behavior which I'm trying to unlearn through therapy and conversations like these where I lay everything on the table—because I love you guys, and I'm done shutting you out of my life.” 

Being honest was something he desperately wanted to get better at. 

“All of this history helped me see through to Draco. As soon as he opened up to me, I realized how similar we were, and I made a promise to help him however I could.” 

Talking about his husband was difficult—especially knowing that no matter how honest he was, how much he barred his soul… this might be the end. He accepted that staying married to Draco might mean the end of his familial ties with the Weasleys. They were within their rights to not want to deal with a mentally ill person—Harry and Draco, both. This could very well be where Harry parted ways with his first real family. But just like coming out, if they couldn't support him or didn't want to accept him as he was, then it was for the best that he say his goodbyes and continue on his path alone. 

This time he was giving them a choice. He supplied this knowledge so that they could make an informed decision. He'd rather have their support but if not... he'd be alright. He could find others to help him shoulder the weight. Because this wasn't going away, or changing, or getting better. This was forever. He was going to be out, and sick in the head, for the rest of his life.

If they didn't want to be there for him anymore, then so be it. 

“We can disagree about how much Draco may or may not have been on-board with Death Eater politics, like blood purity and treatment of muggles. He was a kid, beaten and brainwashed and raped with his father's blessing while his mother had to watch in silent terror, to pretend she was okay with it or be disposed of and replaced with a newer, more compliant model. Draco was handed over to a pedophile, a rapist, and convinced their relationship was consensual. He was fourteen. He thought he was happy. That was the only life he knew, his reality.” 

Mrs. Weasley let out a terrified yip when Harry said the word ‘rape.’ The more he spoke, the more she cried; buckets of tears silently rolling down her cheeks, that anyone had treated a child that way. She remembered each of her own children at fourteen years old—how she would’ve killed anyone who dared touch them. 

Viktor looked like he wanted to kill someone. Ron was positively green, holding tightly to Hermione’s ankle like an anchor in a storm. He couldn’t look at Harry—staring off into space as he explained Draco’s past. Fleur and Bill weren't surprised, but saddened all the same. 

Arthur's face said he'd feared his whole life that his children would find out the Death Eaters did things like this; seeing how his own omissions, his sheltering of his kids even as they reached adulthood probably contributed to their naiveté and dismissal of the true dangers of the Death Eaters. Arthur realized, had he been honest with his kids and with Harry about what he knew, maybe they'd have lost some innocence but been more prepared for the horrible experiences awaiting them as the family of Harry Potter, Death Eater target Number One.

Like Harry, Mr. Weasley's compassionate heart didn't always compel him towards the best actions for the future of his loved ones, but rather to mitigate pain. Harry understood that compulsion for avoidance of difficult subjects all too well. He was trying to unlearn it because constantly and obsessively avoiding pain could keep you from living your best life. 

“Draco became a Death Eater to keep himself and his mum alive. It's like... criticizing someone who sees a burning building and chooses not to run in and save people because they're not trained as a firefighter and they don’t want to die. Draco chose not to be a martyr. I was groomed for that role, to devalue myself to the point I was willing to lay down as a sacrifice. Draco was taught how to suffer in silence; and that’s exactly what he does to this day, pushing people away with his words and behavior. 

“He knows his actions have hurt a lot of innocent people. For what it's worth I can tell you that he feels deep remorse for having hurt you. Draco has a lot of fight in him, and a strong will to survive. It's something I really respect in him, and it still hurts that this quality which I love about my husband was twisted and used to make him hurt other people I care about. 

"I don't tell you this so you'll feel bad for Draco, though I'm sure you do. As my family, I want you to understand the wizard I love—why he behaves the way he does, why he says and does things which are hurtful or seem cruel. Draco spent the first sixteen years of his life idolizing a sociopath, being abused and manipulated. He can behave like Lucius, but that's not who he is deep down. It took years for Draco to be trained in this behavior, and it's going to take years to unlearn it. He's improving, but he's far from being better or even 'adjusted.'” 

Draco had to start unlearning the abusive patterns he'd been taught to interpret as affection. It was fine when Draco called Harry a cunt because that was something they both agreed to; it brought them pleasure, providing a sense of unity and familiarity. It wasn't okay for Draco to call Hermione a mudblood or to insult the Weasleys. Draco had ceased those behaviors only because they angered Harry. So that it looked as though Draco was improving, but there was no real progress being made. Pleasing Harry was Draco's new method of self-preservation, making Harry the new Lucius Malfoy—Draco's controller, his abuser, rather than the protective, loving and supportive role Harry saw in his own mind. 

“On top of everything he's been through, Draco has something called Bipolar Disorder. It makes it harder for him to have appropriate emotional reactions to stressful situations. It makes him act out like he did in school. He goes through periods of mania where he may seem lucid if you talk to him, but he's not actually in command of his own words or behavior. Sometimes he says or does things which he doesn't mean. Sometimes his words or actions can be highly contradictory. Sometimes he believes things which aren't true, even when there's proof in front of his face. Sometimes he acts strangely—behaving like a little kid, or euphoric, seeming like he's high on drugs. Sometimes when he's emotional he speaks with a very strong West Country accent like the staff who took care of him when he was a child—apparently it's something which happens in abuse victims as well as people effected by Memory Charms and people who were hit in the head a lot as children. Draco’s definitely all three of those things. Sometimes he'll do seemingly stupid or dangerous things for no apparent reason—which gets him labeled as rebellious or as being violent like his father. But I can't say enough that he is experiencing a flood of chemicals in his brain because of his Bipolar, and he is not in control of himself. 

"He also experiences periods of violent depression. He'll punish himself—starve himself, deny himself anything which brings him pleasure. Over the years, he's tried to take his own life at least four times that I know of. And he doesn't _want_ to do any of this to himself. It's almost like an Imperius Curse from the imbalanced chemicals in his brain: it looks like he's in control, he sounds lucid, but he's not driving his own body. The chemicals in his brain are in charge. And when he gets himself back again, he's mortified by what he's done and does his best to cover it up. He’ll deny he ever did any of it—because, if he thought he actually meant half of what he does and says… he’d be trying to kill himself again. 

"Draco doesn't want to be like this. He doesn't want to hurt anyone, ever, because he knows very much what it feels like to be hurt. Just like me. This is how Draco's brain reacted to what he's lived through. His mind constructed itself this way to survive being the child, the primary punching bag, of someone like Lucius Malfoy, and a victim of Voldemort and the Death Eaters thereafter. Lucius prepared Draco to be the perfect lamb, to suffer in silence forever. 

"I told Draco I'm in therapy because I'm trying to get better, so I can be a good partner to him and help us have a better life. I think it's difficult for him to understand that I would ask for help. His father conditioned him his whole life that there's no such thing as help, that he was trapped and had no choice but to survive whatever raw deal he was handed. Draco's Bipolar lets him believe stuff which isn't realistic—like he could actually singlehandedly assassinate Dumbledore, or that a partner who assaults you is doing it because they love you and it's for your pleasure and not theirs. Draco has the ability to disconnect from reality when he's terrified; that's how he protects himself. That’s how his father and the Death Eaters took advantage of him. And Draco thinking that I didn't love him or want him anymore certainly qualifies as enough to throw him off the deep end. He yelled at me. He held my gun to my face. He told me he never wanted to speak to me again, not to follow him, and he walked out.”

Harry had to hold up both hands, his palms up as a plea for silence, just to stop the outpouring of emotion from every member of his family. Their hearts broke that Draco had threatened him, taking them all back to their Hogwarts days when he and Draco had nearly killed each other every year. 

Harry was okay. He didn’t need their compassion—Draco did. 

"I love Draco. I’ve already forgiven him for lashing out at me; he doesn’t know about his condition. It’s something I’m ready to help him with should he choose to come back. I want his Bipolar outbursts to be less frequent and less severe, but... part of loving him means accepting that his mania, depression, delusions, and occasional psychosis may never improve. I accept that he may spend the rest of his life stuck as that bullying prick you remember from school. We might go through periods like this every few years where Draco will get triggered by something, have another psychotic episode, and leave me again—or cheat on me, or drain our vaults and disappear, or get arrested, or try to take his own life. There’s no way of knowing what he might do. He’s not in control. If he's manic, Draco's going to do things which make no sense to us. I’m not willing to end our marriage over something that’s not his fault. Maybe I’m throwing myself onto another sword, here. But I’d like to think my capacity for love is limitless,” he accidentally quoted Nebojsa. “I know I can keep loving him. That’s what I promised him and myself when we got married.

"It's not easy. I won't ask you to love him the way I do. As my family, I want you to have the same information that I do, so you can understand what it is we're going through, and make your own decisions about contact with him—and me—going forward.

 "I am working to save our marriage right now. I love Draco and I'm not giving up hope until I get an honest, non-manic answer about whether he wants to stay married to me or not. Right now I'm waiting for him to make up his mind—which can take a while, so I'm getting myself in order while I wait for him. 

“Whether or not I stay married, I want you guys to know what's going on with my life, and I want to be a better member of this family. I'm still learning how to do that, but... this is me trying. So thanks for listening, I guess, and... could somebody please say something or at least get me a drink so I don't feel like such a tosser?” 

His family reacted as one—talking over one another, exchanging tissues and emotional looks, leaping out of their seats to come and hug him. Harry couldn’t hear much over the nervous ringing in his ears. 

Tonks knew exactly what he needed. She leaned down, placing Teddy in Harry’s arms. 

She was able to embody what they were all thinking. She trusted him. She believed in his judgment. She saw he was trying to do the right thing, to be better, even after he made mistakes. That was the kind of godfather she wanted for her son.

You couldn’t squeeze a baby. Not without killing them. Harry was careful bringing his godson to his chest, smelling his tiny head, stroking his back through the blanket he was wrapped in. 

Teddy had pink hair to match his mother’s. As Harry held him, his color shifted through magenta and violet, darkening until it became jet black just like Harry’s. Teddy was emulating him again. Even at three months old he knew that Harry was his family, someone it was okay to be like.   

Holding Teddy against his heart, Harry had a feeling like he was being sucked head-first down a giant drain. The world spun, went black. He couldn’t feel himself. 

He re-emerged as a spirit, a fly on the wall of Dr. Beasley’s office in Georgia. She’d redecorated; new furniture, and a fresh shade of paint on the walls. The doc sat holding her stomach—she was pregnant! His therapist was expecting. 

Was he seeing the future? He’d experienced this dream-like connection to an alternate reality twice before: moments before Tonks went into labor, and again when he’d died, encountering his parents and dead loved ones in something like the afterlife. Maybe Teddy was a Seer? Harry couldn’t tell whether this vision was of the future or merely a projection of his own desires, but he so wanted it to be true.

Sitting on Dr. Beasley’s couch were himself and Draco. They were at least a few years older—Harry with different glasses and a few more tattoos. Draco sat with his back rigid, dressed smartly in a fitted suit and leather dress shoes, looking like he’d come directly from work at some professional, perhaps even muggle-type job. 

If Harry wasn’t mistaken, Draco looked taller. Not as tall as him, but his torso and legs were definitely longer, sitting beside Harry for comparison. Draco always hoped to be taller; to look like his father, more traditionally masculine and somewhat intimidating. It looked like he might get his wish after all. 

The two of them were holding hands. Draco still wore his wedding ring, his hand in Harry’s lap, idly stroking his fingers as they talked. 

They looked worried. But there was no jam they couldn’t work their way out of so long as they were together. 

Harry returned to reality. He was in pain—from what? Teddy had reached up, pulling on his beard. That yank brought him back, a reminder of his physical body. 

Tonks was leaning down, touching his shoulder. Ron and Hermione knelt before him, about to hug him. He had no idea what he’d looked like in that other world. Was it trance-like? Or did he just seem disassociated, checked-out from the world around him after the emotions he’d unleashed? 

“You alright, Harry?” asked Hermione. Her hand was hovering over his knee. She was there, ready to help if he needed it. Behind her were Mr. and Mrs. Weasley’s legs, standing watch. 

He wasn’t alright. But he would be. 

Harry looked back over his shoulder, telling Tonks. “I’m not sure how but… I think you should have Teddy’s magic evaluated. You could bring him to the Seongsil at work, maybe. I think he might have Sight.”

Harry knew two Seers, Professor Trelawney and Charlene Harper, and they couldn’t be more different. What Seers had in common was the ability to deliver prophecies, their words interpreting future events which they saw in their heads. Harry never held much store in prophecy. But he’d been shown the future twice, now. He was starting to believe in this branch of magic.

“Sight?” Tonks repeated, confused. “Why do you say that?” 

Admitting the truth to any non-magical person would’ve gotten him thrown in an asylum. His family he could tell. They’d understand. After the life he’d lived, visions of the future were almost to be expected. 

“Twice he’s given me visions of the future—right before you went into labor, like he wanted me to be prepared to help you. Exactly what he showed me came true. And just now. He, uh… he showed me the future again. Me and Draco, married, together.” 

“…Harry?” That was Hermione acting as the voice of reason, warning him not to project. Just because he wanted to get back together with his husband didn’t mean it was going to happen. 

“It’s mad, I know,” he admitted. “I feel quite strange, but… it’s happened before. Teddy showed me the future. I don’t know how, but his being a Seer is more likely than me losing my mind. His mum’s powerful,” he lifted his chin in acknowledgement of Tonks. “And so was his dad. I bet you that when Ted gets older, he’s gonna deliver a prophecy or two.” 

Tonks touched her son’s cheek, her knuckle tracing the pudgy line of his face. He didn’t look like anyone yet—he just looked fat, which healthy babies ought to be. Her hand drifted from Teddy to Harry’s shoulder. 

“You could be right,” she admitted. “No harm in bringing him by Ophelia’s office to have him checked. If he’s a Seer, then… good for him, I suppose. We can help him.” 

Fleur piped up from Bill’s arms. “Champagne? ‘Arry, I zhink yoo wanted a drink. I could use one, too.” 

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Sounds good. Thanks.” 

As a boy he’d pictured a wife and kids. A plain sort of house, filled with love. A family of his own creation to make up for the parents he’d never known. 

He didn’t get what he wanted. Because that wasn’t ever what he needed. He got an adoptive family he fought with, slammed doors at, screamed at and refused to speak to for months at a time. He got a husband nobody understood, a best friend he was sexually attracted to, and a dark old house he didn’t want to live in alone. He had to change his dream, make it real and achievable for the man he was now. 

Harry held his godson in his arms, looking around at his family who wouldn’t give up on him, either. 

He would be okay. Someday, he would be.

 

 

 

 


	24. Iron Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trial of Dolores Umbridge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** LGBT art, facing PTSD triggers, institutional homophobia, nudity, concealing an illness, religious observance, fasting, a trial, survivor accounts of child abuse by a teacher, survivors fearing they won’t be believed, discussion of a workforce strike, description of dead bodies, state-sanctioned **execution** , and a long-awaited **minor character death**

 

_I go to him in paths of dreams_

_In bed awake with shadowed beings_

_They crawl inside and wait with me_

_The creatures here become machines_

_Walk with me to a place of trust_

_Death will no longer silence us_

_My heart is a tomb_

_My heart is an empty room_

_I've given it away_

_I never want to see it again_

_And all your words could save me_

_But keep your love away from me_

_In all the world's decaying_

_Is there a place that's safe for us?_

 

 

"[Iron Moon](https://youtu.be/pvbJY2CjrUI)"

Chelsea Wolfe

 

 

 

Harry took his glasses off. Then his tshirt. The world went blurry, then dark as he pulled soft cotton over his head, flicking it aside. 

He sat down on the lip of the bathtub he could barely see, not uttering a word. 

Cool, thin fingers touched the back of his neck—carding up through his hair, taking the measure of his scalp before letting Harry's crazy mass of black waves slip through those bony fingers. 

" _Do you want to keep it long_ _, brother_ _?_ " 

Parseltongue wasn't like speaking any other language. It resonated. It came from your gut, an outward expression of what was inside you. Maybe that was why he spoke it in bed. He couldn't hide his meaning in snake tongue. Everything was bare, exposed. A language of the soul. 

Nebojsa's fingers took the measure of his hair again. " _Or sssshort?_ "

Harry didn't know. " _Whatever you think would look good. I trust you_." 

His friend understood. A fellow Parselmouth would. 

" _Draco ussssssed to cut it for you_." Nebojsa knew what he was being trusted with. 

When Harry nodded, Sia's fingers gently pulled, caught against a snarl. It felt so strange to have another set of fingers pulling his hair—not his own, and not Draco's. It broke his heart. 

Nebojsa held either side of his head, fingertips against his temples. Comforting him. He kissed the top of Harry's head, breathing over him. He imagined those bleached eyes were closed, considering... maybe even praying for him. 

" _I've got you, brother_ ," Nebojsa said. " _You'll feel better when I'm done_." 

" _Promise?_ "

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

The criminal trial of Dolores Umbridge appeared on Harry’s calendar—three days reserved to present all of the testimonies and evidence. Many of the witness statements would take longer than normal. For each victim who was still under seventeen, a parent had to verbally consent before the Wizengamot and be present for their testimony… parents as the natural defenders of their children, just as Harry believed in his heart. 

According to their archaic laws, it was still more like people under seventeen were the property of their parents, and could not appear without accompaniment. That part of the law hadn’t benefited Harry when Cornelius Fudge dragged him in front of he Wizengamot for defending himself and Dudley against a Dementor. Once more it was the word of children against the shock and disbelief of adults. The difference being that all these kids had their guardians in their corners, sticking up for them—believing them, and believing in them. 

As Hogwarts was still in session, the Ministry chartered a special run of the Hogwarts Express to bring kids down from Scotland and escort them back. 

Harry volunteered for that. He wanted to be on the train with the others who'd been hurt by Umbridge, in solidarity. He got permission to go in his Hit Wizard's uniform even though he wasn't on-duty. He was put on administrative assignment for the week, since it wasn't wise for him to go into the field during all this commotion, anyway. Best for him and best for the public he served. But Nash and Robards were fine with Harry being in uniform on the Express. Harry always wore a uniform on the train—this time he'd switched his Gryffindor red and gold for indigo blue and reinforced dragonhide. 

The hems of his robe barely brushed the platform outside Hogsmeade village. Heavy boots, dragonhide gloves, and his insulated vest shielded him from the cold. Snow drifted down onto his shoulders as he observed the two dozen students boarding the train. 

He left his firearm at Fenchurch—which oddly Nash and Robards hadn't mentioned in their official permission statement on file, but Harry figured it was implied or assumed that he wasn't on active deploy, and therefore wouldn't be armed with more than his wand. It felt odd to be in uniform without the familiar weight of a Glock 17 at his hip, or his back-up 26 concealed on a thigh strap beneath his robes. The other Aurors and Hit Wizards on the train were in uniform and openly carrying. It was strange to see so many firearms on the train from Hogwarts. Even during the war, Harry had been the only one armed with a gun—which he’d kept secret as long as he could, up until the final battle. 

This wasn't a regular student trip. These students were witnesses in protective custody, traveling under Ministry protection. 

A number of students had missed their previous school year, their parents pulling them out in order to go into hiding, keeping themselves safe. The wizarding mentality was to retreat and preserve, staying alive in order to fight another day. So there were quite a number of familiar faces on that train ride. Some of the students were Harry’s age, or had been in his year. They were eighteen yet they were students and he one of their trained, military guards—age being no match for experience and discipline gained in the field. 

Harry could’ve done that—gone back, finished school. But that wasn’t who he was anymore. He refused to go backwards. He needed that part of his life to be over, needed to separate himself from Hogwarts and Dumbledore’s memory the same way he left Privet Drive and never looked back. It was more important to him to be able to move on. After the freedom he experienced in the war, he couldn’t go back to living like a kid—the same as a feral creature would never choose to live in a cage. He’d tasted real life, adulthood, and he couldn’t get enough. He was still growing into his adulthood, but he would never give up the power he’d found in making decisions for himself. 

Harry made his way around the train, walking through each sparsely populated car, mostly listening. He would say hello and then shut his gob, valuing what each person had to say. They all seemed bolstered by his presence and his active, very visible role in all this. Many guessed correctly that he'd been the one to get the ball rolling in the first place, the first to bring accusations against Dolores Umbridge. Many thanked him for that. Harry replied he was just doing his job, though it gave him a great deal of satisfaction to be able to help others and prevent someone like Umbridge from hurting anyone else. 

He got a warm hug from Ginny—though not as big as the one she gave Misha when she saw him waiting for her on Platform 9 & ¾, standing beside her parents. She flew into his arms like a speeding Snitch, swinging from his neck, engulfing him. She kissed him—with even greater fervor than when she’d thrown herself at Harry two years ago. 

Harry didn’t feel jealous at all; a bit awkward when Ginny openly French kissed her boyfriend whom Harry loved like a brother, but that anxiety was soothed by the quiet, peaceable pleasure he experienced from seeing their joy in each other’s arms. Her and Misha’s happiness was the permission Harry needed to finally let go of the guilt he felt over breaking up with her, breaking her heart by moving on. 

He only ever wanted Ginny to be happy… and somewhere deep in his heart he’d always known he wasn’t the right chap for her.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry thought it best that he, Sia, and Dima sleep at the palace in Romania, Apparating back to London for the trial. With Ginny in town, Misha needed the flat to himself. He and his girlfriend were together so infrequently, and this was his first opportunity to entertain her at his place. 

Misha never asked to have the flat to himself—Harry brought it up to Dima and Sia, a consensus was reached, and they packed their bags, informing Misha of their decision and when they’d be back.

In preparation for Ginny’s arrival, the young Prince was bouncing about the kitchen, cooking several things at once. He kept pulling Nebojsa close, whispering in the Serb’s ear, asking his advice. Sia was their resident romance expert. It had been a while for Misha, and he wanted that validation and support from his parent-figure, ensuring he was doing everything properly. 

Harry had to intervene when Misha started conjuring candles to light the apartment. 

“I know you mean well,” he prefaced. “But you’ve gotta remember—Ginny’s English. Tone it down a bit, yeah? Too many candles and she’ll either think you’re re-creating Hogwarts, the place she’s just gotten away from, or you’re about to propose.” 

Misha swore fantastically in Romanian, a habit inherited from his big brothers. His gripe was something about the coldness of the English, how they knew nothing about romance. 

Harry lifted his eyebrows. “Trust me.” He’d known Ginny for eight years, and been her boyfriend for a few months. Gin was more interested in snogging and grabbing a bloke’s bits; candles and old-fashioned romance might make her feel a bit crass, causing her to bottle her natural self. Misha didn’t need to do any of this to get Ginny in the mood to grab him. He did it because he wanted to, because he was a romantic person who believed in setting the mood and making kind gestures for his lady. 

Misha had brought over some of his significant anime collection, intending to introduce Ginny to one of his more eclectic, muggle-type hobbies. Harry turned there instead. 

“What’re you gonna watch?” Whatever Misha decided, it would surely be Ginny’s first anime. Harry had watched a few himself on rainy summer days. He preferred the _shounen_ variety—stories of unlikely young heroes, the little guy against insurmountable odds, fighting his way to a goal. 

Misha blushed; his back to Harry, the color was visible at the tips of his ears. “Uh… an OVA called _FAKE_. Iz one of my favorites.” 

Nebojsa’s chest and bony shoulders went concave with the effort of keeping in a critical snort. Crystal blue eyes flicked to Harry, then back to Misha. “Perhaps yoo pick zomething else? Iz…” With Misha’s attention, Nebojsa jerked his head pointedly at Harry. 

Misha paled, realizing where he’d gone wrong. “Right. Bad idea.” 

Harry didn’t have to inquire. Nebojsa mentally filled in the blank. _It’s a murder-mystery_ _where t_ _he two detective characters are… into each other. And they’re both men._ _The top character_ _sort of looks like you._  

That wouldn’t go over well with Ginny. She’d likely had enough of Harry’s closeted behavior, so watching a similar story might be the opposite of entertaining. Misha loved mysteries and off-beat romances; he forgot the similarities between his favorite stories and Harry’s actual life. 

Dima chimed in with an alternative. “Vot’s zhe lesbian vone? Vith zhe sword fighting and duels. I zhink it vos set at a school?” 

Nebojsa remembered it, providing the name. “ _Utena_.” To Misha, he advised in Romanian, “Watch that instead. Stronger female characters.” 

Harry wasn’t surprised they were familiar with these gay and lesbian shows Misha fancied. Dima and Sia didn’t have many stereotypically-LGBT interests of their own. But when it came to Misha they were one hundred percent supportive of him, including his choice to be open about his bisexuality and his distinctly queer taste in entertainment. 

If Misha wanted to watch an anime featuring two women in a relationship, Dima and Sia were right there piled on the couch, watching it with him. When underage Misha wanted to go see Mindless Self Indulgence play at a gay club last year, they and their friends charmed his ID and snuck him into the show. Dima and Sia might not be out, but they did everything in their power to support Misha, wanting his experience to be better than theirs. So Dmitry knowing about a lesbian anime didn’t strike Harry as the least bit unusual; the big lug would never mention it in public, but at home with his family Dmitry was open, willing to step very far outside his comfort zone in support of his little brother. Dmitry _acted_ like an asshole at times—but deep down, he wasn’t all bad. 

Harry peeked at his watch—it was past time they left. The last thing he wanted was to bump into his ex during date night with her new man. He clapped Misha on the shoulder in parting, bucking up his confidence. “Don’t worry, mate. I’m sure she’ll appreciate the home-cooked meal. I think you might be a better cook than Ginny.” 

He wasn’t sure if that made Misha less nervous or more-so as he hustled Dmitry and Sia into Apparating position.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

For the next three days, Harry woke staring at the delicately embroidered silk canopy above Dima and Sia’s bed in Romania. Forty bedrooms but he didn’t want to sleep alone. 

He was never alone, always with a friend’s warm body beside him. In Courtroom Ten of the old Ministry building he traded Dima’s heat for Ron’s, his friend instinctively sticking close. Because his sister was a witness, Ron was placed on administrative duty as well, and permitted to attend all three days. 

Harry had an awkward encounter in the courtroom before the trial began. The day’s witnesses had gathered; among them were his ex Cho Chang, and her friend Marietta Edgecomb. He mentally groaned when Cho managed to make eye contact across the room—the sound escaping him, vocalized as a low, wordless, throaty grumble as she bobbed her head, clearly inviting him over to say hello. 

“Good luck,” whispered Ron. 

As he walked away, Harry heard Ron explaining to Dima and Sia who she was to Harry, and how spectacularly things had fallen apart. Their relationship had been rather doomed from the beginning. Harry took away a valuable lesson: it would always be “too soon” to date someone whose previous partner was murdered taking a death blow which was intended for you. The guilt and silent blame between him and Cho would remain insurmountable. 

He should’ve known better but… Cho was the first girl he’d noticed and he chased that vague feeling, desperate to be in some kind of relationship, to be like his friends, not to miss out. Had he known about demisexuality or being homoromantic back then, he wouldn’t have pushed himself so hard, and he might not have burned himself and Cho so badly. 

Marietta stared up at him with big unblinking eyes. Beside her, Cho was having difficulty figuring out how to arrange her face—the corners of her lips doing an indecisive up-and-down flip-flop which ended in sucking her lips entirely into her mouth and clamping down. Cho was nervous, too. She liked what she saw; she’d always found Harry attractive, and now that he’d grown taller and had a beard, her roving eyes said he was precisely her physical type. But they hadn’t spoken in ages. Their mutual distaste of Dolores Umbridge was about all they had in common these days. 

“Harry… wow,” Cho murmured. “You’ve gotten so tall.” Her shining dark eyes scanned him up, taking in his lose curls falling an inch or so below his earlobes, the top half secured at the back of his head with an elastic. He liked the new style. He could easily sweep it out of his face for exercising and work, but still had enough length for his hair to be light rather than matted and out of control. His beard was very short, shaved down off of his cheeks to follow the hard line of his jaw, creating a black frame surrounding his face. Her gaze followed his neatly trimmed whiskers, landing on his lips.

“I… I can’t believe this is real, that we’re all here,” she continued, breathy. Harry didn’t feel the need to say anything yet, letting her speak. “Umbridge... her Inquisitorial Squad… I never thought anybody would listen.” 

She hadn’t told anyone, afraid she wouldn’t be believed. Like Harry, she hid what had happened. Umbridge had a gift for making others feel small and vulnerable—she almost sucked Harry in at times. His father’s rebellious spirit kept him going; personified in Sirius, urging him never to give in. Harry had been the hardest to break because he had so little to lose. 

“Thank you, Harry,” Marietta chimed in. “For making this happen.” 

It was Marietta who’d ratted on Dumbledore’s Army, afraid her mother might lose her Ministry job to Umbridge’s influence. That was so long ago. He’d been angry at the time but could no longer find it. Marietta hadn’t done as he’d have wished, yet her urge to protect her family wasn’t in any way wrong. Harry didn’t understand family dynamics at the time, perceiving Marietta as a disloyal person when in fact she was quite loyal—to her family who’d earned her love and respect, not to Harry when he demanded it. 

He turned to Marietta, looking her directly in her eyes, ready to deploy a technique he’d learned in therapy. “I owe you an apology. I think I said some misinformed things after finding out you’d spoken to Umbridge about the DA. That was petty of me. We were kids. You were scared, and Umbridge took advantage of your fear as well as your love for your mother. I was angry at Umbridge, but I lashed out at you, and Cho, too,” he dipped his head, acknowledging that he’d raised his voice to his ex when talking about Marietta’s actions.  “That was victim-blaming, and very wrong of me. You were already hurting, and I acted like an ass to both of you. I’m sorry.” 

He couldn’t expect Marietta to have the same sense of duty he had drilled into him, the same stubborn willingness to endure pain for a cause. It drove him crazy when Hermione or Dumbledore expected him to see the world from their perspective, and yet time and time again he turned around and did the same thing to other people. Maybe having Voldemort’s soul trapped inside him really had cut off entire parts of himself—not just his natural body but his empathy for others, and his mother’s sense of personal responsibility… genuine love, putting others above himself. Or maybe he just learned those things from being married and going through PTSD treatment, his undiagnosed condition permeating his entire life, ruining his relationships. 

“I don’t blame you,” was Marietta’s reply. “I wish I’d have been more brave.” 

“You’re already brave enough,” Harry reassured her. “Both of you. Being here today is…. I don’t think any of us would be standing here if others hadn’t come forward, too. It’s taken all of us, together. I just wish it hadn’t taken so long for others to believe us. I couldn’t have done it alone, so thank you both for coming forward and speaking today. It means a lot.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

For the first hour of proceedings, neither Harry nor Nebojsa heard a word of what went on around them—their minds looping through private, personal memories of the Wizengamot’s formal hearing chambers. 

Harry recalled sitting in a chair at the center of the room, grilled by Cornelius Fudge, Dumbledore rising to his defence and yet refusing to so much as look at him. How small he’d felt, silenced, run over, dismissed. He remembered sights from Dumbledore’s Pensieve—Igor Karkaroff, Barty Crouch Jr., Bellatrix Lestrange, and Sirius had all been strapped to that lonely chair, their fates decided here. 

But Sia… he saw Voldemort here. The man who’d murdered his parents, who’d ordered him kidnapped and tortured, had held court in this very room. Nebojsa had seen this space filled with Death Eaters rather than representatives of the people. Voldemort had cast the Cruciatus Curse on Nebojsa right here, testing the limits of his skills as a Legilimens, probing at his disguise as Sia passed himself off in Severus Snape’s skin. 

They weren’t supposed to wear jewelry while in uniform unless it was religious, like a wedding ring or saint’s medal. For the occasion, Dmitry wore a kind of bracelet made of black fabric woven into tight, clustered knots, bound into a loop by a tiny silver cross. He moved the knots between his fingers one at a time—praying for the wisdom and restraint not to launch himself off of their bench and murder Dolores Umbridge with his bare hands. Considering his impressive grip strength, Dima could probably snap her neck one-handed. 

Nebojsa had a similar prayer tool, a strand of knots so long it hung around his neck, down his thin chest to settle in his lap where his fingers massaged each bump with a familiarity like he’d tied them himself. There had to be over a hundred perfectly round pine-nut-size knots in his necklace alone, every last one tied by hand. 

Sia was falling back on what he knew—his monkhood, the disguise he wore to shield his true thoughts and feelings from others. Being religious at a time like this was totally appropriate. No one would think anything of his praying. He could hide behind religious observance. No one would know what he was praying for. Even Harry didn’t know for sure, Nebojsa shielding his mind.

They’d neglected breakfast. Harry expected his stomach was too far lodged in his throat to start rumbling. His whole body was too squeezed to make a sound. With Dima and Sia’s praying, Harry realized they were fasting on purpose. They wouldn’t eat until the verdict was delivered. It was quite the statement from Dima; he risked angering the spirit of the Aethonan he was bound to. Apparently he thought the occasion worth the risk. 

Harry sat between Ron and Nebojsa, listening as the first round of witnesses testified before the Wizengamot. Some chose to speak while others couldn't find adequate words, submitting their memories into evidence. Harry and Draco started that, and it was becoming an accepted practice. In some ways it was easier, especially for those like Harry who weren't always comfortable expressing themselves verbally. 

In the folds of their robes, Harry found Ron's hand to hold. He wouldn't have done that before—terrified that people would think he was gay, that Ron would reject his emotions or his need for comfort from a mate. He didn't care now. He needed his friend. Ron squeezed back.

 

 

 

 

During the lunch recess, Dima and Sia offered Harry a sort of chalky water flavored like lemons. Dima said it was a magnesium supplement which prevented the muscle cramps and headaches which could occur during a water-only fast. Harry hadn’t decided to fast; rather, he wasn’t sure anything he ate would stay down after a few hours of listening to how Umbridge scarred other kids and destroyed their innocence, their childhoods. The slightly powdery texture of the drink reminded Harry of fresh snow melting in his mouth. He knew he could keep it down—this was what his body wanted. 

Having always felt ravenous, it surprised him how little hunger he felt when he _chose_ not to eat. When the Dursleys starved him, food was all he could think about. Now, because the decision not to eat was available—was an option and his friends were doing it—Harry felt fine in following along. It was a natural choice. After a few hours and a bottle of supplement water, he didn’t feel hungry at all. Without food as a distraction, his mind was free to focus on what he considered most important. 

He didn’t miss dinner, either—not when he and Dima sat on the lanai wrapped in blankets, watching the sun set and the snow fall, smoking cigars in silence. He fell asleep looking up at the stars, Dima Levitating him up to bed. He slept deeply, waking strangely ready for the day ahead. 

For the second trial day, Nebojsa gave Harry his long prayer necklace, wearing a bracelet like Dima’s instead. Not eating provided a surprising amount of energy, and Sia could tell Harry needed something to do with his hands. 

Harry didn’t pray—never had, and it would be disingenuous to start now. But he timed the movement of his thumb and knuckle against the knots with the pace of his breathing—one inhale, squeeze the knot; one exhale, next knot. Breathing into his stomach broke up some of the anxiety rocks living in his chest. It turned out trials made him nearly as uncomfortable as weddings and funerals. 

Soon, Ron’s hand snuck over-top of Harry’s thigh, pointing to the prayer rope. “Share your muggle thingy?” he whispered. His sister was testifying that day: Ron needed something to do with his hands, too. 

As surreptitiously as he could, Harry took the loop from around the back of his neck and placed it in Ron’s lap, so that his fingers could move as Harry’s did, breathing in the same time. 

Headmaster Snape Apparated down to testify that Umbridge threatened his job if he didn't supply her with Veritaserum to use on students. At first he watered the doses, then claimed to have run out as soon as he thought the lie believable. He knew outright denying Umbridge what she wanted would get him fired; by appearing to comply he could stay close, monitoring the situation, doing what he could to keep things from getting further out of hand. 

Snape had no idea Umbridge was torturing students in addition to her potion use. No one from his house came to him for help, which was the Slytherin way. They believed help was a myth, relying on themselves alone. 

Snape had regained much of his credibility after Harry awoke from his coma staunchly backing his double-agency and supporting him for Headmaster. He and Snape would never see eye-to-eye on teaching styles, but at least Harry knew Snape would defend the kids entrusted to his care with his life. His manner with students was reportedly improving by inches now that he no longer taught daily classes, able to rest his ire behind his desk with Dumbledore and McGonagall’s portraits looking on over his shoulder.

Snape gave Harry a long and questioning look across the courtroom. _Where’s your husband, upstart brat?_ It took all of Harry’s war training, concentration, and significant nerve not to react to that judgmental glare. Draco’s absence wasn’t anyone’s business. 

Ephraim and Corbin Warrington testified together, which was the right of married people to speak as one voice. Ephraim, a Hufflepuff and member of the DA, had been tortured by Umbridge, while his secret Slytherin boyfriend Corbin was a member of the Inquisitorial Squad—the coercive undertones of the enforcement group quickly exposed as they sat side-by-side, straight-backed on a bench brought forward for the spouses to share.

Umbridge had caught them snogging behind the greenhouses. Ephraim she set to lines with her wicked quill; like Harry, the former Hufflepuff Seeker who now used crutches and a leg brace to get around had a scar of his own handwriting on his forearm: _I must not kiss other boys._ A physical manifestation of the nagging, belittling voice every questioning boy heard in the back of his head. 

Corbin escaped the same fate when Umbridge noted his impressive size, the idea for a personal brute squad taking shape in her mind. Each student she questioned or punished thereafter, she attempted to extract shady secrets or some other point of pressure. Umbridge threatened to out any gay or sexually experimental student she discovered, a high concentration of whom were in Slytherin. One by one they were recruited to the Inquisitorial Squad whether they wished to join or not.

Slytherin Quidditch Captain Graham Montague’s family was deeply in debt to the Selwyns—into the squad he went. Pansy Parkinson kept an army’s worth of muggle cocaine in her cosmetics case—she was forcibly recruited to avoid expulsion. Millicent Bulstrode had a cousin in Hogsmeade who provided her with magical psychedelics to smuggle into the castle—Umbridge promised not to have her cousin prosecuted for controlled substance possession and distribution. Even Draco had a same-gender casual sex partner somewhere in the castle who rolled on him—but Harry understood what the power of that badge on his lapel meant to Draco’s Bipolar ego and grandiosity, why the Squad appealed to Draco, why he didn’t put up much of a fight when Umbridge roped him into it. 

And so on down the line, until Umbridge had most of the natural deviants and sadists of Slytherin dancing to her tune like puppets. If they let on they didn’t want to be in her clutches, didn’t feel like terrorizing, then their dirty secrets would be aired for the world to hear, and consequences dropped not just on their heads but on family and strangers as well. 

Umbridge ordered them to target fellow students, turning kids against each other, empowering them to become enforcers of her will and punish their classmates for failure to fall in line. Many of them were already familiar with these “strike first, ask questions later” disciplinary tactics after growing up in Death Eater households. 

Tearfully, Ephraim recounted a time Corbin was ordered to strike a second year girl in the face—how they’d sat in the night air of the Astronomy Tower, Corbin confessing that he’d rather throw himself off the tower and end it all than be forced to hit another child. He might be a bloodthirsty devil on the pitch, but that was where his aggression ended. Harry could tell by the very natural way Ephraim curled his head against his husband’s chest; looking to the larger wizard for protection, seeking out the soft juncture between pectoral and shoulder, finding comfort in the spot where he presumably fell asleep every night since their lavish summer wedding. Corbin Warrington was a civilized bloke—not the most exceptional or witty, but decent—who had the misfortune of looking like an absolute brute. 

A deliberate if slightly plodding speaker, Corbin told the story of Umbridge ready to use the Cruciatus Curse on a then fifteen-year-old Harry; how it was Hermione and Harry’s quick thinking and improvisational acting skills which allowed them to lead Umbridge off into the Forbidden Forest instead. The candies Fred and George dropped—Puking Pastilles and the like—were instantly recognizable to those squad members with more brain cells than Crabbe and Goyle. Still they threw themselves on the proffered sword; vomiting, Levitating, or with steam pouring from their ears, they knew they would be rendered useless for further puppeting. 

“I won’t lie,” Corbin offered. “There were moments we enjoyed. The rivalry between Slytherin and Gryffindor… having the authority to take points for anything… we certainly took our distaste at being coerced by Professor Umbridge out on the Gryffindors, and anyone else she told us was affiliated with their club, Dumbledore’s Army. Small victories…” he tapered off, looking down at  Ephraim. “You put it better, dear.” 

Ephraim spoke again. Clearly they’d been talking about this for years. It tested their relationship, being on opposite sides. “Small victories over a rival served as the meekest balm, a distraction from the psychological horror of rounding up one’s classmates to be interrogated or in some instances tortured. The way a worker at a muggle slaughterhouse justifies the violent sight of killing hundreds of animals to feed his fellow man. They accepted the violence because it preserved their own less dangerous position. Members of the Squad were told their actions would please Minister Fudge, with Professor Umbridge serving as a channel between. Most of the Squad feared social ruin, disownment, or even sentences in Azkaban should they refuse to follow orders, or insufficiently appear to enjoy themselves while at it. They had to pretend they were acting of their own free will—that was Umbridge’s stipulation. 

“As a teacher, Umbridge used her significant influence both at the school and within the Ministry; everyone understood, whether they were on the Inquisitorial Squad or one of the students hunted by them, that non-compliance would have severe consequences reaching far outside the castle. She purposefully terrified and abused children.” 

Harry knew how well a person raised in an abusive environment could pretend to love something they deeply hated, or be drawn with staying fascination to a thing which hurt them; victims of abuse were taught to crave their abuser’s attention, and to seek out validation from the worst and most harmful sorts of people. Case-in-point: Harry’s dogged attachment to Albus Dumbledore, the man who’d left him with the Dursleys in the first place and insisted he go back there to be mistreated every summer after. Or Draco still referring to Philippe—his rapist—as his ex-boyfriend, like their relationship could ever be considered consensual. Most Death-Eater-adjacent kids like Corbin had been gaslighted to the point they’d believe the word of any authority over evidence seen with their own eyes. That was how cults worked. 

The people who hurt Draco, Harry wanted to kill. He was more protective of his husband than he was of himself. _That_ was how love worked. Often he showed Draco more patience, affection, and compassion than he was willing to give himself. 

Umbridge had tortured Harry—and he somehow let himself forget about it. He decided to focus on other things, blocking out his torture. _He_ was partly responsible for letting Dolores Umbridge get away with her crimes because he refused to report her, refused to publicize his own pain. His PTSD and psychological training from the Dursleys and Dumbledore taught him how to cover up for his abuser, erasing their tracks, the same way the Inquisitorial Squad backed up Umbridge and covered for her crimes. 

Serial abusers positioned their victims to act as their shields against discovery. Harry recognized the pattern because he’d lived it. 

Now in the same room as Umbridge... Harry didn't want to kill her. He didn't feel that murderous rage burning in his chest. He just wanted her to stop. Seeing her chained to a chair felt oddly satisfying; tied up and wandless, she couldn’t hurt anyone, and that was all Harry really wanted. For the pain she caused to stop. 

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

It wasn’t until the third and final day that Harry’s statement was brought into evidence. Along with his account of events and a sample of his memories, the Wizengamot were shown a photograph of his hand— _I must not tell lies_ forever scratched into his skin. 

Seated and bound in a chair at the center of the room, Dolores Umbridge appeared unrepentant. Her legal representative had a difficult time finding justification or precedent for her actions, and advised her not to speak in her own defence. 

The expression on her face said she'd do it again; that Harry was a troublemaker who wouldn't listen, wouldn't respond to anything but violence. She'd tortured a fifteen-year-old kid. She tortured and abused a lot of kids. As her council gave final arguments to the Wizengamot, she stared at Harry. _How dare you?_ Her eyes seethed. _You_ _don’t fool me. You’re nothing but a little boy in a fancy uniform. You can’t stop me._  

Harry couldn't keep the tears back anymore. The tears he should’ve cried years ago—he’d held them in for so long. He ducked his chin to his chest, glasses spotty. He didn't want to let go of Ron's hand. Beside him, Nebojsa offered a handkerchief. 

Harry learned long ago how to cry silently. He never made noise when he cried. He used to stuff himself into a cupboard or hide under his bed-sheets where no one would find him. Showing his emotions only made things worse, calling attention to himself, expoing a weakness which could be exploited. So it was better to close his eyes, lock his lips, and disappear. He squeezed Ron with one hand, focusing on his breathing—gripping tightly to the prayer rope with his other hand. Slow inhales, slow exhales. With each breath, he looked deeper into himself. 

He struggled to identify the tight emotion locking up his neck and upper chest, heating his cheeks as the tears slid down. 

His feelings were unclear, but he knew what he thought: more than thirty separate accusations of assaulting a minor should have been enough. It should’ve been clear, with multiple young people who weren’t friends and didn’t even know each other presenting independently with similar testimony, similar injuries. Umbridge was a serial abuser. 

Now that he’d sat through it all, relived it, heard the forever-changed voices of others who’d been there in the same lonely boat as him… Harry began to wonder. 

 _Was_ the evidence sufficient? Would the Wizengamot believe so many voices telling the same sad story? Or would they be like the adults Harry went to for help in his youth, patting him on the head and turning him away, telling him he was imagining the whole thing… or worse, that he was disturbed and making things up for attention. Surely thirty kids in one accord, as one voice, ought to convince them? But there was always that chance. Even after seeing the evidence carved into young people’s bodies, hearing their tearful parents and spouses, their pain served up in precise statements with signatures and seals affixed at the bottom… it still might not be enough. Umbridge could go free. Enough gold slipped into the right pockets…. 

He was angry. He was terrified. It wasn’t a battlefield fear for one’s life, but the fear of not being believed. After years of being painted in the media as a liar, unstable, and a fraud… would he finally be believed? He feared that this pain might go on forever, unacknowledged. He didn’t want all of this to be for nothing, for Dolores Umbridge to get away. 

His eyes were open, but he couldn’t precisely see. The world outside himself didn’t matter so much. He let himself stare into the distance, a quiet rage burning up his body from within. 

He heard a familiar sound from across the room… a sliding, metallic _click, click_. He didn’t have to look, recognizing the noise after so many years—that was Colin Creevey and his trusty camera. Soon Valya would catch him and hiss, swatting his camera away, telling him it was inappropriate. But Colin was a brilliant photographer. He could capture feelings, moments, the reality of emotion. His camera was probably pointed at Harry. So what if he was crying? Men cried. Knowing Colin, it would be another stunning portrait. 

One slow breath. Then another. Harry didn’t pray. He never learned any prayers. But he squeezed a knot, thinking, _please._ And another. _Please._ He kept his head up—let them see his tears. _Please,_ let them see and believe.

 

 

 

 

Outside the courtroom, Harry stood with Ron, Ginny, Misha, Dmitry, and Nebojsa. Ron and Hermione planned to get something to eat during the recess while the Wizengamot debated. Ginny and Misha would go with them, making a kind of impromptu double lunch date. Of course Ginny and Misha wanted to spend every minute together until she had to return to Hogwarts. 

Harry, Dima, and Sia weren’t eating, which meant they were left out. That was fine—Harry didn’t want to invite himself along when Ginny clearly wanted to have some time with her boyfriend. Harry just wanted to sit on one of the benches outside the courtroom and wait for it to be over. He would haunt these halls like The Bloody Baron, scaring the crap out of anyone who looked his way until this was settled. He needed to stay as a specter, a threat looming just outside. 

Over the last three days, the faces of the Wizengamot were oddly impassive throughout. Harry wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. 

Misha brought it up. The idea of corruption in government wasn’t so unthinkable to him; after all, their dead father bribed politicians to get his way all the time. 

“Vot if they don’t convict?” Misha whispered to their group. 

“They will,” offered Ron firmly. “They have to. The evidence—” 

Misha couldn’t disguise the snorting sound which snuck out of him. It moved his shoulders. Ginny held a little tighter to his hand, a silent request to express his opinions in a manner which was also civil to her brother. The Baltic and Russian brand of criticism could be rather biting if you weren’t used to it, and Ron wasn’t because Dima barely talked.   

Nebojsa explained what Misha was thinking. “Iz not zhat zhey do not care. But Umbridge vorked at zhe Ministry for _years_. She vos covorker to people who are now judging her. Zhere is personal bias at vork, as vell as disbelief zhat someone zhey know could ever do such a zhing.” 

Misha added, “I hope the judges are only concealing their emotions in keeping vith their jobs.” 

Was it possible that Umbridge could hurt so many kids, have this much evidence and testimony brought against her, and get away with it? Harry's mind returned to that very dark place. _What if she gets off? What would I do if she walked out of here a free witch, cleared of any wrong-doing?_ There was a chance. It was up to the Wizengamot rather than a jury like muggle trials. Having personal knowledge or a relationship with Umbridge, they could swing in her favor. 

It was Ginny who voiced the question on Harry’s mind. “What can we do if the Wizengamot fails?” 

If that happened, if Umbridge wasn't sentenced to time in prison, then... Harry knew what he would do. Mapping out his reactions helped him stay calm when unpleasant situations came up. He planned for every scenario, letting it play out in his head—visualizing the future and how he could work within it. That was a mind-game he learned in martial arts. The brain didn't know the difference between detailed visualization and reality. When he imagined himself being able to do something, pictured it clearly in his mind, he could open his eyes and do it reasonably well. Magic helped, but all human brains worked that way fundamentally; magic was a helper, like having an extra set of invisible hands to carry out your will.

Envisioning his actions was how Harry kept himself composed, how he could react so quickly in emergencies. His mind knew what to do, and his muscles acted out of memories he’d created, planting them within himself for when the appropriate time arose. He'd re-trained that much, shoving off some of the faulty programming he'd been fed as a kid. 

Dmitry knew what he would do. “Easy,” he told Ginny. “Ve riot.” 

Ginny’s eyes widened. She wasn’t that much of an anarchist. Perhaps she was surprised that Dima had so little faith in the very legal system he worked within. Dima knew first hand how easy it was for supposedly solid institutions to crumble into dust. 

“Not quite,” Harry dissuaded him, lightly touching Dima’s arm. He had a better idea. “Rioting calls attention, for sure, but it’s not a coherent way to communicate _why_ we’re upset or what we expect to be done.” Working the back-end of this trial, Harry knew just how many people were effected by it: half of Magical Law Enforcement, it seemed. If Dolores Umbridge was found not guilty and set free… Harry knew exactly what his next step would be. He had to make the people who were unaffected by Umbridge’s actions give a shit, and what better army of change than the family and friends of victims? 

“We won’t start a riot,” he declared. “We’ll organize a law enforcement strike.” 

There hadn’t been a magical workers strike since Gringotts’ goblins in the 1800’s, demanding better working conditions. When the magical world’s only legitimate bank shut its doors, the world devolved into chaos and anarchy within two days, and the goblins got legislation protecting their rights. The goblins leveraged their position, holding the world’s gold hostage. If needed, Harry planned to do the same. 

No magical humans had ever staged a walk-out. It was unthinkable; why would they? A strike went against their core social belief that magic meant every person was capable of fending for themselves, and the only time it was appropriate to band together was against a violent threat like Voldemort. 

This trial toed the line. Umbridge _was_ a violent threat, just not to everyone universally—only to the most vulnerable, to kids or people she could manipulate. To those unaffected, she was just another washed-up Ministry employee. Some people couldn’t be made to care because Umbridge’s actions didn’t effect them directly. 

That’s where a strike came into play. Harry expanded, “We’ll see how long magical Great Britain can get by without any enforcement services—no Aurors, no Hit Wizards, no Obliviators, no Dangerous Creature Handlers… nobody. The Ministry would probably give in to our demands within a few hours or risk someone dying when there are no Hit teams on duty to respond to an emergency.” 

Law enforcement strikes were illegal in many muggle parts of the world—precisely because they were so very dangerous. The magical realm had no such laws. Aurors and Hits could walk out, leaving their community in the lurch to prove a point. Harry planned to turn that over-inflated sense of self-sufficiency against them. 

Ron stared at Harry as though before this moment he’d never really known his best mate. This was a side of himself Harry had only recently discovered. After everything with Taylor, Harry did his best to keep his hands out of anything which wasn’t directly his business. This was very much his business, and he planed to intervene with his full force. Hermione, Draco, and Kingsley taught him just how effective he was at galvanizing the public. He’d do it again. 

Ron protested. “But… without Aurors or Hit Wizards, people might get hurt.” 

His eyes straying down the hall, Harry saw familiar faces who’d come to support those testifying. Most of the Weasleys were there, including Viktor and Charlie all the way from Bulgaria. He saw Professors Flitwick and Sprout, and a number of shop owners from Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. A strike could put them all in danger even though they supported locking Umbridge up for what she did. 

“You’re right,” Harry conceded. “It could be dangerous. It’s still worth striking. Allowing this case to set a legal precedent for serial child abusers to get away with their crimes means hundreds of kids getting hurt in the future. Once abusive people see there are no consequences to their behavior, they unleash themselves. If the Wizengamot fails, as law enforcement we _have_ to strike; we can’t enforce the law if they’re not going to follow it in the courtroom.” 

Inconveniencing or outright endangering an entire country might give others just a taste of what Umbridge’s victims felt; powerless, angry, stripped of their most basic rights. If the Wizengamot failed to convict Umbridge, then a strike might be the most effective means to incite the public and force the issue back into court for a re-trial. 

Harry hoped it didn't come to that. Never-the-less, he planned his chess game several moves ahead. It was scary to imagine himself standing at the head of another movement so soon after the war, leading a fresh charge—this time without Draco. But, much as he didn’t want to, this was the path he needed to walk to become the sort of man he wanted to be. The time to sit quietly and take the pain unleashed on him was well-over.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

By the time the Wizengamot returned to the courtroom, Harry was out of tears. Dehydration, probably. And emotional exhaustion. All he had left was innate stubbornness, and Ron stalwartly holding his hand. 

Court Chief Griselda Marchbanks resoundingly stated, “The evidence is damning, and the accused shows no remorse. We find Dolores Umbridge guilty of thirty-three counts of violence against an underage witch or wizard, seven counts of torture, and one count of possession of an unlicensed torture device. The penalty for which is death.” 

Umbridge screamed from her chair, yanking at the chains. She knew she was guilty. She was only furious that she hadn’t gotten away with it. 

In the election which had put Kingsley in the Minister’s office, a significant referendum had been voted on and passed by popular democratic vote. Great Britain would only enforce the death penalty for three crimes: serial murder, rape, and violence against children. 

“Thirty-three counts…” whispered a witch seated behind Harry, awed. 

“Pretty sure that’s a record,” added the wizard with her. 

Triumphant, Ron squeezed Harry’s hand. “We got her!” 

Wizarding law was swift. The Wizengamot didn’t have an appeals process. When sentenced to death, the condemned’s fate was carried out immediately. 

Umbridge didn’t have any family present. She was entitled to say her goodbyes, but no one stepped forward for her. 

One person stood up, turning heads. The witnesses and their families in the gallery had been whispering amongst themselves about the conviction—now they were turning to look at Umbridge’s executioner in a Hit Wizard’s indigo blue robe. 

Nebojsa had volunteered. He and Harry discussed it before Sia went to Nash. Since the Ethics Council made it illegal to use Dementors on people convicted of crimes, the position of trial executioner became a voluntary role for Aurors and Hit Wizards. Sia put himself on the list of available officers capable of performing the Killing Curse. The last time the Ministry executed a convict at trial had been Ciaran Mulciber shortly after the war. And then, Harry and Draco had carried out the execution with their own hands. It was personal. Harry would never forget the way Draco shook with rage in his arms even after the act was done. 

Nebojsa wasn’t keen on killing people. He’d volunteered himself to a specific purpose.

After observing Harry’s power compared to his own, he began to suspect that there was an element of _Se Impetro Munus_ in his abilities, too—like the blow-back of blood from a gunshot wound, the victim's blood spraying back on the shooter. Sia got it in his head that every time he used his Blood Sorcery on someone, he might be absorbing some of their aptitude like a sponge sopping up the spray. 

Harry and Draco used their powers on one another consensually, mutually, exchanging magic because they cared about each other. Nebojsa wanted to know how much consent mattered in the context of Blood Sorcery—if it was possible to gain ability or become stronger by using their powers on someone who expressly didn’t want it… as was the case in an execution. 

This was an opportunity to test the theory. Sia would execute Umbridge using his sorcery, his white light, then sit for the Piui Seongsil machine. If he was right, killing Umbridge should cause his number to jump.

It was quite a clear experiment, a gruesome proof for their evolving speculations. 

Harry only felt comfortable moving forward with it because Nebojsa proposed the whole thing, bringing it to Harry for his input. Harry would never ask this of anyone. 

After his prayers that morning, Nebojsa said, "I suspect that, the more we kill, the more permeable we become to one another's aptitudes, and our power expands by it. As though the cracks in the soul formed by the act of murder allow this magic to seep in that much faster." 

Harry was able to save his own soul by possessing Draco. He did so after killing more than fifty people in a single night. And he started speaking Serbian after he killed eight Death Eaters—a night of battle when his hands had been glowing with his sorcerer's powers. It was entirely possible that killing other magic-wielders made a Blood Sorcerer stronger, more susceptible to leaching aptitude or abilities off of other sorcerers in addition to their victims. 

"Filling in the fissures in each other’s souls," Harry had added his own interpretation based on his experience with horcruxes, the magic of splitting one’s soul requiring death, whether one’s own or another’s. "A way to make each other whole again, stronger, better able to take the abuse without breaking." 

Nebojsa was about to test that theory by taking a life—fracturing his soul to see if his abilities might expand by taking Dolores Umbridge’s life. 

Sia rose from his seat as though there were a great weight pushing against his bony shoulders. He didn’t draw his wand as he stepped down from the gallery and onto the central floor. For a moment he stopped, breathing—accepting his memories of Voldemort torturing him here a year ago, and perhaps allowing that rage a place within him, fire to fuel his hands when he carried out the Wizegamot’s sentence. 

Some people chose to leave the courtroom. They didn't want to see Dolores Umbridge die. Violence wasn't something everyone needed to be exposed to; some found a sense of justice in it, and others not. 

Harry knew which side of the fence he fell on. He'd needed to be there, to stand beside Draco as they took the life of Ciaran Mulciber. And he needed to be here now, needed to watch his friend execute a woman who'd tortured and abused him mercilessly. It meant a lot to him, to see that actions had consequences. 

His actions had consequences, too. He'd hurt people. The difference, faint but distinct, was his remorse. He didn't intend to hurt. He acted out of pain, fear, and the blinders placed on his head over the course of his life. It was going to take time to take those chains off. And it would take time to apologize, to repair the relationships he'd broken. He wanted to evolve, to get better. That was what made him different. 

If that ever changed, if he caused harm to innocent people again... then just like Dolores Umbridge, there would be a shot of pure white light with Harry’s name on it. The threat of accountability scared him enough to fight his way back to the right path. 

His lanky arm outstretched, long robes brushing the floor, hair loose over his shoulders and blowing faintly in some bizarre breeze… Nebojsa looked like a perfect image of a wizard; tortured, tattooed and charmed, never giving up. Sometimes his magic was hard to see. It got lost in his soft features, his distracting style and many distinctive activities. Harry saw so much of his friend’s priestly side, his artistic side, his familial calling, that sometimes he forgot the core of Nebojsa’s life had always been violence—kill or be killed. That hardness showed when white light appeared around his hand, called forth from inside his body; sorcery manifested, crackling around his fingers, here-to unknown, and deadly. 

When Nebojsa used his ability to execute Umbridge, it seemed to take forever. His magic crackled, zapping like electricity, compressed into a ball and tossed at her with the speed of a bullet train. Her skin lit up as though a moon lived inside her. She went white, luminescent. From her mouth came an endless, high-pitched, ear-splitting scream. It just went on, suspended in time, as though all the air in the universe was present in her lungs to power that scream. The world stared, unable to look away. Blood appeared at her arm, letters carving themselves into her skin. It felt like hours, yet was probably less than a full minute before she slumped, dead at last, unseeing eyes in her head as it tipped to the side, her neck now useless in holding its weight. She just... stopped. 

Hit Wizard Jonas Clark approached, her guard now in charge of her remains. Clark caught Nebojsa’s eye, silently asking whether it was safe to cast any magic of his own to transport Umbridge’s remains. He’d never seen a sorcerer’s ability before—didn’t know whether Sia’s magic was still active in her dead body and might lash out at him for interfering. 

Nebojsa looked like he was going to puke. His shoulders were rising, features scrunched up, breathing shallow. His lips pressed so tight they were white. He extinguished his light and gave Clark a non-verbal all-clear. 

A flip of Clark’s wand opened Umbridge’s sleeve, revealing oblong, slanted cursive handwriting on her flesh. Nebojsa’s handwriting—he’d tagged the body, the way muggle mobsters and gangs carved their trademark into the bodies of their victims. It was a warming to others, not unlike setting the Dark Mark over the scene of a crime. 

She bore the clear words, _I Must Not Abuse Children_. 

Dolores Umbridge had never scarred Nebojsa. She'd done that to Harry. Which meant, somehow, somewhere along the way... Nebojsa had absorbed Harry's pain, too. 

As Clark Levitated the body, covered her with a conjured sheet and headed for the exit, Nebojsa darted ahead. Sia used his long hair like a veil, shielding most of his face from view. He kept his gaze down, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone. If Harry had to guess, he’d say Nebojsa was running to the nearest loo to be sick. Many eyes watched him flee; he’d unleashed a power previously unknown to them. In their minds, green light like the Killing Curse took lives… not white. They knew what they’d seen but their minds couldn’t reconcile the sight against their knowledge of magic. This was something completely new. There would be questions. 

Sia made his exit amid whispers and stares, preceding the body out the door like a priest at a funeral procession. He disappeared down the dark hallway. 

Ron looked expectantly at Dmitry. So did Harry. Oblivious, Dima was watching the Wizengamot file out of the courtroom. 

“Oi,” Ron chastised, reaching across Harry to smack a loose fist against Dima’s bicep. Even Ron thought it was obvious that, as Sia’s boyfriend, Dima should be the one to follow him, making sure he was okay. 

Dima gazed blankly between Ron and Harry’s twin expressions. Neither of them were the best at relationships, but this situation was as cut-and-dry as they came. 

“You goin’ after him, or gonna give it a mo’?” inquired Ron. He assumed Dima knew it was a boyfriend’s job to follow, but was worried about accidentally outing himself or starting rumors by following another bloke into the bathroom. 

Dima lifted one cautious eyebrow at Harry. He’d never been able to read Dima’s thoughts without Legilimency, but he could read that face. _You’d be better at this, Harry—why don’t you go?_

Not entirely comfortable with his own emotions, Dmitry was generally bollocks at helping other people feel better. It was the Russo-Balkan custom to nit-pick and lightly insult someone to show you loved them. That would likely make Nebojsa feel worse. He needed somebody to hold him, and that couldn’t be Harry. 

Sometimes you needed your partner’s shoulder to cry on, and no one else would do. Harry was reminded of Bill and Fleur’s wedding, after Philippe provoked an argument with him and Draco—how his husband had stormed out of the room trying to seem tough while he was breaking apart on the inside, running from his emotions. Nebojsa had just stormed out in his own way. He was hurting. He needed Dima right now, needed his partner to press him into a wall, to hold him as his knees gave out, as he sobbed… showing him he was still worthy of love after that awful experience. 

Harry reached, poking a finger into a spot he knew—the tattoo on Dmitry’s chest right above his heart, enchanted ink linking him to Nebojsa so long as they were both conscious. It was their voluntary version of the Dark Mark, and only the two of them shared its connection. The words they chose for their tattoo were especially meaningful, something Nebojsa had said to Dmitry when they joined the Order and threw themselves back into the war. _There’s a time to be covered in blood which is not our own_. It was their call to battle, a cry across the field, a primal yell for that which was most important—each other. 

Nebojsa was covered in blood again. 

“You’d better go,” Harry told Dima. “Find him.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Since the Aurors and Hit Wizards had moved to the new Fenchurch building, very few people used the old shower facilities. This late in the workday, Nebojsa knew it would be empty. 

He felt the pull in his chest when Dima checked his location. He’d run out of the courtroom as soon as he realized his spells were failing. He had to wash this feeling off… like scalding his skin under hot water could wash it away, a kind of hot baptism. He knew that was impossible. Nothing could take it away. He’d tried everything. Washing just made him feel better, calmed his nerves. After living on the lam, a hot shower still felt like a luxury. 

He sent to Dmitry what he saw—water pooling around his feet, seeking the drain in a swirl. Dima would understand he was in the old showers they’d used during training. 

He touched his hot skin, his eyes closed. Without his sight, he felt right. It was the eyes that lied. 

Some people suffered from allergies. If they ate certain foods their system wasn’t equipped to handle, their body reacted without their mind knowing. An automatic, internal rebellion. Because their bodies knew what was right, what was nourishing, what belonged… and what was poison. That was what his body was doing—reacting without his understanding, expelling poison. 

Wizards didn’t have allergies. It was a muggle affliction, so Dmitry and their pureblood friends didn’t quite understand. Everybody had their own theories but, unless they lived it, they didn’t really get what it was like. 

Nebojsa got his power—his white light—the night he met Harry. He was sure of it. 

Whatever Harry gave him, it merged with what was already swirling inside him. Together, the blend was too potent. It begged to get out, to be let loose. Toxic, it never belonged in him. He hadn’t ever intended to use it, not knowing what it might do. But Dima begged him—grabbed his hand and put it on his throat, wanting to feel it, to know what might happen. Whatever it was, Dima figured he’d be alright. It was hard to know if Dima wanted to try because he saw the power as Nebojsa’s, or as something from Harry, his idol, a gift for both of them. 

The pain knocked him unconscious. That was a first for Dima. Or maybe it had been shock? Dima wasn’t surprised that his partner and Harry Potter might start showing the same sorts of magic under stress. He and Harry were quite similar. Dima had almost expected some kind of bond to form between them—wishful thinking on Dima’s part, perhaps, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. After that night, Harry kept coming back, kept seeking them out, offering kindness after kindness. Almost like his heart knew and he felt guilty for dragging Nebojsa into this mess without asking first. 

When they’d met, Draco implied that Harry’s greatest talent for magic only came out when he was aroused—which was why Draco had dropped to his knees and blown The Boy Who Lived right there in the alley. He’d wanted them to see what Harry was capable of. Nebojsa suspected there was some influencing being done on Harry’s part, a mixture of consensual mind control and dominant eye contact commanding the appropriate response in his partner. Harry had wanted to show off, too.

Even back then, those two had a connection which went beyond words. The fact that they used the Imperius Curse on one another in a sexual fashion probably exacerbated that link. Harry’s theories about the relationship between consent and the efficaciousness of certain spells might hold some weight there. 

When Draco brought Harry to orgasm, his control fled, and The Boy Who Lived had gone off like a bomb. Attached at the lips, Nebojsa had taken the brunt of it. 

Kissing Harry had been a terrible idea. He still couldn’t pin down why exactly he’d done it. Gut instinct. Not precisely lust, though there was undeniably something there. It was… oneness in a way he’d never experienced with another human being. No offense to Dima, but Nebojsa had never fallen so easily into someone’s head and heart before. In a split second, he felt so close to Harry that he knew what he ought to do, knew it would be alright, that it might’ve been their only chance. It was intense chemistry between them, but also a magical compatibility he’d never experienced before—power crying out to its match. He’d kissed other wizards before, and other dominants, too; but none who made the magic in his blood come to life like a fire, and none who’d bit his lip without negotiating, either, drawing a bit of blood in the moment they both came. Nebojsa had seen stars, and he suspected Harry had, too.

They seemed to fold together so impossibly well… until Nebojsa looked in the mirror the next morning and screamed, thinking Dima was playing another prank—cursing the mirror to show him a muggle vampire movie rather than reflect reality. 

What Harry gave him that night didn’t react well with what was already inside him… like drinking the demonstration from a muggle chemistry class, baking soda and vinegar burning, fizzling against each other inside his body; his and Harry’s magics, not wanting to get along. 

The change started the night they met. By the time he was injured at Valaam, there was no more denying it… and no hiding the physical toll Harry’s magic had taken on his body. 

He wasn’t as strong as he used to be by any stretch. But his weakened body still tried to fight it off. He slept more, like he was coming down with a cold; an enchanted invader taking over. He fought with Harry even in his sleep. 

His skin turned ashen, a distinctive bluish-grey seen amongst banshees and vampires. It was inhuman. He looked like a corpse. A year after and he barely recognized his own skin except for the tattoos. When Harry’s magic entered his body and started a row inside him, he’d become bluish-green. “Inferi” was the word no one wanted to use. But he looked like death had come for him… and it had, many many times over. Now he looked it. 

His injuries healed after the fall of Valaam, but his color never returned. The more people saw of him, the more they began to question, to worry. So he rigged up a Glamour spell to take his skin back to what it had been at his escape from captivity—a bleached skeleton, bloodied and dead, barely able to walk on his own after everything he’d seen, but still appropriately human-colored. 

Dima had dragged him out of that Death Eater hell-hole. Fighting to escape with his friends beside him was when Nebojsa realized his aptitude for wandless magic had increased a hundred-fold. He actually forgot his wand when he left the house these days as it became superfluous, like leaving home with an extra set of keys. 

After a year, he accepted that the change in his skin color wasn’t going away anytime soon. He hated thinking about it. _Talking_ about it was worse. There wasn’t anyone to talk to. Not anyone from Durmstrang, anyway. 

Voldemort had made a solid go at taking literally everything from him—his parents, his last year of school, the man he loved, his strength and most basic appearance…. It hurt not to look the same on the outside as the man he knew himself to be. He looked like something barely alive. Something which only had the right to slither back into the grave it crawled out of. 

Other half-bloods and muggle-borns didn’t react the same as purebloods. Those with knowledge of the muggle world said he looked like a drug addict, or a survivor of the Holocaust: that was the closest they knew to the end result of what he’d gone through. Those who possessed an understanding of what lurked beyond glossy textbooks and succinct lectures took one look at him and wondered what sort of _thing_ had fucked his mother. 

He recalled startling Draco’s young friend the night they put Dušan on his pyre; Draco’s protégé had looked at him like a vicious creature with pointed teeth, something to be kept behind bulletproof glass and heavily armored doors, like a dangerous zoo animal. The poor kid had mistaken him for vampire, because after everything he’d survived he didn’t have it in him to perform a spell for vanity at his friend’s memorial. 

On a good day—without a Glamour but with the right clothes, his hair and body doused with Misha’s products to give it some semblance of life—he could pass for dhampir. A skin-bleached, emaciated half-human goth who’d survived the magical equivalent of a concentration camp, complete with Death Eaters running sick experiments on them. 

An appearance-altering spell was the best he could do. He had to remember to look at mirrors often, checking himself over, constantly charming himself back to this pale specimen he’d become. He had to apply Glamours twice as often as Dmitry waxed his chest. It became a part of his hygienic routine. He’d never been vain. In the last year he developed the compulsion to check his reflection throughout the day, to see if he looked dead. It was a fresh prejudice he didn’t know how to handle. 

His depigmentation issues only got worse after using his powers to kill Tihomir. That was what sparked his notion that taking lives somehow increased a Blood Sorcerer’s strength. Killing Tiho certainly made the magic living inside him act up. Worried, he and Dmitry devised the Shielding rune now tattooed on his hand. To others, it appeared to be defencive in nature. But hidden within the ink was another design, more ancient symbols meant to lock this power in. He didn’t want to risk the decay spreading. So far, he hadn’t grown any more green-ish but… there was no sure way of knowing whether the tattoo was doing any good or doing nothing at all.

He had to cage himself, restrain himself however possible, and hope.

 

 

 

 

In the locker room, he found Dima waiting. 

Dmitry sat on one of the metal benches with his knees spread, forearms bracing his weight, looking at the floor. He knew he was in the wrong. That was the pose of a man waiting to be caught. He might as well have held out his hands to be cuffed like muggle arrest procedure. Except Dima would’ve liked that restraint a lot more than what was about to unfold. 

Seeing Nebojsa’s bare wet feet, he blurted, “I know. I know! I’m sorry but… Harry made me.” 

Dima knew he wasn’t supposed to hang around. They didn’t know enough about this Dark Lord’s leftover magic. After killing someone, Nebojsa could be at his most permeable for all they knew. Standing in the same room could be effecting his aptitude. One touch might make Dmitry into whatever he and Harry were. There was no telling. So they’d agreed: no physical contact for at least twenty-four hours, perhaps longer if it could be managed, staying on opposite sides of the palace until there was some sort of empirical evidence to be had. 

Nebojsa’s eyes flicked around the deserted room. Harry wasn’t here, hadn’t dragged Dima against his will. Harry didn’t _make_ Dmitry do anything—no one could without his permission, and that was really the point. Dmitry willingly bowed to Harry’s authority, valued Harry’s opinion about how relationships ought to work over Nebojsa’s explicit instruction intended for both their safety… like a mother forbidding her children from playing outside in the rain, their father encouraging them to do it as soon as mother was out of the room. 

Dmitry knew where these boundaries were. And still he pushed them. Impulsive idiot. 

“No, sweetheart. You choose to honor Harry’s preference over our private agreement. Your coming here against my wishes shows me that you value Harry’s good opinion more than you value my trust—in your desire to please him, you’ve ignored a request I made for our safety, and Harry’s too.” 

Dmitry’s head bowed further in contrition. This wasn’t the kind of humiliation he got off to, but rather the advice and guidance which was necessary to him to grow as a person. He needed the emotional consequences of his actions mapped out for him, to be told in plain language how he broke promises and violated consent in a hundred little ways. Pureblood culture put all of their weight behind power, practically ignoring the existence of consent. Their ideals revolved around ownership and independence, even at the expense of other human beings. 

Only the self mattered to a ‘good’ pureblood. That was why submission became so important to Dmitry—it was the one way he knew to give all of that up. 

Unfortunately he wasn’t always very good at it. 

Dima inquired of the floor tiles, “Do you want me to leave, then?” 

Nebojsa let out a long sigh. “I’m mad at you but… you’re already here. Damage done. No touching, no contact, as we discussed.”

Dima nodded. He could keep to that much.

Looking into the nearby wall-length mirror, Nebojsa caught sight of himself and sighed again. He looked disgusting—green, like meat gone off. It made him sick just looking at himself. 

He adjusted his appearance by pinching and minutely massaging his fingers in the air, like turning invisible knobs until his color was tuned-in like an old television set with dials on the front, the kind he’d grown up with. Achieving a passably-human level of paleness, he turned to Dmitry with his arms outstretched, silently asking for approval.

He earned an only mildly sarcastic thumbs-up. Dima was on his best behavior so long as he was permitted to stay. 

Considering his final product, Nebojsa bit his lip. Every time, he worried it wasn’t good enough—that others would see through the magic and recoil, realizing he was rotting in his own skin. 

“Harry’s noticed, you know,” he warned over his shoulder, still looking critically in the mirror, adjusting the shading around his eyes—hiding his dark circles. “He thinks I should start wearing blush, maybe look more… I don’t know. Alive? Iga gave me some. I think....” He made a quarter turn, observing his appearance one-eyed in profile. The lighting throughout the building was weaker than muggle electricity, softening him. Here, he didn’t look so bad. “I suppose I could try it, see if more makeup helps.”  

Harry wasn’t the only one to notice. In New York, a few drunk witches from Salem had inquired what incantation and wand movements he used to get his foundation applied so smoothly. He used to enjoy wearing makeup on special occasions—now it was becoming a chore, part of his necessary routine as much as shaving or brushing his teeth. He aimed to walk the line between a natural, barely noticeable makeup application, and wearing enough to appear alive—without looking like an embalmed, made-up corpse in a coffin. 

Two years ago, the mere mention of makeup would’ve earned him a dramatic eye-roll. Now Dima nodded, accepting. If other people were noticing, then he needed to do something to keep up the illusion. Makeup could work; so Dima set aside his personal preference for cosmetic-free blokes, understanding this was going to be another necessary daily adjustment for their post-war life. Their worlds had been rearranged so many times… what was a little blush to spruce things up at this point? A drop in the bucket. 

They were in agreement. Harry couldn’t find out. Not yet, anyway. The timing was so wrong. Harry needed to focus on himself; his marriage, his career, his mental health. Harry had to keep his eyes fixed on his own future. Giving him this knowledge would derail him. He’d start down the path of a fresh mystery and ignore the other more important tasks before him. He was too ready to kill himself to save someone else. This time, they wouldn’t let him go through with it. 

Someday they would tell him. But not today. So Nebojsa would put on a bit of rouge and pass it off as preference. 

“If I’m going to wear makeup all the time,” he cautioned. “I may have to come out.” 

Dmitry ignored the issue. He turned insensitive, asking a nearby locker: “Do you think your skin will ever go back to normal?” 

Nebojsa fixed him with a glare. “Will I ever have _my_ skin again? No, probably not. Will Harry Potter’s Death-By-Millimeters Curse go away? I doubt that very much, too. At this point, I think Harry’s stuck me like this for good.” He gestured down his body, his towel wrapped up under his armpits like a woman. So many of his mannerisms and personal habits were feminine in nature as a form of emulation, wanting to be like his aunt and her friends who’d raised him, to exude their kind of quiet power. 

“It’s not Harry’s fault!” Dmitry leapt to the sorcerer’s defence, but wasn’t sure how to go about it. His fists balled up, but he managed to bring his voice back to normal. “He didn’t curse you. It’s… a misunderstanding. An accident.” 

“I know. This is my own doing.” Nebojsa took full responsibility for his current state. Blaming Harry was more for a laugh, to keep his spirits up… and to get a rise out of Dima. It was cute how he defended Harry no matter what. Dima was developing loyalty, knowing it pleased Harry. Nebojsa was almost able to smile at that. “Whatever’s going on with these powers, there’s a part of me rejecting it… resisting. It knows, and this business with my skin is a kind of threat. It’s going to kill me if I don’t give in to it.” 

Brown eyebrows pushed together. Dima looked like his baby brother when he frowned, pouting. Even his mouth pressed. Dima never showed emotions on his face in public—he was only like this in private, with the people he really trusted. 

“You’re not going to die,” said Dima firmly. Like he could will it so. Once, the world revolved around his wants and whims. It didn’t work that way anymore. This wasn’t something he could bend to his will. 

Nebojsa’s response was deadpan. “Yeah? Because I’ve already died, a thousand times. What’s one more? One step closer to feeling as I look—death at room temperature.” 

Knowing they were alone, Nebojsa dropped his towel—showing his body, the color of which he had yet to work on. Without a Glamour in place, it was… something else. Having Harry’s magic at war with his own made his body the battlefield. And his body would rather die than let this happen. His ethos was going to war, tearing him apart. 

“He turned me into Rasputin!” Nebojsa steamed. “The Disney Rasputin anyway.” He waved his arms about as though if he shook his elbows too hard his forearms would drop off. They both knew the cartoon character’s song _—“a corpse falling to bits; then I opened my eyes, and the nightmare was me.”_  

Dmitry consented to watch Walt Disney movies only when he was already drunk. And if more drinks were put in him during, Dima would bob his head to the catchy songs, insisting on rewinding back to the beginning so he could sing along now he’d learned how it went. Those children’s films were a good meeting place for them—entertaining, not too long, and a glimpse at what non-magical people thought life on the other side of the wand was like. Not to mention it helped with their English. 

Dmitry enjoyed the _Anastasia_ cartoon because it was dark—and of course because the rogueish criminal love interest shared his name, and looks, and penchant for trouble. There wasn’t a big happy-for-the-rest-of-time, riding-off-into-the-sunset ending, either. The characters got to live. They defeated their enemy, and got on with their lives, choosing to run off and elope rather than live as a duke and duchess. Not exactly how real life had gone. Dmitry kept hinting about a long, formal engagement—because it was what Harry and Draco wanted for them, what society and romantics told Dmitry he ought to want. He wanted to please Harry more than he actually wanted to get married. 

Things weren’t that simple. You didn’t always marry the man you killed a dark monster to save. Sometimes the dark monster didn’t die but rather dispersed back into the universe, pieces of him inhabiting the man you loved. Something of Tiho lived on in Dima, hard as he tried to shake the devil off his back.

Dima’s eyes were on what the dropped towel revealed. Because he was a sick son of a bitch, the magic-induced state of Nebojsa’s skin didn’t seem to deter Dima one bit. He actually licked his lower lip, swallowing, turned on. He stood, a submissive habit. Nudity commanded his full attention. He wanted to drop to his knees, but didn’t. Not at work. 

“Hey.” A warm tone, his deep bass reaching out along with his hands which yearned to close over Nebojsa’s ribs. He realized, dropping his wanting fingers back to his sides with a frustrated, chesty growl. 

Nebojsa took a step away for good measure. There wouldn’t be any touching until he could visit the Seongsil machine and find out whether he was currently bleeding sorcery into the air like the calls of a female animal in heat. 

Still. He _wanted_ the hug he couldn’t have. It wasn’t fair that he always felt small in his prince’s arms, even when he turned out to be the taller of them.

When Dima couldn’t touch him, he had to speak his mind instead. He sounded very much like Harry. 

“You’re not some falling-apart, animated singing corpse. Don’t say that. It’s just… a bad reaction to some very strange magic. Your body’s going to get over this. You’ll go back to… well… pale, I guess. Like we found you.” He licked his lips again, but this time it was with sadness and a twinge of guilty nerves. He confessed to the floor: “I miss how you used to look.” 

“Yeah?” Nebojsa raised an eyebrow, then his fingers, turning towards the mirror again. “For a minute, I’ll see if I can manage it.” 

He hadn’t actually done it yet. He missed his old skin. But he couldn’t erase what had happened. Covering up the death in his pallor was a concession, necessary for others to be comfortable. He didn’t want to send any more children into tremors. But it felt like too much of a lie to cover everything up. Like Draco, he needed a few scars to carry. 

Dima surprised him. “Nah. I don’t need you to. The villains are always the most interesting characters in those Disney cartoons, anyway. I don’t mind so much if you look like a bad guy,” he cocked his head, a smile turning his lips. “So long as you’re still you inside your skin.” 

His words were so sweet that Nebojsa’s eyes narrowed in the mirror. Dima never talked that way before they met Harry. It never mattered to him, seeing no value in it. He cared about other’s feelings, but never practiced the verbal art of affection. He did it now. Harry taught him how, and more importantly _why_. 

“I can’t touch you, sweetheart,” Nebojsa reminded. Compliments meant the most to him, so it wasn’t exactly fair of Dima to start laying them down when Nebojsa couldn’t reward that rare behavior with the physical affection Dima preferred. “I… need to get dressed and meet Mrs. Summerby in her office. She agreed to see me and run the test if the trial ended in an execution.” 

There was no way of knowing how long this flare might last. Maybe it was already over? Or maybe they had a week yet? Nebojsa wanted to get to that machine and possibly get something like an answer.  

Dmitry backed away as Nebojsa approached—accepting that they needed to maintain physical distance, but not yet ready to leave. Harry had commanded him, after all. Dima wouldn’t leave until he felt as though Harry would be satisfied. 

Nebojsa stashed his uniform in his old training locker while he washed up. A concentrated blink and it popped open, his clothes flying out. He dressed without touching a thing or uttering a single spell. His boots laced and armored vest buckled, he adjusted the position of his wand—Tihomir’s wand which Dmitry had stolen the day they met, Nebojsa making it his own. He didn’t need it anymore. Carrying it became a gesture for Dmitry—and a warning to anyone else who recognized the instrument. He took the wands of those he killed, as was his right.

Dima eyed him as his uniform covered him up… missing his body now that it was covered, yet simultaneously turned on by the casual display of power which dressed him. 

“How are they taking things upstairs?” Nebojsa asked. It wasn’t every day that a witch was executed without the use of a wand. 

An opportunity to test his abilities in a controlled environment presented itself; rather than wait for Harry to step forward and invariably offer himself, Nebojsa bit the bullet. Taking on each other’s burdens was part of being a family. 

Dima shrugged. “As well as can be expected. I overheard a couple of Obliviators in the hall who wanted to throw you in Azkaban when it reopens. I think mostly they’re glad you’re on their side. We wouldn’t be Hit Wizards if we didn’t scare the feathers off other departments from time to time.” 

Nebojsa nodded. “And Harry’s family? Do they suspect anything?” 

“No. I don’t think they know about Harry’s ability. Ginny, yes; and Ron. They haven’t told anyone else from what I can tell.”

It was rather one of those things—so far-fetched that even amongst magical people, it sounded too good to be true. Free magic without wands or incantations was a fantasy, the stuff of lore and legend. With abilities unteathered… well, there was very little stopping someone with that kind of power. They couldn’t take his wand away and break it, disabling him, as they did to other wizards. His and Harry’s brand of sorcery might require new regulations, research… isolation and observation. 

If it came to that, he’d run. The advancement of wizardkind wasn’t worth living the rest of his life in involuntary confinement. No more cages. 

So far it was only Nebojsa who was ‘out’ with his powers. The originals, Harry and Draco, kept themselves in the dark. 

Harry’s experience told him how that would go. At first they’d be celebrities, subjects of interest, prodded at by the public. That fascination would turn to resentment, then fear, ending in physical violence. Someone might try to kill them, either to destroy their power or to somehow possess it for themselves. That was the nature of power—there was always someone hungry for it. 

Harry and Draco were predisposed to distrust, having experienced how easily people turned when presented with unchecked power. 

Harry kept his abilities under wraps for Draco’s sake more than his own. He wanted to protect Draco from the pressure of public scrutiny, and to maintain their physical safety. It was possible that more Death Eaters knew of their abilities than supporters on their own side. Again, Harry’s natural distrust. 

Nebojsa wasn’t one to judge. He didn’t want people to know, either. But he’d rather expose himself, sacrifice his anonymity, to shield Harry and Draco just a while longer. His was the most active power—deadly. It was better to step out on strong footing. Word of this would surely ripple back to the Death Eaters, perhaps curtailing their plots for a time, pulling their attention away from the Potters… for now. 

Dmitry made a vague gesture. Knowing Nebojsa was going to leave, he sought to fabricate some excuse to walk with him part of the way. “I said I’d meet Ron at the gym. Walk you as far as the Fenchurch barrier?” 

Nebojsa nodded, and they set out; continuing in Romanian, safe not to be understood. “I finally get why you wanted Ron for your teammate,” Nebojsa teased. “You big baby. You’re scared Harry’ll blast you next and you’ll get a power of your own.” 

Dmitry rolled his eyes, acknowledging the accusation was somewhat true. He rather wanted Harry to blast him because that meant he’d be in proximity to Harry’s boner. 

He’d made an effort to keep away from Harry’s blue power, not trusting what it did. If Nebojsa’s hands knocked him out, Dima suspected Harry’s sorcery might just kill him. To Dima, the ability to one-shot a pain-tank like himself was a huge turn-on. Even after seeing Harry’s blue-lit hands on Draco and nothing bad happening to the guy, Dima remained apprehensive, trying to keep his heart safe as much as his skin. The freaks with the glowing hands happened to be the three men he wanted to fall into bed with most. While he trusted Nebojsa’s lethal power not to kill him, he wasn’t so sure about Harry’s capacity to control his own strength. As a Dom Harry was a bit wild, his preferences in BDSM and sadomasochism echoing his tenuous hold on his sorcery. 

Dmitry liked that Harry felt a bit out of control. His more experienced submissive side was wise enough to maintain a bit of distance from such unpredictability. 

“I bet my power would be brown,” Dima teased himself, believing his greatest ability lay just beyond his asshole. 

Nebojsa shook his head, pointing to his own face. “No. It would be gold, like your eyes.” 

When Dima was forced to kill an Aethonan and bond to the creature as it died, his eyes had changed. People who didn’t know the family thought their shining golden eye color was genetic. The Ionescue boys had dark eyes—muddy brown pools to stare into. 

Dima hadn’t answered any letters the summer they turned fourteen. Nebojsa was worried sick by the time everyone made it to Sweden. When he’d seen Dmitry’s eyes… he knew something terrible had happened, to him and Misha both. Tihomir made them both do it at the same time, together, no backing out. Misha was just eleven, his first year at school and his father had done that to him… as a gift. Tihomir wanted his sons marked in his own way, marked as dark and worthy, twisted by his hand. With the bond in their blood, they were less likely to spill family secrets. 

Vuk and Dima started talking about killing their father that same year—because they could speak openly now, both carrying those murdered creature’s souls inside their bodies. That magic and anger animated them equally. Dmitry found his way to Nebojsa’s bed in part because he feared he might not survive an attempt on his father’s life. He wanted to die knowing what it was like to be with the person he loved… the same as Harry Potter. 

They were in an un-win-able predicament; both falling in love with a wizard who’d never want them back. And should the Potters get divorced there was Draco to consider—hanging over them like a sick consolation prize, a kind of bait, almost daring them to permanently split up the pair in order to each make off with one. Not that he would. Dmitry on the other hand… he was too much of an opportunist at heart, and would take what he could get. Dima understood very well that if the Potters separated permanently, he had a good chance of hooking up with Draco at least once. In doing so, he’d burn every remaining bridge with Harry. But Dima couldn’t see that far ahead. He was too busy drooling at the thought of being Draco’s play-thing for a night. 

There was no right move. _Blya._ He didn’t like to curse, even in his head. The church told him it was a sin. 

What did the church think of getting sucked off in an alley and becoming something between life and death? 

The church had been wrong so many times before—about women, and slavery, and _magic_ … sometimes it seemed they were wrong more often than right. The more Nebojsa saw, the less he listened. Blessed with faith but lacking in obedience, he’d have made a terrible monk. It was better for everyone that he set aside his vows. 

A sorcerer’s manifested power seemed to come from within, the ability quite personal. Harry had grown up muggle; so being told he was an extraordinary wizard all along was unbelievable to him, and he’d probably spent years thinking he wasn’t as good as the legends made him out to be. His power came into being as a way to live up to those lofty expectations, to be greater than his own self. He could use it to make anyone stronger, to lift them up to his level. 

Draco’s ability evolved out of fear of pain, needing comfort and release. Growing up with a father like Lucius meant nowhere was safe for Draco—the person who was supposed to protect and nurture him was a psychopath who abused his other parent and anyone else nearby to the point they couldn’t intervene. And so Draco learned to self-soothe with drugs and alcohol, and lots of risky sex… just like Dima. Draco’s healing power was a manifestation of love—compassion, empathy, and forgiveness, all things which he had yet to find for himself, but could give so freely now to Harry. The fact that they both reported his healing power not working on himself only confirmed Nebojsa’s theory. 

So his own power was… what, justice? Dima said Harry used the word “karma,” which was well-enough suited. They’d never actually sat down and talked about all this as a family, which was spot-on for the Potters. Those two discussed everything in their heads, reading one another’s hearts like open books. Then Harry started barging into Nebojsa’s thoughts, which was shocking. 

At first when Harry got angry or scared, during the war when he had a strong emotional reaction or screamed a few panicked words in his head… Nebojsa heard them, too, like someone yelling at him from another room, trying to get his attention. Whatever connection Harry had built with Draco, it was working between them now, too. 

After Harry killed eight wizards then laid down beside Nebojsa, crying himself to sleep… that was when their connection solidified, allowing them to hear one another’s innermost workings freely. It wasn’t that Harry could read his thoughts in the manner of Legilimency. Harry’s ability was something more emotional in nature, piercing through consciousness to get at core drives—a kind of emotional Legilimency. Harry could read hearts. He shared that gift with Draco, then Nebojsa, through _Se Impetro Munus_ and these death-made fissures ripping through their souls _._

Peering sideways at Dmitry in the dark, never-ending halls, Nebojsa tried to think of what his partner’s ability as a Blood Sorcerer would be. Something to look after the ones he loved—a protection, a shield like the drunken wings he deployed in battle, making himself stupid and sick for the sake of others. That’s what Dmitry would be—the magical equivalent of a bullet-proof vest. 

That couldn’t happen. Dmitry wasn’t ready. This power could just as easily destroy him, rot him from the inside out. 

“We have to stop using it,” Nebojsa cautioned. He meant the light in his hands. No matter how much Dima enjoyed the pain, it was doing something to him which they didn’t understand. He already understood Parseltongue. What was next? “If we don’t stop, surely you’ll become… like us, Harry and Draco and I—Blood Sorcerers, and whatever else we are.” 

Dima shook his head. He didn’t want to stop; he was addicted to the pain, the euphoria and the release. He wanted to keep going—wanted it more than he was afraid of what he would inevitably become.

 

 

 

 

 


	25. Суперхіт

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When two steps forward can feel like a step back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **AUTHOR’S NOTE:** Fuck me, here’s 39,000 words a month late. Why? I kept turd-polishing the chapter _after_ this one, wanting it to be striking and perfect and ignoring this one because it feels slow in comparison. And it is slow, like the first two hundred pages of a Faulkner novel where everything seems random and mundane, disconnected and perhaps a little ranty. It is rather slow. Maybe trust that I’m constructing the foundations of things to come, and eventually the house will catch fire, the gestation will reach its apex, and everyone will converge in the middle.
> 
>  **WARNINGS:** wicca practice/hexes, alcohol consumption, grieving families, changing family traditions, nudity, catharsis, polyamory discussion, Leather culture, D/s theory  & safe practice, conflict between bio families and chosen/queer families, mention of gunshot wounds, discussion of capital punishment and restorative justice, some exploration of MSM slut-shaming, & gratuitous sexual content (general BDSM, masturbation, self-pleasure, anal, butt plugs, shower sex, bottom empowerment, dominance, aggressive sex, predicament bondage, Master/slave power dynamic, handjob, orgasm denial, breath play, disobedience, sex in public, voyeurism, fantasy adultery, snogging, dirty talk, **implied heterosexual sex** , and a virgin who won’t be for much longer)

 

 

 **DISCLAIMER:** Very vague reference to The Punisher, property of Marvel Comics

 **MUSICAL NOTE:** Harry attends a concert. I didn’t want to do a specific band this time as it wasn’t really relevant. I had in mind a group like Tracktor Bowling or Louna (same lead singer). For a taste, try “[Штурмуя небеса](https://youtu.be/V9Rx_59Jw_0)” (Storming Heaven).

 

_витрачаєш час на чужі життя_

_забуваєш ритм власного буття_

_хто твій справжній друг, слухай лиш себе_

_в тобі є твій звук, слухай лиш себе_

_розбудити світ в тебе голос є_

_осягнути світ в тебе сила є_

_Spending your time on someone else's life_

_You forget the rhythm of yourself_

_You'll know your true friend, listen to yourself_

_Your sound is in you, listen to yourself_

_Wake your voice_

_And the world will know your strength_

[СУПЕРХІТ](https://youtu.be/FJlkN6Q4TQg)

\- Panivalkova & Morphom

 

 

 

 

 

Arriving home together after the trial, Misha suggested Harry join him in his evening plan to visit a hammam—a traditional Turkish bath house. 

"The best water baths are in Asia," the young prince explained while packing clean clothes and a few of his favorite grooming supplies into a messenger bag. It was a muggle bag, black and fancy, with a familiar triangular logo on the clasp—Prada, one of Draco’s favorites. Misha slung the bag over his shoulder, sighing. "But we’re banned from the ones in South Korea." 

Harry frowned. They had magic, and could Apparate anywhere. He didn’t understand how he could be banned from a place he’d never been. "Why?" 

Misha pointed at his bicep, then to Harry's arm. "Tattoos are illegal there. So anyone vith ink iz criminal. Even foreigners vith ink are refused access. Iz taboo in Japan, too. Tattoos still represent the Yakuza and organized crime. Vhen ve go to the spas or hot springs, they ask us to vear robes to cover up, and ve are put in a private bath so no one has to see us and be offended." 

Harry was aware of the stigmas around tattoos. Even in London, he got the occasional odd look when he rolled up his sleeves. Residual negative attitudes were stronger elsewhere. People with ink were still treated poorly in certain parts of the world, the art expressed on their skin criminalized. 

Misha wanted to go despite the risk of censure; to bring Harry and relax in the heat and the steam. And apparently the Islamic hammams were more tolerant of tattoos than Asian baths. Misha wanted Harry to have the experience, to gain an understanding of the basics before he was presented with the plans for the spa facility at Hölmfröst. He needed to experience it first-hand in order to appreciate what they were doing in Iceland, the magical touches added to muggle traditions. 

When they arrived, they were taken to what was essentially a locker room; given washing supplies, a plastic tote to carry them in, and a cotton-sheet-like towel to wrap around their hips. Misha unceremoniously stripped. 

Harry's instinct was to follow Misha's lead. When in unfamiliar situations or whenever he was with another person, his gut told him to play follow-the-leader. Misha's casual confidence infected him. Harry realized he was whistling the Cannons' fight song as he peeled his clothes off, Misha joining him in the tune, smirking as much as he could with his lips pinched up. 

His friend grew up going to nude beaches in Romania—Misha spent a significant portion of his life in dormitories or quidditch locker rooms. Nudity was nothing to Misha. It didn't bother him to have his scars visible to other people, or the burn which covered one side of his body. One of his father's cauldrons had overturned on him as a child—a consequence of his rambunctious energy which hadn't faded even after getting burned for it. Misha was a highly resilient person. Having his brothers to lean on and Nebojsa to confide in was a huge part of maintaining that trait. Without his support system, Misha's bubbly personality might turn, becoming more like Harry's... introspective, less trusting, secretive. Harry didn't want that for his friend; PTSD was a bitch. 

When Misha moved to take off his pants, Harry saw his friend’s back and flinched. His whistling cut off abruptly. 

" _Cacat!_ " Harry's muggle exclamation of "holy crap" was turned into a Romanian curse word by the Translation Charm Misha had tagged him with. 

His friend had long, screaming red finger-nail marks in stripes down his back. They started at his shoulders and went down his ribs parallel to his spine, terminating about where his belt would be. They looked painful. Either Misha didn't know the scratches were there or—more likely—he'd taken a pain-reducing potion and no longer felt the cat-like mauling of his back. Ginny had marked her territory. 

"Vot?" Misha turned partially, trying to peek at his own back. He had a distinctly front-teeth-shaped bruise on his trapezius, between his neck and shoulder. Harry had a very similar bite mark on his own shoulder, closer to his back—except Harry’s was permanent, a scar where Draco bit him in the height of a rather violent forced orgasm. Misha's bite was fresh, but not permanent. The angle suggested he and Ginny had been facing front-to-front when she bit him. During sex. Harry would guess missionary, or a similar position where her face would’ve been close enough to his shoulder to take a good hard chomp. 

" _La naiba, frate_ ," Harry scolded him. "You can't walk around like that." Not without getting a few concerned looks. 

Misha flinched apologetically. "I forgot. Could you...?" He wiggled his fingers in the air like he was wafting cigarette smoke away from his body—meaning he wanted Harry to attempt some clandestine wandless magic right here in the mostly-empty locker room, covering his marks with a Glamour Charm… neutral magic Harry hadn’t learned at Hogwarts but from Draco and their new mates. Appearance-altering magic was considered highly dangerous in the conventional magical world, like “gateway drugs” in the muggle world; the prevailing wisdom being that hiding a few pimples or changing one’s hair could lead down a path of crime and degeneration. 

"Sure, _da da_ ," Harry agreed on the spot. Disguising magic was Draco’s forte but he'd do his best. He warned, snarky under his breath, "Not my fault if I accidentally turn you purple." 

"Deal. Quick, before someone sees," urged Misha. He would be embarrassed if anyone else saw his back. They’d both be in a heap of trouble if Harry fucked up and actually turned him the wrong color. 

Harry focused his attention, willing his friend's skin to return to its usual uniform shade of warm white with pink undertones. Red raised lines sunk back into his skin, fading. With a few seconds of concentrated sorcery, the marks vanished completely. Misha would still feel them, but at least they were no longer visible to the hammam’s population. 

"I'm sorry," Misha apologized with his back to Harry. 

"You’re sorry? Why?" 

Misha thought that would be obvious. "She... I'm with your ex. It's not awkward for you?"

As much as they had in common, Harry and Misha came from very different cultures. Balkan men were socialized to be possessive and controlling in relationships, believing that women were a man's property. Misha's pureblood Romanian upbringing would suggest that he'd stolen from Harry, dishonored him as a man by going out with his ex. Harry didn't see things that way at all. And really, neither did Misha—at least he didn't want to, fighting against the chauvinism he’d grown up with. Misha seemed more worried that he'd hurt Harry's feelings by dating Ginny, or offended him by accidentally flaunting the evidence of their sexual relationship in front of him, asking Harry to cover it up. 

"Look... I'm more than fine," Harry explained level-headedly. It actually didn’t bother him one bit. He told the truth—was honest and open about his feelings in a way he’d never revealed to Misha before. "I'm happy for both of you. I wasn’t right for Ginny. And I don't think she could've chosen a better chap than you. It's not strange for me at all. You can tell me as little or as much as you want, by the way. I'm happy to listen if there's anything you wanna talk about. I'm not the best advice-giver when it comes to relationships, tho. Surprising lack of experience for a married bloke." He took a second to honestly laugh at himself. He really knew nothing; convincing Draco to date and then marry him had been the happiest fluke of his entire life. "So when it comes to dating or sex you're probably better off asking Sia." 

Misha blushed. He did that a lot around Harry... maybe some residual feelings? Or he looked up to Harry like an actual big brother? It was hard to know for sure. Misha hid behind his chipper personality to the point it was sometimes tricky to tell when his feelings were hurt under that cheerful mask. They both hid their feelings; desperate for others to like them, and terrified that someone might take advantage of their emotions.

It was clear that Misha felt comfortable with Harry. He only needed that permission, Harry’s go-ahead, in order to discuss his relationship with Ginny. 

"Sex? Um... no." The prince ruffled his hair, messing it up before soothing it down with his palm. Overcome by nervousness, he couldn't look Harry in the eye, but he kept talking. Perhaps he’d never intimately confided in anyone besides Nebojsa. "We haven’t. I dunno. I'm kinda wary about sex, and I think she's annoyed with me. But..." Misha swallowed thickly, looking for words. He pressed his tongue against the backs of his front teeth, sucking, thinking as he stared off into space; it was something Dima did, too. 

Misha confessed, "I take longer to warm up to people, to be comfortable with anything more than kissing. I know that about myself, and I wouldn't let her push me while she was down here visiting. I'm… not ready."

Harry grinned. “Hey, don’t feel bad about that. I’m the exact same way,” he admitted, too. “I need to know someone for a really long time—months or years—before I might wanna do anything sexual with them. I’m closer to being asexual, really. Between you and me… I think I annoyed Ginny a lot more than you ever could! Because I had no idea about myself. I didn’t know how to talk about it. You know yourself better than I did.

“Just keep explaining what you need, what makes you comfortable,” he encouraged. “If Ginny doesn’t respect those boundaries, then… maybe she doesn’t deserve _you_.”

Misha looked at his feet, letting out a nasal, airy sound—like a horse. His gold eyes flickered across the floor. He was thinking, deciding what he wanted to say. He went with, “You’re better at advice than you think. Thanks.” 

Misha needed validation—especially from a fellow grey-asexual. After Ginny pawing at him, wanting him in a way he wasn’t ready to give… Misha felt like he’d failed. He hadn’t seen his girlfriend in three months. A ‘regular’ bloke would’ve been jumping into bed at that point. Misha recognized he wasn’t there yet, that he was different. He needed voices like Harry’s and Sia’s, fighting against the guilt and pressure he felt, reminding him that being different was okay.  

 

 

 

 

Being a predominantly Slavic man, Misha was the palest of anyone in the lavish stone wash room. Harry's wavy black hair and perpetual tan allowed him to blend in while Misha glowed like a light bulb walking through to the showers. 

There were heated stone benches and long beds to lie down on. Everywhere men were chatting in Arabic and Farsi, washing their hair or filing the calluses from their feet. Two old men helped one another clip their toe nails. Everyone had their bucket of supplies, and many brought extra products or tools along. 

With his glasses foggy, Harry still noticed that Misha had a different color shampoo bottle than everyone else... because Misha was notably of Polish, German and Russian descent—black-haired but with light skin and freckles—he had a different hair type which required a different combination of chemicals to get clean. Harry had the same product as everyone else. He'd been given the supplies for ethnic hair because, in here, he looked like everyone else while Misha was the minority. Out in the world, Harry was Caucasian, too. But in the hammam, he was assumed to be a man of Middle-Eastern descent.

He wasn't sure what to make of that. Witches and wizards readily complimented his appearance… because he was Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived. Out in the muggle world, he got mixed reactions. Things noticeably changed after he let his hair grow. Apparently with long hair, he looked Middle Eastern—enough that even these Islamic men nodded to Harry like _he_ was the one showing Misha around. They accepted Harry as one of them, viewing Misha as a respectful outsider. 

After showering, Misha opened a jar he had with him, slathering a green-grey mud which smelled like coconuts onto his face before laying out on a stone bed to relax. 

As soon as Harry laid down beside him, Misha reached over and plucked his glasses off, putting them on top of Harry's head. A second later Harry had cool mud spread over his cheeks. His shoulders tightened up in surprise. It was colder than he expected, spreading thick as peanut butter, and tingling slightly. The contrast between the mud on his face and the heat all around him was startling, but in a good way—like sucking on an ice cube on a hot day. 

"Relax," Misha told him. "When you exercise a lot, dead skin gets stuck to your face and makes your skin dull. This pulls it off." That was Misha’s polite way of saying Harry looked like shit. Admittedly, he had a pimple on his temple. He’d been using his long hair to cover it. Misha didn’t miss his blemish, swiping the red bump a couple of extra times with his muddy finger. 

Before Draco, Harry had never experienced another bloke physically taking care of him beyond basic first aid for injuries. Draco cut his hair, styled it, fussed over his clothes or rubbed his shoulders. It was friendly at first, but quickly turned sexual… because deep down, they both wanted it to be sexual from the start. Physically caring for each other had been a gateway to so much more. 

Nebojsa and Misha knew how to touch as friends... as family, taking care of each other, motivated by a love which wasn't erotic but brotherly, familial. Harry could feel the difference. When Misha touched him, it wasn't sexual; Harry never had a brother but he imagined if he did, his sibling would be exactly like Misha. 

Misha did think Harry was attractive. But he looked at The Boy Who lived like a painting he fancied; appreciative, finding pleasure in the way Harry looked, but not necessarily needing to do anything about it. His interest in Harry was that of a fellow demisexual—purely aesthetic. Misha wouldn’t cross any boundaries. The fact that his limits and Harry’s were so similar made things that much easier. 

After rinsing the dried mud off his face, Harry realized he needed to ditch his glasses and go blind; otherwise he’d be fighting foggy glasses with wandless spells. He'd wear contact lenses next time.   

They went to the steam room next. Misha downed a bottle of water within a few minutes, sighing as he started to sweat. Harry was drenched in seconds—the curse of carrying around a significant amount of muscle. He didn't mind sweating. And the heat was divine. Misha was on his back, letting off the occasional petulant whine as his body heated through. Meanwhile Harry was so relaxed he nearly fell asleep. He had a better tolerance for extreme heat, more willing to let go and allow it to happen without complaint. Misha's instinct was to fight to the end rather than give in. 

Maybe Harry's ability to surrender came from bottoming, or being a soldier, or from having been abused as a kid: Harry could go numb and ignore when things happened to him physically. He often had to fight back with a broken limb, or bleeding, ignoring his own pain. He’d been conditioned to disregard his body’s signals, to stay focused on his goal. Meanwhile Misha had been trained to always fight back, to protect himself, not to submit when things were uncomfortable but to stick up for himself. Harry became a turtle, slow-moving but impenetrable, biding his time. Misha was a panther or a jaguar, running forever, his energy unlimited, never letting up in order to out-move anyone who challenged him. 

Harry’s past made him an easy target for abusive people to wail on, while Misha’s training from Nebojsa was actually effective in deterring people who might try to hurt him. 

Sweating their bollocks off, they couldn’t get any more physically uncomfortable. Harry spoke, leaning towards an equally unpleasant topic of conversation. 

"So... about today. The execution. Was that hard for you? I mean, Nebojsa...." 

When Harry hesitated, Misha filled in the blank. "Is basically my _mamă_?" The word was the same from English to Romanian. 

"Yeah," Harry agreed. That was the truth, how their family functioned. Nebojsa was the parent figure, given ultimate authority over both brothers. That was the family structure they all agreed upon. 

Harry asked, "Does it bother you to see him kill people?" 

It had to be hard for Misha to watch Sia execute Umbridge in that courtroom... especially wielding the same white light which Misha _knew_ Dima and Sia used in a sexual capacity, too. Harry couldn't imagine how weird that would feel for Misha; startling, almost like watching someone be executed with condoms and a bottle of lubricant—not where he was expecting things to go based on his experience. Did Misha even know that Sia’s powers could kill before today? Did he know that was how Sia brought down his father on the battlefield? 

"I suppose," Misha pondered, lying there unmoving like a slick wet seal on a rock, soaking in the heat. "It was difficult to watch. But I understand why he fights. He's genuinely good at it. People underestimate him because of his looks, and he uses that to his advantage. After years of seeing him win every competition, every duel, it seemed almost... a natural progression. I think I always had a feeling he would be in the military, fighting. So in that way, I was prepared. He was always going to be something like a Hit Wizard." 

Misha took a big breath, taking wet heat into his lungs. “More than anything, I worried we might be on opposite sides one day. That Vuk or Dima might face him on the battlefield, kill or be killed. We’re lucky to have gotten away before our father could force us to take the Mark. Vukasin gave us that.” 

The brothers were like Draco—without a loved one’s sacrifice, they’d never have gotten away from the Death Eaters. Dima and Misha lost their brother. Draco effectively lost his mother. The brothers still had family in each other, and Sia. Draco had Harry and only Harry. While Narcissa was physically around, she couldn’t be leaned on, couldn’t offer comfort or support to her son. Her presence hurt Draco more than it helped. Maybe it was hard sometimes for Misha and Dima to be around each other? They both had some of Vuk in them… and some of Tiho, too, the same way Draco was a mixture of Lucius and Narcissa. Sometimes the reminder of a loved one lost brought up more grief than comfort. 

Misha reflected, “As for Nebojsa… it might not be easy or pleasant, him acting as a public executioner. But at this point I see that it’s the right choice. I would rather he be feared. That’s better for him.” 

Sia _wasn’t_ feared as Durmstrang’s reigning Dueling Champion, undefeated since age thirteen? What did it take to be taken seriously in that environment? Did the other kids at Durmstrang mock Sia because he looked feminine? Because of his mixed parentage? Why would Sia have to work harder to be respected? Harry had more questions now than answers. 

The arm flopping over Misha’s closed eyes signaled he was done talking. The heat was taking him over—and perhaps he was done slipping back into unhappy memories, preferring to focus on how things were better now, with people like Dolores Umbridge and his father removed from the world. Misha and Harry both had Nebojsa to thank for their freedom, stopping their abusers once and for all.

 

 

 

 

When Misha couldn't take the heat anymore, he pulled Harry to the third stage of the spa: a circular room made entirely of stone, ringed by a moat of flowing water, with a massive marble slab at the center. It struck him as an ancient sort of room, timeless. Harry had no idea how muggles would get a stone the length of a small bus into this room—they must've laid the foundation of the building, brought the slab in by crane, and then built the rest of the structure around it. The stone was large enough for fifteen or twenty people. Several men were laid out on it like seals on hot rocks, letting Harry know it was heated through just like the beds back in the bathing area. He and Misha laid themselves down, resting after the extreme temperatures of the sauna. 

There were several attendants moving about. The flowing water covered their shuffling footsteps. They were bilingual English-and-Arabic-speaking men who worked for the hammam, dressed in uniform towels with an emblem pin holding the towel shut, and swim shorts underneath. It had been over an hour since Harry saw anyone with a shirt on; he was used to it now, no longer awkward. The workers let Harry and Misha know it would be about twenty minutes. 

Harry was able to watch the process, blurry for lack of his glasses. The employees had scrubbing mitts which they used all over men’s bodies to rub off layers of dead skin loosened by the steam, the washing, and the constant heat. Then each man was covered in soap foam and given a head-to-foot massage. 

Misha turned his head towards Harry, speaking softly. Most of the other men were talking, too, so he wasn't being improper. "The treatment rooms at Hölmfröst will be private, since the communal bathing area is going to be co-ed. The existing facility just doesn't have the space to accommodate splitting by gender. And we'll appeal to more people if we keep mixed-gender parties together. Everyone will get bathrobes and wear swimming gear underneath for the hot tubs and pools." 

That made sense to Harry. Most of the magical world was heterosexual. Wives and girlfriends would bring their wizards to the spa, and the average bloke would feel more comfortable sticking with his significant other and remaining partially clothed rather than being forced to hang out with a bunch of other naked men they didn't know.  

When it came time for Harry's massage... he died. He went to heaven right there on the marble. Time stood still. His brain shut down as he lay there, drifting, floating, surrounded by warmth and comfort. 

The last person to give him a massage had been Draco. Harry didn’t know how to ask for it. He’d lever learned to express his need, even in something so simple as saying, “My shoulder hurts, would you please have a look at it for me?” He didn’t ask because, in his head, he didn’t deserve to be taken care of, and didn’t believe anybody would want to, anyway. He always waited for Draco to offer. 

Misha was teaching him, showing Harry a way to get his needs met when his husband might not be up to it. Skin cleaning and a massage was the standard treatment at the hammam because everyone deserved to be clean, and everyone deserved to have their sore muscles tended to. They set a standard of behavior here, as a community as much as an institution. And they’d do the same at Hölmfröst. 

He barely noticed when the masseur got him to sit up, pouring warm water over his head to clean him off. He didn't care that he was naked, lying back bare against the stone; letting himself go limp, feeling the last drops of tension dripping off his heels along with the water washing the soap away. 

At one point he was attacked with a scrubber, a rough square of cloth which was rubbed all over his body. He began to shed. Everywhere, mushy bluish-grey peels of what Misha informed was dead skin were scraped off of him—bum, armpits, feet, back of the neck, even his face—like zesting a lemon, trying to get every bit of useable flesh. _What kind of disgusting, dirty creature am I?_ Harry worried as decayed flesh kept coming off with no end in sight. He wasn’t the only one—Misha shed little grey lumps, as did every other man on the stone. Harry wasn’t alone. He only had more because he didn’t do this regularly, never knew how it was done or why. He’d been living in his own filth like some kind of rubbish monster. 

More hot water was dumped over him, washing away everything he no longer needed—the dead weight he’d been carrying, seemingly for all his life. 

The masseur squeezed the tender bottoms of Harry’s feet in parting... whispering a prayer. He'd seen the scars on Harry's back—understanding he'd been lashed, tortured. The man was praying for The Boy Who Lived to have peace in his life after the pain. 

"Okay," Harry whispered to Misha when it was over. He never wanted it to stop. "This is worth a quarter million dollars." Especially when it was Lucius Malfoy's precious gold he was throwing around. The fact that the spa and hotel at Hölmfröst would be run as a non-profit after the investors were repaid made Harry obscenely happy. Generations of Malfoys would be rolling in their graves at the thought of not making any interest—a waste of capitol. Wasting Lucius Malfoy's precious money on charity put a smile on Harry's face. 

He tried to imagine a few months from now, when there would be a magical place like this to retreat to—where they could go after work or on days off to recuperate. He wanted to soak in a hot tub with Draco, or see his husband's face when his overactive mind drifted out of his body, covered in bubbles like clouds enveloping him, taking him off to another world. Harry might not have the talent to recreate that experience with his own hands, but he could easily drag Draco to a place like this where they could relax and enjoy it together. 

"You're a trusting investor," Misha observed. "Thanks for believing—taking our word on it." 

"Thanks for dragging me here," Harry returned. Misha had been right. He needed the experience, needed to know first hand what it might be like. Understanding, he could talk to others about it, and get people to come with him once the facility opened. 

That fact that popular, famous, good-looking wizards like Harry and Misha would be walking around the place in their swim trunks was going to be a major selling point. Rather than wait until construction was completed in Iceland, Misha evangelized Harry ahead of schedule.

 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

It was auspicious enough that the final day of the Umbridge trial coincided with a Dark Moon that night. Nebojsa almost couldn’t believe it when he left Mrs. Summerby’s office to find a uniformed Auror waiting at his desk. The officer had a short wand box and official parchment requiring his signature. 

His requisition was approved, all he had to do was sign for it. They all knew what it was: his right. 

Alarmed, a few coworkers glanced at him like he was out of his mind. Why the fuck would he request Dolores Umbridge’s wand? Who would want any relic of that woman around? That was English thinking, and a Hogwarts education. 

Nebojsa was long-accustomed to strange looks shot his way. He wrapped the wand box in his scarf and brought it home—not to the flat, but to Romania. 

Strangely, the Ionescue palace was home now; opulent, exaggerated, too much in every possible way. Yet he the gutter rat, and the brothers, together with the Potters… they’d taken the place over, suffusing it with their own energy. Everywhere he looked now, there were happy memories to wash away the dark ones. At last, these halls felt clean. If there was such a thing as a sexual, joyful poltergeist, surely it would pop out of the golden filigree—waving one of his bull floggers and cackling, smearing lube all over the place. Having their own Peeves might not be so bad. Slowly, history here was being rewritten—the advantage of the victor. He was feeling that power for the first time. Fucking the son of his enemy, living in their home, sitting atop their blood-stained pile of gold and jewels: any conqueror would call that victory. It felt more like a deep breath after the passing of a dust storm. He still felt grit in his lungs with every inhale. 

Nebojsa placed the box outside on the lanai. He walked out to the woods to collect branches, building a good pile in one of the braziers, stacking a few logs Dima had cut over the summer, drying them with magic for use through the cold months. He lit his pile, waiting on the sky to fully darken, adding heavier wood until he had a proper fire with hissing, singing coals at the bottom. 

It was cold enough to need the fire’s heat on his face. He stuck out his hands, keeping warm. Orange flames licked up from the brazier, providing what he needed. Their irregular light cast moving shadows on his hands, shifting as the wind picked up, blowing his robes around his legs. He huddled closer to the fire. 

That was when he sensed Dmitry behind him. His partner said nothing, waiting, keeping his distance. His cologne gave him away. He always sprayed it with a heavy hand to cover the sharp smell of oil paints and cigarettes. 

Dmitry came—he risked transferring power by proximity, knowing what Nebojsa was about to do. He wanted to be here, to observe, bearing witness. 

Nebojsa retrieved the wand of the witch he’d executed—torturer of children, homophobic, power-hungry, vain. He wanted to burn the sins out of her, which wasn’t possible. This was all he could do.   

Removing her wand from the box, he Levitated it over the fire without touching—dangling it over the heat as though it could feel, connected to the witch who’d once wielded it to terrify so many. He let it get hot, let the wood begin to smoke. Even the scent of her wand was unpleasant, more chemical lacquer than substance. 

“ _With these_ _flames_ _, I—the witch Fearless—b_ _anish_ _you_ ,” he commanded in his mother tongue. “ _You_ _are cast_ _out, forbidden to return_. _Be gone, evil spirit_ _._ _You are not welcome here._ ” 

And he released her wand into the fire. The taste of blood in his mouth, he spit, damning. 

The flames spat back, bursting with red and purple and sickly green, rising high into the night air. He leaned back, minding his hair and eyebrows. He’d never burned a wand before, unsure what could happen. It was worth the risk. This was the only possession of hers which he could acquire. 

Wizards broke the wands of those they’d conquered. It was a sign of subjugation, demeaning, an act of power. Fire was for the dead, purifying the world they left behind, returning to dust. 

From his pocket, he fished out a loose kretek and lit it from the fire with slightly shaking hands. He too breathed smoke into the black sky. He too burned.

Behind him, Dmitry let out a low rumble of feeling. “One less ghost to deal with? For Harry.” 

Nebojsa exhaled. “Exactly.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

He woke alone the next morning; missing Dima, missing Misha, missing Harry. It was hell, forcing everyone he loved to stay away. It had been more than a year since he’d slept a night alone. He wasn’t sure he could.

He ended up drinking to sleep—a bottle of Tiho’s best Musigny Grand Cru all to himself; in bed, in his boxers and one of Dima’s old sweatshirts… wanting to smell him, feel something of him, knowing he was somewhere in the palace but unable to touch. 

Drinking was not the brightest idea to break a three-day fast. But it did render him swiftly unconscious. He felt it now, his self-punishment; squinting, his movements achingly slow, the early sun in his aching eyes. 

Rolling over in the morning light, Nebojsa found a kind of note on the pillow beside him: a couple of feathers, downy tan, mangled as though plucked out by blunt teeth. Dmitry’s way of saying he couldn’t sleep and went flying instead, letting Nebojsa know where he was in order to maintain their distance.

Leaving notes was Harry’s thing. He wanted them to know where he was, what he was doing… that he cared. He wanted that connection, tethering himself. Dmitry knew how to please a keeper—he learned to act as a lover from Harry.  

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

The Burrow. It was a stack of odd, conflicting architectural styles, almost as though pieces of other buildings had been borrowed and assembled on the site. The sections didn’t belong together, held in place by magic. The structure’s shape reminded Misha of empty boxes stacked atop one another. It looked on the verge of toppling over. 

He didn’t want to be rude. This was the Weasley family’s home. He could tell how much they loved the place—their boots lined up beside the door, fat chickens pecking at the dirt in their enclosure, every window shining, freshly cleaned with a flowerbox beneath. In the summer Mrs. Weasley transplanted flowers from her garden into the boxes, keeping the exterior of their home cheery and bright. He wondered if she’d done that during the war as well, if she’d had the time. Probably not.

This was where his girlfriend grew up. He got the sense that Ginevra was both ashamed and fiercely protective of the place. Other children would’ve teased her. Two years ago, the Death Eaters attacked their home. The Weasleys repaired and rebuilt, refusing to be chased out by fear. There was quite a lot of love wrapped up in this top-heavy, canting building. It might’ve been the family’s pride propping up that jutting fifth floor. Which made his mission today that much more difficult. 

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were expecting him. Arthur Weasley waved him in, taking his coat. Molly had tea ready. They insisted he call them by their first names but… Mikhail couldn’t bring himself to be so informal, even with his shoes off, sitting with them in their kitchen. They were his girlfriend’s parents. He would address them respectfully. Because he might be breaking their hearts. 

He’d suggested their scheme, and Ginny took hold of the idea. Nebojsa and Dmitry were happy with the proposed arrangement—Nebojsa said it made sense. It was up to Misha to bring the young people’s consensus to their elders, to ask for their blessing and cooperation. It took a bit of careful thinking and reflection before he devised a way to approach the conversation without coming off as condescending. The last thing he wanted was to injure their feelings or insult them in any way. 

“Jinevra and I write letters,” he began. Most of their relationship was conducted through owls. Seeing her each of the three days of the Umbridge trial had been a whirlwind—his lips were so swollen he needed to charm them back to normal. The love-bites on his neck, too. He could still feel the evidence she’d left behind, her marks on his skin, aching, as he sat there talking to her parents. It was like she was holding him, insistent, urging him, even now. He would keep his promise no matter how awkward it made him feel. For Ginevra, he would do almost anything. 

“Ve have talked about her vinter break, and the Christmas holiday. She vants to invite… many people.” More than The Burrow could hold. 

Her brother Charlie was back from Bulgaria with his boyfriend Viktor Krum. It was only polite to invite Viktor’s parents. George had moved in with his girlfriend Angelina Johnson—her mother recently widowed, having lost a sister and taken in her twelve-year-old nephew into Angelina’s old bedroom; the three remaining members of the Johnson family were all invited to share the holiday. Bill and Fleur would join them, Fred and his pregnant girlfriend, Ron and Hermione, and Ginny had it in mind to invite Nymphadora Tonks, her infant son, and parents. 

It was too many people. This tipsy little house could never hold them all. This kitchen couldn’t feed them. There was only one washroom, and more than twenty people on the guest list. It would be cramped and uncomfortable for everyone. 

But you didn’t say anything of the sort to Mrs. Weasley’s face. She wanted her children and all of their loved ones home for the holiday—especially after the war, after losing a son. She deserved a house bursting with people. Her love had outgrown this kitchen, and that was something Misha could help with. 

Mr. Weasley lifted his tea cup. “We’ve made due in the past. Please don’t fret.” 

“Vot if there vos a vay to invite as many people as you vish?” 

Mrs. Weasley’s eyebrows rose. Likely there were members of her extended family whom she hadn’t invited to a holiday since her children were small. Every year they had to be cautious, to only invite as many mouths as they could afford to feed. 

Seeing the happy hopefulness on her face, Misha knew he was doing the right thing. 

He elaborated, “I understand how much you love taking care of your family—cooking special dishes, seeing everyone togezher. I’m the cook in my family, too. And I vould love to cook vith you in my kitchen… to have your family and all of your guests come to our home in Romania vhere everyone can spread out and be comfortable. Ve have more space than three vizards could ever need; large entertaining rooms and bedrooms for everyone.” Every guest could have their own private room if they opened up the north wing. “Ve vould be honored to host Christmas.”

Orthodox Christians celebrated in January. They were moving their holiday celebration forward in order to accommodate. Again, Dima and Nebojsa insisted it wasn’t an inconvenience. Dima was adamant that the palace was going to be Misha’s one day, anyway, and he ought to get used to acting as master of the estate. If the palace was his home, then this was how he wanted to use it—to have Ginevra and the Weasleys and all of their extended and adopted family members under his roof. 

The Burrow was warm and loving. He didn't want to take them out of it. He wouldn’t presume to involve himself where he wasn’t needed. Only that... he wanted them to have a big holiday, for Ginevra to invite everyone she wanted, her entire family both extended and adopted, and his home could accommodate them all. He wanted to help. 

Mrs. Weasley looked at him, tears in her eyes. She glanced just beyond him, to a clock with eight hands—representing each of her living children plus herself and her spouse, a Tracking Spell signaling their whereabouts. During the war, Ginevra told him that all nine hands became stuck on Mortal Peril. Now, one hand less, they once again depicted normal movements—School, Work, and Home. Fred’s hand indicated he was Home, though not at the Burrow; he was with his girlfriend and their unborn baby. The clock must’ve had some element of Neutral Magics, based on the emotions and intent of each person. Fred was where he belonged, his new home as far as he and therefore Mrs. Weasley’s clock was concerned. 

‘Home’ was a shifting concept. It was the place where your loved ones gathered together regardless of who kept their possessions under that roof. Some spaces instantly felt like home—others never could. The palace in Romania had never been much of a home to Misha until that summer when they returned. Without Harry and Draco, the palace didn’t feel… complete. Maybe having his girlfriend and the Weasley family could help with that void, that pain of the Potters’ separation. Surely Harry would need them no matter what happened. They ought to stay close. _This is the best way forward_ , Ginny told him between kisses at the train station. Misha agreed. This was the way towards becoming a family. 

To Mrs. Weasley he said, “You know so much about… how to make a place feel like home. Ve are hoping, perhaps, you might bring us zome of your magic. Our house needs a mozher.” Nebojsa wouldn’t mind his saying that. 

Mrs. Weasley looked to her husband for his opinion. He nodded gently, happy with the idea. Mr. Weasley didn't want to see her overextend herself. It didn't wound his pride to have his house deemed too small. Moving the location of their Christmas celebration didn’t change the spirit—merely provided adequate beds and kitchen space, keeping everyone well. 

“Alright,” Mrs. Weasley agreed. “Thank you. We accept. It will be nice, I think, to have all our families under one much larger roof.”     

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Number Four Privet Drive had always been overflowing with… stuff. Golf clubs. Kitchen gadgets. Clothes no one ever wore. And all of the broken, exhausted or abandoned toys they bought for Dudley—not just for his birthday and Christmas but nonstop, year-round. Dudley refused to have the broken bits tossed out. Even the rubbish had to be his, like keeping the bones of things he’d destroyed. 

Mrs. Figg’s house down the street was equally crammed full of junk, too; equally useless objects kept for indiscernible, perhaps sentimental reasons. Harry assumed it was normal, hording objects as physical preservations of feelings unprocessed, grief and loneliness as well as joy—gaining power from the objects one surrounded one’s self with. Having a part of Voldemort’s soul in him, it made sense. Owning things made people feel safe and important. 

That explained why living with Sia and the Ionescue brothers was so refreshing. They were closer to what muggles called minimalists. Sia especially. They tried not to own more than they needed, each object serving a purpose or function, making the family’s possessions quite easy to organize and access. Their flat wasn’t large—yet it was possible for four adult-size men to share comfortably. 

Everything had a place. With the flick of a wand or snap of fingers, their possessions were sent back where they belonged, out of the way until they were needed again. 

They shared many common things, cutting down on redundancy. They had less clutter that way and required less storage. Misha’s clothes were with Harry’s in the closet in his room, being close enough in size and able to share. Sia and Dima shared a clothes rack in the main room which also served to hold coats as it was closer to the front door.

They also all shared the dresser in Misha’s bedroom. Everyone kept their pants in one large drawer with no chance for mix-ups due primarily to their distinct style preferences. Misha wore fitted cotton boxer-briefs, Sia boxers, Harry favored athletic compression shorts in-or-out of the gym, and Dmitry… his pants were of the assless, jock strap variety which could’ve made even Draco blush.   

With their modest number of pants cycling through the wash, Harry inevitably happened upon another collection the lads kept in their underwear drawer: their porn. 

They weren’t hiding it. They had to assume Harry would see it eventually—his house-elf-like penchant for putting away fresh laundry hadn’t left him. There were sexy magazines in the underwear drawer. The guys weren’t ashamed; rather, that was where the pornography was stored, ready and accessible for whoever needed it. They shared wank material the same way they shared take-away leftovers, potion ingredients, and toothpaste. Even their porn was communal. 

Most of it was muggle, unmoving images printed on glossy pages. It spoke to their interests, with headlines about oral and anal sex, douching—the painstaking manual method muggles used to clean their bums before anal, which Harry was quite thankful he never had to deal with—as well as the more BDSM-flavored topics of impact, bondage, role-play, and more. 

The few magical publications they owned seemed older, more dog-eared, like the rags Harry found back in Gideon Harper’s room. Harry got the impression that kinky magical sex information was much harder to come by than the muggle variety. In such a small population, it was possible that the demand wasn’t sufficient to support a publisher and they’d eventually gone out of business. Since then, sexual knowledge of the deviant variety must’ve circulated by word-of-mouth and old magazines like these passed between trusting kinky friends. 

Dima’s “Wizard’s Guide To Bottoming” pamphlet looked like it was from the late 1970’s going by the models’ featured hairstyles and prodigious mustaches. It was older than either of them. It was what they had. 

It was a new feeling for Harry to be left by himself in someone else’s house. He wasn’t used to being totally alone. For so many years he’d been watched, controlled, or looked after. 

With Misha visiting the Burrow, and Dima and Sia still away in Romania, Harry was very much by himself. They trusted him in their home, to make himself comfortable. And to avail himself of _whatever_ he needed. They made that very clear—whether he needed to borrow a pair of socks, a guitar, food or money, _anything_ … as a member of the family, he was to help himself without reserve or shame. 

So empowered, Harry took the liberty of flipping through their magical sex literature. 

He saw spells he’d learned from Draco last year, each incantation accompanied by a suggested wand motion for best effect. There was one bit of magic he didn’t know, intended for wizards who bottomed; conjuring a sort of… plug, like a wine bottle’s cork except for the bum, its distinctive shape curling in a hook designed to rest snugly against a man’s prostate. The magazine suggested it for wizards who were just starting out with anal sex, to get used to the feeling before they tried with a partner—as well as for those whose partners were well-endowed, where sex might start out an uncomfortable fit. The article recommended regularly ‘training’ the muscles to relax by penetrating with something larger than fingers but still smaller than a prick, associating the sensation of being breached with the promise of pleasure to come rather than anxiety and the fear of impending pain. 

Draco didn’t know about this—because his only experience bottoming had been with Philippe, who didn’t care about Draco’s comfort or whether he enjoyed himself or not. From then on, Draco exclusively topped; convinced by that negative first experience that he didn’t care to catch ever again. He was a bit scarred, emotionally. 

Draco’s subsequent partners were strictly hook-ups. The bloke bottoming—if he was experienced in the activity—would’ve done his preparations ahead of time, knowing how hung Draco was and acting accordingly, getting himself ready using something like this series of spells. Draco never witnessed the process. Aside from stretching with fingers, he hadn’t known there were other options—necessary options, given how generously he was built. Draco should’ve been educating his partners, teaching them how to do this prep so he wouldn’t hurt them, so sex would be great for both parties.

Harry wasn’t upset with Draco for not knowing. He only felt disappointed, and sorry. They might’ve enjoyed sex even more had either of them known any of this. There might’ve been less grimacing and bloody sheets when they started, too. No one ever took the time to teach Draco about his body—as if he’d have listened! Thinking himself almighty, Draco picked up what he could and passed that on to Harry when the time came. Draco was a good partner, but he wasn’t perfect. No one could be.

Harry memorized the spell and retreated to the shower.

 

 

 

 

He hadn't pleasured himself at all since Draco left—and that lack of release was likely contributing to his wandering eye... checking out Sia, his short temper and generally narky mood. Part of taking care of himself meant seeing to his sexual needs. He shouldn't be withholding sex from himself as a kind of punishment for lying. He’d hurt his husband; that didn’t mean he needed to hurt himself to prove his remorse. 

Hot water thrumming against his back, Harry pressed his hands to his sternum—apologizing to his body. He’d let things get to the point where he hated himself. That had to stop. 

When he was younger he tossed off like stretching before a run; knowing he'd be better for it but not particularly enjoying the process, let alone reveling in it. He didn't like his body. Fancying himself was gay, wrong. As a straight chap, he couldn’t consider being into himself. He’d been ashamed, embarrassed, misunderstanding his own needs. It was self pleasure but... he didn't actually want to pleasure himself. He’d needed someone else to love him because he didn’t see much to care for in himself. 

Masturbating was never that exciting. It was something he did when he could get away with it, some small defiance, something for himself. He just didn't enjoy it as much as he thought he should've.

He used to think about girls when he tossed off, which Draco pointed out early in their relationship. He didn't enjoy touching himself because, just as Draco suggested, he _was_ doing it wrong all along. He was focused on other people—trying to fantasize about girls he knew, thinking about their bodies—when he should've been paying attention to himself. Maybe he would've realized that just touching his prick wasn't enough. A significant portion of his sexual pleasure came from bottoming, and in a way he needed something up his bum for sex to feel... right. 

It took Draco for him to learn how to make love. Now, finally, he could make love to himself. 

He let his hands drag out along his chest, flicking his nipples. His body was already interested—given permission, fodder, feeling. He licked his lips, warm and wet like the water streaming down his back. 

First the deep internal cleaning charm, _Amem Inconcessus Viam._ It provided a bit of stretch as well, sufficient for fingers but not quite enough for more.  

Next, the plug. He didn’t need the incantation or a wand. Having seen a photograph of the thing, his sorcery willed it into being. Tapered, a bit wider than two of his fingers, with a secure base at the bottom, and a tip which leaned, looking tipsy. It didn’t look particularly sexual to him… simply foreign, different. And it was going up his bum. 

His friends kept lube in the shower. He wasn’t surprised by that, either, observing his wet hands as they performed a sort of alchemy; combining what was magical and what was muggle—slicking up a conjured butt plug. No more odd than the first time he shouted “Up!” at a broomstick and it obeyed. 

He pressed it against his bum, wondering when this mechanical part might do something for him. It felt hollow… perhaps because was usually kissing Draco. With one leg up on the lip of the tub, Harry leaned a forearm against the tile wall, pressing his face to his own skin to get some pressure. It felt stupid until his lip dragged against the hairless inside of his arm. That was what he needed—something to engage with, to drag his teeth over, biting into. Suckling from the crook of his arm to the tender skin of his wrist, the plug slipped in easily. Past his initial ring and then sucked, vacuumed tight until he felt the base snug between his cheeks. 

His prick responded to that pressure on his prostate. He’d conjured precisely, knowing the length of Draco’s index finger was needed to reach that bundle of nerves. He fell into the shower wall, panting against his own skin. Then biting again. It was exactly right.   

A twitch of his fingers and it grew in girth, then length. He guided it past the second ring, another tight area of muscle, and approached the third. That was usually where Draco stayed when they fucked. A nub stayed with his prostate as the toy expanded. One last charm, and he could barely keep his eyes open—because this felt like fucking, was surely sex with himself. He wanted to try this last sensation; a not-quite-vibration, more of a magical rocking meant to mimic sex, to feel like a person breathing as they moved inside you.  

It made him moan. It made his head spin, his glutes spasm. He had to hold the back of his neck as the world took off around him. Nothing else existed; only the heat radiating out from him, the choked sound falling from his lips, every doubt or conscious thought falling out the back of his head as he trembled. 

By the hair, he pulled himself against the shower wall. His tailbone smacking the tile got him groaning. He repeated it, holding himself in place by handfuls of his hair, arching his back, slowly tapping his bum against the hard tile until he was ready for more. The more he arched, the harder the plug hit him in the prostate. His eyes stayed closed, biting his lips—biting back the unconscious sounds he made—stars leaping across his vision as he smacked that sensitive knot of nerve endings up his hole. 

"Fuck..." he muttered, rising. "Oh fuck. Yes." 

His body wanted to go now. His hole needed more. He thrust back—hard, to a purpose, enough to bruise, smacking his arse against the wall. His dominant side growled as the part of him that craved getting fucked tasted the first real thrust.

 _Harder_ , his body said. _Again. More_. 

But slow. There was no reason to rush this. He ground himself, appreciating the tingling sensation along his tailbone which would later become a bruise of his own creation. That was right. He could fuck himself rough, hard, because it was everything he wanted.  

Each _smack_ of his cheeks earned a growl, going deeper and darker. His throat vibrated, feeling like the same frequency of that moving bit of magic inside him—up his bum, just full enough. He held onto it, squeezing tight as he pressed himself against the wall. 

Hand to his chest, pinning himself, his dominant side took over; talking to himself, coaching through it, encouraging. He was simultaneously top and bottom, enjoying both sides. _Right there. Hold still and just enjoy it, take it._

One good smack. His back arched just right, reverberating up his spine. The wet slap of his skin. Yanking on his hair, beating his chest to the thump of his heart.

He screamed as he came, shaking, head back and calling his lungs out in an endless wail.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Neither Dmitry nor Nebojsa came back to the flat for several days. It was understandable after an exhaustive trial and execution. Nash approved their last-minute request for paid leave sent overnight by owl. Their absence left both Harry and Ron partner-less.

It wasn’t entirely a bad thing… just a bit lonely. Harry missed the cups of cherry-sweetened tea Dima would sometimes leave on his desk, and Sia’s little words of encouragement throughout the day. The stranger who sometimes sent gifts to Sia wasn’t aware he was out; a bouquet of flowers arriving for him by messenger, hand-delivered. Harry redirected the flowers to Iga’s desk instead. He figured that was what Sia would’ve wanted. 

Determined not to be bums about their partner-less desk-duty situation, Harry and Ron hit the gym together. 

Harry held tight to a set of Muay Thai pads, teaching Ron to incorporate more of his knees into his fighting style while getting some conditioning work out of the way. Ron had strong legs which he ought to be using to his advantage during a fight, not relying solely on his fast fists and Keeper's reach.

Harry put him through his paces. They alternated between sequences of high-low and low-high, switching legs each time, forcing Ron to constantly switch his lead leg. Except Ron kept screwing up—striking with his forward leg rather than his rear where the power lay. Mucking up the order also meant he missed the pad, knocking Harry in the outer thigh instead. Harry'd have a tremendous set of bruises by tomorrow. He put up with it because Ron was learning, and Harry himself had been far worse when he started. Quidditch didn't have drills like this, and having multiple combat styles thrown at him was a lot for Ron to pick up in just a few months of training. 

"Sorry." Ron let out a growl, frustrated with his lack of improvement. "Damn it! Bloody fucking hell..." Pushing sweaty hair off his face, he turned away, bending over to rest, his other hand braced on his knee as he used his tshirt to wipe his face. He shouldn't be winded, but he looked it. 

"’S okay," said Harry. "Your head's not in it?" 

He guessed right. He knew by Ron's body language. He recognized when his mate was distracted—Ron's mood always effected Harry, too, like they were connected in some small way. Ron would get wrapped up in his emotions at times and Harry felt tugged along with him, feeling the twin of Ron's sentiments surging in his own chest. Today Ron felt... Harry didn't want to project but his gut told him Ron was hiding some depression, the same as him. 

"Something like that." Ron glanced over his shoulder at Harry who was worming his arms out of the pads, giving his friend time to rest and get his head right. Maybe they'd switch and Ron could hold the pads for Harry instead if his concentration wasn't there. Everyone had bad days. 

Ron decided he wanted to talk rather than run drills. "Mione and I had a huge fight. Terrific row. She's not speaking to me." 

Harry set his pads down on the mat. "I'm sorry to hear that, mate. It's never easy." 

He was determined not to offer advice like he usually would. Ron hadn't asked. Through therapy and reflection, Harry recognized that it was a part of his controlling personality to tell people what he thought they ought to do even when they didn't ask for his opinion. He figured they wanted to hear what he had to say—why else would they be talking to him? He learned in therapy that sometimes people needed a sympathetic ear, not a lecture or direction. So he shut his gob tight and waited to see if Ron would speak more or want to go back to training. 

"It was... we've never fought like that. She was right _mad_. I don't even know why. But she said she's not coming to Christmas this year. Mum's heartbroken. Ginny’s already sent me a Howler for ruining everything."

"Uh—" Harry cut himself off. He was about to point out that Hermione not wanting to spend Christmas in Romania with the Weasleys and her ex-boyfriend Viktor who was now seriously dating her current boyfriend’s brother was… rather a rational way to feel. Hermione had toyed with Viktor’s heart on more than one occasion; and now he’d moved on, was genuinely happy with Charlie. That could be fucking awkward for Hermione, who didn’t handle romantic displays of affection particularly well to begin with.

Nebojsa and Dima she didn’t want to be near because they’d broken her trust during one of Harry’s many war-schemes. That conflict was far more cut-and-dry. Mione wouldn’t want to spend the holiday with people whose judgment she didn’t trust. 

It was Hermione's decision to decline spending the holiday with their guest list under Dima’s roof. She thought she had good reasons but, with Ron not knowing what those reasons were, Harry thought better of saying anything. He didn’t want to tip his hand, revealing what wasn’t his to share. It wasn’t his place to discuss with Ron; if Hermione wanted him to know, she’d have told him. So Harry mumbled, "Never mind." 

Ron straightened up. The fact that Harry wasn't immediately instructing him on how to reorganize his life and fix his relationship seemed to surprise him. It wasn't Harry's job to be Ron's moral compass—he got to guide himself, with no more Chosen One interference. 

"Wot? No advice?" 

Harry pulled a long face, his chin dropping. "You didn't ask for my advice. Just tryin' to be supportive. I'm sad that Hermione doesn't wanna come for Christmas, though I can see why the guest list and the location might make her feel uncomfortable. I'm sad the two of you aren't getting on, that she's not speaking at the moment. But I trust you can sort it. You know her better than anyone."

Once, Harry and Hermione had been that tight. They began to drift during fourth year when Hermione started dating and Harry felt left behind, out of the loop because he didn't have the same romantic drives as everyone else. At least, he hadn't understood himself at the time. Hermione going out with Viktor and then Cormac when she had feelings for Ron just confused Harry. He didn't comprehend that she was trying to make Ron jealous, to spark his feelings for her by making herself unavailable. She was doing it again—locking Ron out, punishing him with silence and physical distance, until he behaved the way she wanted him to. 

Harry and Hermione got on alright these days. They had a civil relationship—she showed an interest in helping him solve the mystery of his and Draco's sorcery. Hermione was still adamant about house elf rights, Harry agreeing with many of her points about the skewed relationship dynamics between wizardkind and elves. Now outside of school, the two of them had less and less to talk about. Hermione wasn't musically inclined, she didn't drink much, wasn't interested in quidditch, wasn't sexually active (not that Harry wanted to discuss their sex lives), and she didn't care for the men Harry was closest to. On top of everything, she fundamentally disapproved of most of his recent major life decisions—forgiving and accepting Draco, getting married, coming out. There wasn't much holding their friendship together aside from a common workplace, shared family, and most importantly Ron, their mutual friend for whom they both cared and shared a great deal of fond memories as a trio. Ron was a big reason why Harry and Hermione were still friends after the year they’d had. 

Dr. Beasley said this was part of growing up, leaving school, and coming out in particular; that often school friends drifted apart, especially when one came out as queer and the others were straight. Their life experiences and view-points might continue to diverge as they got older. If it wasn’t for work, he and Ron might have even less in common. Relationships required a supply of new memories, and couldn’t live on nostalgia alone. And it was draining to be around people who thought your life choices were unwise or called your sexual preferences ‘gross.’ Harry could manage to be polite and supportive when it came to Ron and Hermione’s relationship, but deep down he had trouble forgiving the times they hadn’t risen to his side. It was hard to be there for someone who might not return the favor. 

PTSD-conditioning told him to ditch his friends, to give them up because they’d hurt him. But that wasn’t what he wanted deep down. He wanted to salvage his relationship with his two oldest friends if that was possible. He wanted to give them another chance, to ask for their acceptance again, even after they’d let him down. He believed they could all do better this second time around. He wanted to make coming back from the dead worth it in every possible way. 

So he reiterated, “You’re a good man, Ron. And I think you have it in you to be a really good boyfriend, too. You don’t need my help. I’m here to listen, tho.” 

Ron stared at him. He knew Ron wasn’t accustomed to receiving compliments; Ron grew up following orders and being part of a squad of kids… a family. Ron’s childhood ability to follow instructions made him an excellent military man now. When Ron’s mum or brothers weren’t around, he took his orders from his girlfriend, or from Harry. Ron deferred to his superior, the nearest person he trusted and respected, a habit which sometimes cramped the instinct to find his own way.    

Harry was trying to mind out, to keep to his own business, allowing Ron space to make his own decisions by practicing what Dr. Beasley called ‘compassionate detachment.’ Because he did genuinely care about Ron and Hermione’s argument, and he wanted them to have a healthy relationship. He also had to recognize that it wasn’t his place to instruct Ron on how to conduct himself. Ron needed to take responsibility for his role in their argument and find a way to repair the relationship which was authentic to him. Harry needed to focus on himself, his own mental health and failing marriage. He needed boundaries. 

This was all very new. Ron was seeing what therapy could do for a bloke when he wanted to change his ways. 

"Yeah but..." Ron searched for an argument. When he couldn't find a good one, he asked a simple question instead. "What do I do?" 

That was quite clear. Ron wanted his opinion. Reluctantly, Harry offered, "If you fucked up, apologize. Do what's necessary to make it right, and try not to fuck it up again." Seemingly simple advice—Harry knew how difficult that was to put into practice. 

Ron bit his lip in thought. "Wot if making things right means having a holiday with her family and not with mine? I don't wanna spend Christmas apart from my family, and 'Mione almost always comes to ours. If I wasn’t there this year… Mum and Gin... they'd be... I dunno.” That was the closest Ron would come to saying it, but they were all still grieving. Ron was afraid missing Christmas would remind his family too much of Percy being gone—conjuring mental images of him being dead, too. Ron never talked about Percy’s death. Maybe he didn’t know how? All he said was, “I don't wanna let anyone down." 

Harry understood that feeling too well. He lived most of his life terrified of disappointing the people he loved, losing their trust and affection by fucking things up. He managed to fuck everything up anyway, and a lot of people still loved him. All he could offer was, "Do what you think is right." 

"What do _you_ think?" countered Ron. 

Harry didn't think he had any business giving relationship advice being eighteen and on the verge of divorce after less than a year of marriage. He vocalized that with a rational, "I don't have a mum, Ron. Or a sister. And Draco's relatives aren’t around—thank God. This is not my area."

"What would you do if you were me, tho?" Ron didn't want to do his own thinking. Like school he'd rather copy off of Harry's parchment... and Harry copied from Hermione. He and Ron both took their cues from the people around them—Ron from his brothers, and Harry from his revolving door of male mentors: Dumbledore, Sirius, Remus. He wanted each of them to be a kind of dad, but it never worked out. Learning to listen to yourself and trust your instincts took time to develop. Perhaps he and Ron both fell behind in that respect. Leaning on each other emotionally kept them both stunted, preventing them from growing up. 

"Look, I'm not really comfortable giving relationship advice, considering my situation and all."

"Come the fuck on!" Ron actually yelled at him. A few heads turned across the gym. Seeing a pair of heavy-duty, sweaty Hit Wizards in an argument, they immediately minded the fuck out.

When Ron raised his voice, Harry lost his temper, too. He blurted out, "Fine! I'd apologize, even if it wasn't my fault. I'd apologize for making her so mad she didn't wanna talk things out, for my words or behavior which gave her the impression I wouldn't be reasonable enough to keep a conversation going." That was hard-fought knowledge gained through therapy—to realize it wasn't always the subject of the fight that made it so awful, but the feelings hurt, or the tone used, or the cracked sense of unity when you butted heads trying to make the other person see your perspective. 

With a Bipolar spouse, Harry had it that much harder. Hermione’s mind wouldn’t detach from reality if she felt threatened; even steaming angry, she could carry a logical conversation. She’d never pull her wand or a gun on Ron during a fight. He had so much more room for error than Harry did. 

Harry kept on, explaining, "As for Christmas, I'd talk with Molly, see how she actually feels instead of assuming. Plenty of married couples will alternate between their families year-to-year, to make sure they get to see everyone. Your mum knows that, but it's your responsibility to explain what’s going on—not confiding in her hurts her feelings more than you potentially not being there. It’s called compromise: no one's gonna be happy one hundred percent of the time. But the talking... that's critical. Practice by discussing it with your mum and dad, then go to Hermione and start apologizing. If Hermione were my girlfriend, I'd find a way to reopen a dialogue with her, even if I had to get on my knees to make that happen." 

Ron didn't follow. "You're saying I should propose?" 

Harry balked. "No, I meant 'on my knees' like begging for forgiveness. Humility. Apologizing. Kneeling down comes from religion—it’s a way muggles show they’re being sincere. As far as Harry knew, there really wasn’t an equivalent gesture in the wizarding world. “I'd listen to her, try to understand why she got upset—and then agree on what needs to be worked on, how I could help her feel better and make a decision together, as a couple, instead of saying or doing things that make her feel alienated during a disagreement. So she knows that no matter what, even when we don’t see eye-to-eye, we can always talk about it without hurting one another in the process." 

Harry had a bad habit of retaliation—hurting people back after they’d hurt his feelings. He got emotional and lashed out. He’d start with rude words and escalate to violence. He wasn’t taught how to work through his anger in healthy ways, how to ventilate himself without lashing out at the people he loved who surrounded him, trying to help. Ron saw the way Harry got defencive and bitter at every slight and had begun to emulate that behavior.

Harry realized how important good communication was only after it started breaking down in his marriage. He and Draco stopped talking about the things that really mattered—those earnest discussions at two in the morning, drunk or on bathroom floor, being brutally honest with each other. Those moments brought them closer. Harry was too cautious and withholding, worried about any argument triggering a Bipolar episode. And Draco was accustomed to people abandoning him because of those difficult, misunderstood symptoms; so he hid himself away, failed to reach out when he needed it. They stopped talking about the important stuff, and that was when the problems started. The war made them honest. Without death threats hovering over their heads, they forgot how to relate. 

Tilting his head, Ron almost smiled. "See? I think that's the advice I was lookin' for from my married friend." Ron realized he'd hit a nerve with that. "I mean! My, uh...." 

Harry spoke so Ron wouldn't have to. "My marriage isn't exactly on the rails right now. Maybe you oughta ask your mum and dad for relationship advice instead of me. They've been together longer than we’ve been alive. Their marriage survived seven kids and two major wars. I bet they've patched up more fights than Draco and I have ever had. When you need help, it's best to talk to people who've been successful at what you're trying to do, not the ones who've failed." 

"Oi," Ron softy exclaimed. "Don't say you've failed, mate. It's just... a rough patch, you know?" 

Ron was really good at comforting people. It was a skill he learned from his parents. They were loving people. He ought to be learning from them instead. Harry was a shit model.  

"I appreciate that," Harry acknowledged. "Thanks. But I know I fucked up, major. And I might not get a chance to make things right. Pride is… not a particularly useful thing in a relationship. If you want to be successful as a boyfriend or a husband someday, I suggest learning to take it off. Leaving your pride at the front door keeps you honest."

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry received a request for a meeting from Hamid Gamaal, the properties manager Draco inherited from his father. Gamaal apologized for contacting Harry ahead of Draco. All-in-all, that was likely for the best. Draco might not have taken the meeting. 

They arranged to meet at The Three Broomsticks after Harry was done with work. He wasn’t the only one wearing muggle clothes, but the dingy old pub was still overwhelmingly populated by bodies in proper wizard wear, robes and pointed hats occupying most of the tables. Harry was more comfortable in a suit, his tie loosened, unwrapping his scarf from around his face after brushing snow from his hair and the shoulders of his wool coat. 

People whispered when they recognized The Boy Who Lived; their reactions still bothered him but he’d learned to acknowledge those emotions—the frustration and exhaustion he felt—without allowing his feelings to overrun him and ruin his mood. Strangers didn’t get the privilege of effecting him anymore. 

"Just a Butterbeer," he ordered, sitting down next to Gamaal at the bar. He'd eat at home. Perhaps he was a bit spoiled, but he liked Misha's cooking more than he enjoyed the food at the Leaky. Hopefully Sia would be back soon, and he and Harry could cook together again.

Gamaal showed Harry quotes he had from magic contractors, recommending renovations to the structure and appearance of four shops Draco owned in Diagon Alley. Right now, each shop was either empty or its renters had abandoned it during the war and failed to return… meaning the Potters were losing money. Gamaal wanted to clean the properties up to attract new renters.

Looking over the contractor's notes, Harry sighed. One of the renters they'd lost was Quality Quidditch Supply, his favorite shop. There were two additional facilities in Horizont Alley, much larger buildings, which had been empty for as long as Harry could remember. They were almost too large to be a shop, better suited as something like a warehouse or museum. Gamaal's contractor recommended splitting the larger spaces into smaller, more manageable parcels which wouldn't command as high of rent, making them more accessible to start-up businesses with lower budgets. 

The fourth empty building made Harry very sad—it was Ollivanders. He had no idea the shop was leased and not owned. The idea of Garrick Ollivander still hiding in America, abandoning his shop _and_ piling up debt for it... that broke Harry's heart. Of course he would forgive the debt. But the condition of the shop put a lump in his throat. Ollivander’s had been one of his first introductions to the magical world. Reading the contractor’s notes choked him up.

Rather than speak from a place of sadness, Harry looked for a silver lining. "This is great work, Mr. Gamaal. I appreciate you taking the initiative to get quotes for the work before bringing this to me. That's excellent, well done." 

Lucius Malfoy _never_ would've praised his staff for doing something like this—having ideas of their own, interfering with his business, or the audacity of suggesting he spend his precious gold making something better for other people. As long as Harry was doing the opposite of that icy bastard, he knew he was on the right path. He might not make gobs of money for Draco but... this was the kind of man he wanted to be. His honor was more important to him than their profit margins. 

"I approve the work for the property that was Quality Quidditch: we have to get the interior set up more like a normal shop if it's going to rent again. That seems clear to me. Let's also do one of the two larger facilities in Horizont Alley as a test. If it rents successfully as smaller units, then we'll renovate the second one in the same way. As for Ollivanders..." He paused to sip his Butterbeer, deciding how best to put it. The sweet liquid slid down his throat, hitting his empty stomach, tiding him over. "Let's just say I know something you don't. So please go forward with the basics—thorough cleaning, inventory, repair the roof before the snow can make things worse, and the new door." The existing door had been vandalized. Harry agreed it needed to be replaced immediately, before someone attempted to break in and steal valuable stock. "All of that looks good. But leave the signage. Let's pretend like Ollivander's coming back, shall we?" 

Gamaal leaned forward, his eyes widening. "You're saying Garrick Ollivander is _alive_?"

Harry tipped his head from side-to-side, lips pressed, non-committal. "I'm saying... I might have a wandmaker to put in that space. Maybe it's Ollivander, or maybe it's someone new. Either way, the alley needs more than Kiddells. I'll see to it. 

“But while I have you here,” Harry transitioned, setting his drink aside. “I’d like to ask for your opinion—and perhaps a small trip, something you might look into as a favor to me? Call it a potential investment."

Gamaal’s heavy brows lifted, still surprised that Harry trusted him and would ask for his opinion before making decisions or issuing edicts. Gamaal was an authority in his field, yet didn’t see himself as such. Working under Lucius Malfoy had squashed his confidence. It took space, time, and trust to build that back.

“I’m listening, Mr. Potter. Where’s the property? And how might I be of service?”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Early one morning, Blaise discovered a blood-spattered tee in the middle of his living room. His friend’s lad-size trainers had been kicked off and left wonky by the front door. 

“Draco?” he called out. 

He heard a scuffle from the loo. It was his bloody flat, so he pushed the door open without knocking. With that amount of blood, courtesy and privacy were the last things on his mind. His brain went right to wondering whether he could Side-Along Draco to St. Mungo’s—he wasn’t a strong Apparator and rarely had reason to drag a second body along. He didn’t want to cause any more damage. Blood made him queezy. 

Blaise stood frozen in the doorway. “What the fuck, mate?” 

Draco had blood on his face, smeared, resembling a handprint across his mouth and cheek. And a good amount of sweat had him soaked through his joggers. He lay shirtless on the floor as though he’d collapsed between the sink and shower. He had the presence of mind to ball up the bath mat and use it as a pillow. 

At first glance, Blaise didn’t recognize his body. Draco’s overall shape hadn’t changed but… his skin. His _scars_. He was covered in mottling, marked presumably from head to foot. There was a great chunk taken out of his side by an animal’s jaws; it healed over coral-pink, the skin shiny and stretched. It would never be the same. Beneath the slashing scars, the jaws and cigarette burns, were Draco’s bones—his ribs protruding, a bit of muscle left on his arms but not that much. He’d been lighting on the pitch last winter; now… there was barely enough of him to fly and not get taken off by a breeze. Without his shirt, he looked rather ill. 

Draco never watched his figure except to lament that he wasn’t getting any taller as the years went by. He was always more slender than lean, never packing on much muscle even after making the qudditch team. He was perhaps naturally predisposed to thinness. Draco loathed the gay stereotype of ‘twink.’ But at eighteen years old, a twink was exactly what he was. He barely looked legal to drink. His body was impossibly young, but broken beneath his clothes. The sight of blood on his angular face didn’t help. 

“I… went for a run,” Draco admitted, stuffy. He wouldn’t make eye contact.

Blaise scoffed. “Like hell you did. Since when do you run?” 

“I wanted ta’ clear my head.” 

“Did you _hit_ your head?” Because there was an alarming amount of blood—like he’d been jumped, his face bashed into a wall hard enough to fracture his nose and cause a bleed. But there were no visible injuries anywhere on Draco’s small body. His nose wasn’t crooked, lips weren’t split, and he didn’t have blood in his pale hair. Whatever happened, he must’ve able to heal himself… even without a wand. 

Draco’s legendary temper flared, snapping back, “I fuckin’ tripped, alright!?” 

Blaise didn’t exactly believe that. Draco was known to lie—especially to cover his scrawny arse when he’d made a mistake, or felt threatened. He had a flimsy relationship with the truth, preferring to twist his words to match the way he saw things in his head. Bipolar Disorder, Potter called it. It was something, at least, to have a name to put to this sad thing which he’d always known about his friend. 

Blaise kept his voice light, casual, banally inquisitive. “Why’d you trip?”

“Thought I was being followed.”

After a deep breath, Blaise lowered himself to squat between Draco’s ankles, staring at him. “Mate… did you honestly believe Potter would let you run away? Out here on your own? The night you turned up, I got a notice from our Ministry,” meaning the Italian magical government. “American Field Operatives, a squad of them, permitted to enter the country. _Your_ personal bodyguards. They’ve been tailing you ever since. They’ll only intervene if you’re in trouble… the ‘wand’ kinda trouble, not the ‘skirt’ kind.”

Draco swore. Wildly and profusely.

He’d always had a mouth on him. That was what happened when staff raised kids—you heard things you weren’t supposed to repeat, younger than you ought to hear it, and no one had the authority to punish or stop you when you started mimicking the help. Blaise’s mother was a neoteric witch, quite modern in her ideas. She insisted on raising her only child herself, spending the majority of each day with him, teaching him spells and languages and other useful skills. Draco never had that. He didn’t meet his own father until he was nearly six years old, and his mother suffered from a severe depression after Draco was born, avoiding the sight of him for years. That lack of contact formed Draco into an emotionally and intellectually distant person. 

Draco swore so much because that was what he heard from the maids who cleaned and kept the Manor, muttering to themselves as they worked, believing they were alone. Draco kept swearing more and more boldly as it garnered him the attention he wanted from others. Then he took up swearing in French when he met his first girlfriend, Margaux, then Philippe… emulating his trysts, the older witch and wizard he admired so. 

Philippe crushed Draco, and he was never really the same after. His spark turned bitter. He became obsessed with the Death Eaters, focused on proving himself and gaining power. He started drinking a lot more, sneaking out of Wiltshire to party, and generally fucking about. All because he didn’t want to get hurt again. 

Most of Draco’s habits were intended to keep people away—perhaps subconsciously so, or perhaps not. If Draco wasn’t drunk or stoned, he could be miserable to be around. Maybe that was from his Bipolar, too? 

Draco’s tantrum was far from over. But when he stopped for air, Blaise interjected, “Were you attacked in November? Before you came here?” 

He was met with sullen silence. Yes, Draco had been targeted. 

“Were you?” Blaise pressed, wanting to hear his mate speak the truth for a change. “Did you leave Potter high-and-dry after some kind of battle, and come here, drawing Death Eater attention to _my fucking home?_ ” 

Draco stared at the ceiling. “I…” His sharp chin wagged but his words were sluggish. “It’s not like that—” 

Blaise was sick of it. And he lost his cool. “What’s it like, Draco? Because you didn’t tell me a damn thing! You drank all my whisky and passed out. Meanwhile Potter—a bloody Hit Wizard—thinks you need professional bodyguards if he’s not around. He owled me, too; asked me to look out for you. What does he know that I don’t, Draco? Because it seems like all you do is lie to me!” 

Perhaps raising his voice to Draco wasn’t the brightest idea. He did, at least, learn how Draco got all that blood on him. 

His friend sat up, murder in his eyes for being called out—called a liar, which he surely was. Had been his entire life. But this was an anger Blaise had never witnessed before. Gathered around Draco’s hand was a sorcerer’s wandless magic comprised of his own blood. It swirled, suspended above his palm, gathering into a dripping crimson ball. He looked about to throw it at Blaise for calling him untrue. 

A wind out of nowhere pressed Blaise’s shirt against his back, moving the shower curtain, swaying the towels, ruffling the messy ends of Draco’s white-blond hair—an invisible demon playing with his locks. Draco was conjuring it, the strength of his anger manifested. Heat swirled, gathering around Draco’s narrow body, joining with the blood magic gathering at his hand. 

Blaise put his palms up in surrender. Carefully, he stood, backing out of the loo doorway. Draco’s eyes followed him—not silver but glowing red, like some enchanted beast in a rage. That gaze was some kind of magic beyond human. 

“Answer one question,” Blaise whispered, testing his luck. “Am I in danger?” 

A delicately ominous shake of Draco’s head. Despite the fire in his eyes, his voice was absolutely cold-blooded. “No. But you’re calling the most powerful sorcerer in the world a bloody liar. Watch it. Don’t meddle with things you don’t understand. It doesn’t end well.” And he held up his hand, as though the magic coursing through him was proof.  

When he released it, the ball of blood lost its shape; disenchanted, it collapsed, flowing over his hand, dripping through his fingers onto the tile. _That_ was why he was covered in blood. He hadn’t used that magic on anyone—rather, spooked and cross at the sneaking suspicion he was being followed by his actual bodyguards, his magic came to life to defend himself… just like a child’s would. 

The American bodyguards weren’t here to keep Draco safe. He could defend himself with that… whatever dark brand of sorcery it was currently leaking over Blaise’s floor. The guards were here because Draco couldn’t entirely control it. If he got too drunk, or angry, or panicked, it could come out—and Draco might not be able to conceal his sorcery in time. The only danger Draco faced was accidentally breaking the International Statute of Secrecy if this magic of his slipped out at the wrong time. 

This gift of sorcery was how a fumbling wanker like Harry Potter managed to kill the most powerful Dark wizard of all time. And somehow he’d given that power to Draco—the bloke currently sitting half-naked on Blaise’s loo floor with blood on him, looking scared and exhausted, his eyes fixed through a thin layer of red… staring down through the blood at the one thing he refused to take off: his wedding ring.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

A cramped little space—long and narrow, not much wider than the door—filled with brooms, mops, and jugs of cleaning supplies on heavy metal shelving units. Harry knew it by the worn linoleum floor, by the shadows, by its dusty lemon-chemical smell. This was the janitor's closet at his primary school. He'd spent a portion of his life hiding in that closet from Dudley and his gang, concocting fantasies of his future life in his head. 

Except this time he wasn't the one hiding. He was a ghost, invisible, floating in that tight space... watching the two wizards who hid there now. 

Dmitry—topless and tied up, black ropes holding his arms behind his back, the bindings crossing over his chest and secured to the metal shelf behind him. And Draco, a hand over Dima's thick throat, biting a path down his bare muscled chest as his other hand—still wearing his wedding ring—worked at the button and fly of Dima's ubiquitous cargo shorts. 

"Don't stop," Dima begged, falling into Romanian. " _Vă rog_." Politely, _p_ _lease._ He was begging, pleading with Draco to keep going, not to stop this torture—not for anything. 

" _We have to be quiet, baby_ ," Draco hissed back. Nobody but Draco would have the stones to call Dmitry his baby. Perhaps no one but Draco could get away with it. " _Can’t you keep yer fuckin' mouth shut when I'm havin' my way with you?_ " 

He took a moment to suck at Dima's nipple, dragging it between his teeth until the larger wizard bit back a moan—physically biting his own lips to keep the sound in. He wanted so badly to comply, to keep his voice down, but he couldn't help it. Not when Draco hurt him the way he liked. And certainly not when Draco got into his pants—a pale, articulate-fingered hand wrapping with practiced pressure around his hard prick. 

If Dima wasn't tied to the heavy shelving unit, he would've gone down. He'd be a puddle on the floor, his knees worth nothing. Draco's touch was that good. 

Draco pressed his face into Dima's chest. He wanted to experience every gasp, to own the desperation he created with the touch of his hand. He gave a few slow tugs, starting to jerk Dima off. Dmitry was helpless under his touch—tied up, head thrown back, lost to Draco's hands on him. 

"Don't," Harry tried to say. "Stop it!" But he didn't have a voice. He was nothing but a spirit, an invisible spectator. He had no say over what they did in that cupboard. It was their space, not his. Or rather, it was Draco's. He was dominant. This was his room. He owned it. Draco was in charge. He took what he wanted. And he wanted to make Dima beg, squirm, writhe, before he was permitted to come.

Harry had done this to Draco. A thousand times in a thousand different permutations. And Draco wanted to do it to Dima—to find that madness together, hand tightening over his throat until his handsome face went red, until he fought his bindings, fought for his freedom. Draco was this good at it because he knew the other side. He knew all about being tied up, hurt and made helpless. He understood exactly what Dima needed because, with Harry, Draco needed it too. 

With a snap of magic and metal, the shelf split. Dima was free, the ropes gone, vanished by wandless wanton magic as his huge Aethonan wings burst from his back, knocking cleaning supplies every-which-way. Tan and cream-colored feathers filled the small space, taking over. 

In that much more pain from the partial transformation, Dmitry wrapped his wings around Draco; strong arms holding him, too, easily lifting Draco off his feet. Their lips crushed, kissing, as Dima put Draco's back to the opposite wall, holding him perfectly safe in a cradle of feathers, soft against his back with hard muscles pressing chest-to-chest. Draco didn’t seem to mind, winding his long legs around Dima’s hips. 

Tongues fought when words failed. Crackling magic made the air around them sharp. Dima could barely breathe, and he didn't care. Because Draco was kissing him, touching him, about to make him come. 

Draco was smiling, a wicked grin turning the corners of his mouth as he sucked on Dima's lips, as he jerked him off at an increasing, relentless pace. Powerful, Draco peeled Dima’s mouth off of his—holding the Romanian prince back by his throat, fingers digging, staring into his eyes. For the first time, silver ruled over gold. 

"You escaped,” Draco seethed, identifying disobedience. “You defied me. Am I supposed to reward that? _You think you deserve to come for me, ssssssslave?_ "

 

 

 

 

Harry started awake. His eyes flew open, his heart banging out a strangled pattern in his throat. 

He was hard. He wanted to hit something. Or possibly kill someone. 

No... he was feeling a great many things, but lethality wasn’t one of them. He wanted to wash his brain—to get rid of the images his traitorous, twisted psyche had conjured up. What the fuck was wrong with him? Why was he dreaming about his husband dominating his friend? 

His friend who lay next to him, snuggled down with his head beneath the blankets, sound asleep. Dima and Sia had come back from Romania late last night, crawling quietly into bed with him. Maybe he dreamed about Dima by proximity, because he came back? 

That dream scared Harry to his bones. It frightened him because dominance was a part of Draco—something he didn't always get to indulge with Harry. Draco would enjoy having an actual submissive like Dmitry to have his way with, someone who truly enjoyed being wailed on, tortured, degraded and talked down to. Draco gave that up when he married Harry Potter. And a part of Harry was concerned, wondering how much Draco missed that—the freedom to tap into his sexually sadistic side with a willing sub.

Harry wasn't submissive. Nor was he dominant in the same ways as Draco. He was just physically aggressive, deeply passionate, hedonistic at times, and preferred to catch more often than not. He didn't know what that was called. Not having an accurate name for himself made things that much harder to figure out. 

Draco's labels were very clear. With anyone but Harry, Draco was a heavily sadistic, dominant, verbally abusive top. 

Dima was submissive, one hell of a masochist, and strictly a bottom. In that light, it made sense that Harry's fractured subconscious imagined them together. After all, Dmitry was everything Draco really wanted in a sex partner: divorced from social norms, non-monogamous, truly kinky, and welcoming of anything Draco might dish out no matter how sick or twisted. On top of which Dima wouldn't pile expectations and morals onto Draco the way Harry did. Dima might not say anything if Draco called somebody a mudblood, if he had sex with a muggle and then modified their memory. That sort of thing was normal according to their shared early-life experiences. Dima might not intervene if Draco killed someone except to help him clean up and not get caught. Dmitry took his cues from his dominant, trusting completely. As the son of Tihomir Ionescue, Dima could've become a high-ranking Death Eater due to his custom of following orders without question; as Nebojsa's boyfriend, he was far better off. Whomever held his reigns influenced his conscience, and thereby dictated his actions. 

At times, Dmitry didn’t want to think for himself. That was perfect for Draco, who loved ordering others about; he got pleasure from watching them do his bidding. Harry and his husband butted heads because, increasingly, Harry would not be pushed around or goaded into a reaction. That lack of tit-for-tat took the fun out of it for Draco. 

Dima offered freedom, where a relationship with Harry was nothing but chains, regulations, and a lifetime under scrutiny with open public distaste.

Maybe with a truly submissive wizard like Dmitry... Draco stood a chance at being himself, and being happy. Harry was afraid that, given a choice now, Draco might choose Dima over him. That fear of his husband abandoning him was why he felt sick to his stomach. It had nothing to do with Dima, and everything to do with Harry’s own insecurities.

Harry had a similar dream last year. Draco had started blowing him in his sleep, and a part of his brain had conjured an image of Dima, Misha, and Sia holding him down. That dream had sprung from fear, too: if Harry was attracted to one bloke, did that mean all blokes were now within the realm of possibility? And would he become a target for violence, or less respected, or even silenced because he was in a same-gender relationship? Those were his worries at the time, and they manifested in a nightmare play in which his friends raped him. 

That was never gonna happen. He'd lived with them, gotten ridiculously drunk and done dumb things with them, but everything they did was always explicitly consensual. And it would never be sexual. Harry didn't want to be sexual with anyone but Draco, and his friends respected his decision.  

Now his brain was scaring him awake again while processing a new fear—that he and Draco weren't as sexually compatible as he'd always believed. That despite their chemistry, maybe he hadn't ever been enough for Draco. That Draco might be happier with someone else who offered a better balance to his very dominant tendencies. Dima was the only submissive bloke Harry knew. And Draco himself admitted to finding Dima attractive. So Harry's anxious, insecure brain substituted Dmitry as Draco's new lover because he embodied that hyper-masculine, sexually submissive role—Dima was exactly what Draco might want in his next partner now that he was free from Harry Potter's many stupid rules.

And the meaning behind his old hiding closet at school? A mix of influences: his and Draco's habit of getting off in broom cupboards at Hogwarts, and a metaphor for their interests in BDSM having to remain a secret, something they did in private. Dima was literally in the closet... and that was what Draco preferred in his male partners, anyway. Dmitry acted like a typical straight bloke—even more-so than Harry—and that turned Draco on. Draco wasn’t into flamboyant men; he was attracted to less verbal types, athletes or intellectuals, and preferably _very_ closeted. 

Harry finally learned the word for what Draco was: an androphile. It meant attraction to traditionally masculine attributes and qualities. It was a sexual preference, but also influenced by homophobia, subtly implying that gay men who are more androgynous, feminine, fluid or non-conforming were not as desirable, or "less" as men. For gay and bi men, androphilia was often rooted in a desire for safety and security, wanting to "pass" as straight when out with their partner in public. Affiliating with non-conforming people like Sia, or out guys like Harry, meant increased risk of violence. Draco’s preference for butch blokes might’ve evolved as a form of self-protection—the same way he always had Crabbe and Goyle as a buffer during school. Draco grew up terrified of being outed, and did whatever was necessary to hide his true self. 

The secrecy of a confined public space, a chance of being walked in on, of offending muggles, the sense of doing something forbidden, and the irony of screwing in a literal closet... Draco would get off to that in real life. All of it. 

Harry never mastered the art of providing that heart-pounding feeling for his spouse to revel in—to initiate sex in semi-public places, or to manufacture a sense of danger in an otherwise safe situation so that Draco could pretend and fulfill his fantasy sex life. Instead, it was Draco who always initiated it—they'd rimmed, blown, and then screwed their brains out on top of a baby grand piano, and back at Hogwarts Draco had engineered a way to fuck on a broomstick... and their wedding reception, Draco telling Harry in filthy detail what he wanted done to him in that semi-public storage cupboard... quick blowjobs in alleyways or public loos where anyone could see them... or in the back of Leon's Charger, Draco taking charge, singing and laughing, touching himself, teasing Harry psychologically until he snapped, desperately horny, admitting he wanted it just as bad. 

Draco knew how to make sex _feel_ dangerous. Exciting. That was one of his skills as a dominant. Draco showed Harry a hundred different times and a hundred different ways how it was done. Harry never picked up on that, never realized that a drop of danger in their sex life was something Draco craved. The war manufactured it for them—a constant deluge of terror—so Harry never really had to do it consciously. It could be done in a safe and controlled way. Harry never caught on that a brush with the forbidden was something Draco seriously got off on, expecting his spouse to appreciate a slow and comfortable screw at home in their own bed just as much as Harry did. That wasn't Draco. Comfort and stability didn’t turn him on. Danger and fear, on the other hand… _those_ heart-pounding frights got his blood pumping and his prick rock hard. 

A real relationship with The Boy Who Lived was, for someone like Draco, the most forbidden fruit of all. And he'd tasted it. Harry forgot to give his husband more of the taboo peril he craved. 

Harry slammed a pillow over his face, pressing until the world went dark. It was before dawn, the light in the flat weak to begin with—composed of streetlights and the occasional headlight reflecting off of nearby buildings. London was never really dark, and never quiet. He’d slowly adjusted to the noise which surrounded him. 

For a pair of night owls, Dima and Nebojsa rose absurdly early—often before the sun touched the horizon. Or rather, sometimes Dima didn't sleep at all. It took about a week of sharing a bed for Harry to realize his friend had a clinical case of Insomnia. Sometimes Dmitry didn’t sleep for days at a time. When he did sleep, it was obvious: Dmitry snored. He was doing it now; the occasional dry, nasal rasp in his breathing as he slept. 

On the nights he couldn’t fall sleep, Dima would wait for Nebojsa to wake up, sitting there patiently like some kind of pet... which was a bit creepy. Nebojsa didn't seem perturbed, though. After nearly nine years of friendship and more than five of those years as a couple, he'd probably forgotten that Dima's behavior wasn't always normal. 

Harry knew how possible it was to forget what "normal" looked like. The last seven years of his life had re-trained him not to expect anything rational or reasonable. And with magic involved? All bets were off. 

His friends were the same. Their threshold of tolerance for weird shit was just so much higher than even most other magical people. Dmitry was like Mad Eye Moody, if Alastor ever had a partner like Nebojsa who accepted him exactly as he was. And maybe that was why they were so uniquely _good_ at being fiends with Draco? They could accept his Bipolar, his sudden mood shifts and child-like tantrums because, in the grander scheme of things, Draco’s behavior wasn’t that off considering the life he’d lived. With Dima and Sia, Draco’s symptoms were accepted as a part of him, how he’d survived. They didn’t expect him to be normal because they weren’t, either. 

Harry woke up with his best mates, snug between them. That too was normal after a few weeks. He didn’t realize how typical this group-sleeping practice had become to him until the days they’d been away. Harry had missed them. A lot. 

Three not-precisely-straight blokes kipping in a bed together... dressed more or less in their pants. It wasn’t what most people would call ‘normal.’ Physically and emotionally, Harry felt great. But his Surrey-raised brain begged him to explain how this was okay. 

 _Nobody’s got me by the prick, here_ , Harry reassured himself. _Nobody’s touching my arse. We’re not snogging_ —though Dima and Sia might do stuff later, when Harry wasn't around. It was okay. Just because Dima was gay, Sia was bi, and Harry was... whatever he was... didn't mean anything sexual would happen. Friends could hold each other for no good reason. And friends could hold each other because one of them was going through a nasty separation and needed the emotional support to get through the night. That was definitely okay. 

He was reacting with disbelief because, before Draco, he'd never had another bloke, a peer in his life, from whom he'd accept comfort and affection. He struggled to accept that he deserved love—to be shown by his mates how much they cared about him. Harry wouldn’t have accepted a cuddle from most other people. Dima, Sia, and Misha too had won his trust on the battlefield. It was a bit fucked up that Harry couldn’t really accept someone’s affection unless they’d been in some punch-up or duel together. 

Harry gathered that, like him, his mates preferred to sleep naked. They put on shirts and shorts for his comfort. Nebojsa even went out and bought a pair of pajamas. They recognized what Harry needed, and what his boundaries would be in accepting their affection. He could hug, kiss cheeks, or sleep together in a pile, but… because of his deep loyalty to his husband, this type of touching—body-to-body—could only happen with clothes on. 

They were sharing a bed, being close, keeping each other level… and that was all. Comfort and loving, platonic human contact. 

Dima wasn't much for talking when it came to deep feelings or hard situations—he was strictly a physical affection person; so said the warm head wedged behind Harry, breathing against his spine. Dima slid down the bed in his sleep, worming all the way under the covers. He disappeared under the blankets like a little kid. The better to wake up warm and cozy and start blowing his boyfriend, Harry supposed.

Harry's arse was in the way of that happening. So he pushed himself up onto all fours, maneuvering over Nebojsa to be the first to the loo. For some reason, they always fell asleep with Harry in the middle.

Misha wouldn't be up until later in the day, after Harry and Sia had left for work. Dima would often fall back asleep after spending the waking moments with Sia; once he got to sleep, it was hard to convince him to get out of bed, as though he were catching up for all the hours he’d missed.

Nebojsa on the other hand was steadfast in his routine: a quick workout, fuck Dima in the shower, and get dressed in his most polite muggle clothes. Sia still went to church almost every day, knowing what they thought of him for being in love with another man. Maybe he thought God would forgive his flock for being so petty when the day of their judgment arrived. Harry understood finding comfort in ritual, routine, going back to a place which didn’t always love or support you—that was Hogwarts for him, his own church and faith. He could still think well of the castle and everyone in it despite his horrible memories there.

His friends had sex almost every morning, and they were very good about putting up Silencing Charms and Privacy Wards. They only forgot two or three times over the entire summer—which was an impressive track record considering how often he gathered they fucked. At least once a day if not more, like he and Draco used to. Based on what Harry heard, he more or less knew that Nebojsa was a strict top; he did the fucking, and he got his dick sucked, with almost no reversal of those roles. 

Harry flushed at the thought, his cheeks turning pink as he hovered on his hands and knees over Sia, paused for no reason when he'd intended to slip past the sleeping Serb to use the loo. 

Nebojsa was a heavy sleeper. The sound of his mobile ringing or an ambulance driving by couldn't wake him—that tolerance for noise was a side effect of growing up in a big city. So Harry knew he was safe to land a quick kiss to his friend’s forehead without disturbing him. Sia always kissed Harry's forehead to say goodbye during the war; cool fingers against his cheeks, the pads of his smallest fingers under Harry's jaw bone, tilting his face up to receive the blessing gesture. Nebojsa did that as a way to say Harry deserved love and affection, his outright care, even if he'd gotten it so rarely before. Like Sia could kiss away every grown-up who'd ever done him wrong. 

He couldn’t help but kiss Nebojsa’s forehead the same way. 

Harry still didn't know what was wrong with Nebojsa. He could sense something under the surface, something disrupting the calm he projected like dark seaweed beneath the surface of moving water. He knew it was there, but he couldn’t make out what it was. Even asleep, Nebojsa's brow furrowed. He didn't look comfortable until Harry touched him. As though Harry's contact brought him peace he couldn't find no matter how many churches he prayed in. 

Harry dragged Dima over to take his place against Sia, keeping each other warm. They could wake up alone together—screw in their own bed if they wanted. 

Increasingly, Harry attended morning vespers with Nebojsa. The music was soothing. He managed to participate under a Translation Charm, using Draco's ear to keep himself close-enough to on-pitch for morning service. He even thought he might be getting better at reading music. Practice, he supposed. 

He didn’t feel like going to church with Nebojsa that morning. Some time alone felt right. 

Standing, Harry looked back at his friends. He could sense that, in spite of everything, they were happy. They found a way, figured it out as they went. He needed to do the same, to convert the love and patience he had for his spouse and apply a little of that to himself for a change.

He couldn’t keep leaning on them; it wasn’t fair to them or good for him. Focusing on his friends allowed Harry to ignore his own life. He had to let go… to get used to the idea of operating independently, being on his own. In eighteen years, Harry had only lived alone for a few weeks, training before the war broke out. He never learned how to be by himself. So when Draco left, he fell back on what he knew—surrounding himself with people who loved him and agreed with him, allowing them to perform the labor or leveling him, comforting him, because he never figured out how to do it for himself. It was time he learned for himself. Only… it was hard to let go when he felt so loved. 

This morning he wrote a note for the guys—that he was going for a long jog, and not to wait for him to go about their morning. Otherwise they'd be sitting there unsure when he'd be back; if he'd want breakfast, if he'd need the shower. His friends were a shining example of anxious co-dependence born of surviving terrible abuse and war. The way they stuck together was admirable and incredibly loving, but it wasn't normal. People only loved that deeply, that fiercely, when they'd come within a second of losing everything. 

Harry understood that kind of love more than he'd care to admit.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry spread his arms, indicating his work clothes. “This alright?” 

Glancing back over his shoulder—as though he didn’t remember what Harry had worn at the office all day—Nebojsa shook his head. “Casual,” he corrected. 

“Fine, I’ll change.” 

His friend wouldn’t tell him where they were going. It was nearly dinner time; Harry could only hope there’d be food involved. He plucked an apple off the kitchen counter and munched on that to hold himself over. Nebojsa went into the laundry room next to the loo, hunting a clean shirt out of the dryer. Harry quickly changed out of his suit jacket, vest, tie and dress shirt—holding the apple in his mouth—keeping his undershirt but swapping out for a jumper, his leather jacket, and a thick scarf Hermione knit for him once she gave up forcing her projects onto unsuspecting house elves in an effort to free them against their wishes. 

Harry wasn’t a house elf. He accepted Hermione’s scarf because he didn’t have that many, and his friend had made it so it was special. Unlike a house elf, Harry could say ‘no’ to Hermione, Nebojsa, or anyone else. He could wear what he liked or say he didn’t want to go to whatever this was. He went along not because he felt beholden, but because he was a forever-curious being. 

When Nebojsa came back in a fresh shirt, Harry held his arms out again, showing himself for inspection after removing the apple from his mouth with a _crunch_. He inquired through his teeth, his mouth full: “Good?” 

Nebojsa approved, and they went off, taking the tube. 

It was a strange experience for Harry not to know where the hell he was going—like a Side-Along Apparition in very slow motion. He wanted to know where they’d end up but unlike the immediate gratification of magic, he had to wait and see. The slow pay-off was infuriating. 

“You really won’t tell me where we’re going?” he whined on the way. He wasn’t trying, but his voice came out in Serbian. 

The train was standing-room-only at dinner time. Being six feet, they each braced a hand against the carriage’s ceiling for balance, people cramming in from all sides, flowing in and out as they stopped at each station. The usual rush hour crush. 

Nebojsa sucked on the black ring pierced through his lip, leaning close to propose, “Trust me? If you don’t like it, we can leave.” 

Harry figured as much, but it was nice to hear all the same.

 

 

 

 

Sia lured him to a pub—a tidy, polite sort of place off of Highgate Station, roughly twenty minutes north of Grimmauld Place. From his proper home, they could’ve taken the Northern line directly there. The pub offered table service rather than the standard order-at-the-bar set up, which meant they had a hostess to seat patrons. 

Beside the hostess stood a tall man who very likely did not work for the pub. Harry first noticed the flecks of silver in his precision-trimmed caramel-brown beard. He wore a well-treated leather jacket sewn with patches and insignia. The jacket left him looking more like an American biker than a Brit. Harry imagined there might be some image of a skull or other insignia on the back. 

The second Nebojsa stepped through the door, this man recognized him, a huge smile splitting his bearded face. 

Neither of them spoke any sort of greeting, which Harry found unusual; no ‘hello,’ no ‘good to see you,’ not even each other’s names in acknowledgement. Though they clearly knew each other, and this man was pleased to see Sia. 

The Serb tipped his head at the hostess, making the universal gesture of ‘Thanks but we don’t need to be seated, we’ll make our own way.’ To the tall chap who recognized him, he remarked softly in English, “See yoo in.” And that was it. 

Sia slipped a loose arm around Harry’s back to get him moving. Through to the rear of the pub, there was a function room with the doors shut, a sign posted for a _Private Event_. Nebojsa opened the door for Harry. 

Inside were three long tables arranged to a U-shape with chairs only along the outside edge, not unlike a debate or council meeting, suggesting the people idling about the room intended to sit down at some point and conduct a more formal chat. 

Harry took a quick assessment of the gathering. First to his notice was the fact they were all men. Some his age, most in their thirties or forties, with a few more senior white-hairs among them. They were nearly every race represented. A majority of them had strong bearings; proper posture with feet planted and eyes alert, standing with their shoulders squared and hands at their sides or clasped behind their backs, never stuffed in pockets or fidgeting. Most were in good shape, and few with glasses. Short hair cuts were also popular, or styled neatly with hair products. 

There were a few men with softer body language. One such chap couldn’t have been more than twenty—he stood by the door waiting to take their coats for them, a clothing rack with hangers behind him. He didn’t work for the pub. He was volunteering out of the group to take coats. 

Nebojsa peeled off his leather bomber jacket, handing it over. The young man accepted it like it was priceless, placing it delicately on a hanger and giving Sia a corresponding token in return, a number to be sure he received the proper garment when it was time to leave. Giving Sia this bit of plastic, he bowed his head with a kind of reverence, as though he were honored to have the privilege of touching Nebojsa’s possessions. Like the bearded man at the door, he wore a leather vest with similar patches, and he too didn’t say a word. 

They were like some very strange, secret, adult-men’s scouting society—complete with rules and rituals which Harry couldn’t comprehend. He was reminded of attending the Headless Hunt, the feeling of being the only mortals in a room full of ghosts. Except he and Sia were secret sorcerers in a room of muggle men.

After watching Nebojsa go first, Harry repeated the process, divesting himself of his own jacket and forking it over, his scarf stuffed up his coat sleeve for safe-keeping. 

Not speaking was more difficult than he anticipated. As the young man took his jacket, Harry’s manners compelled him to make eye contact and say a quick, “Thank you.”

Big eyes looked up at him, the chap appearing to hold his breath. If Harry wasn’t mistaken, he might actually cry. His eyes were alarmingly wet, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. He handed Harry his token with a shaky hand, then abruptly turned on his heel, looking for someone in the crowd. As he moved away, Harry spotted the first tears begin to flow down his cheeks. He’d made the bloke cry by thanking him? 

 _Oh fuckety fuck-fuck shite_ , Harry thought, inwardly panicking because his military training forbade him from reacting visibly. _I’ve done something wrong already. Bloody hell._  

Nebojsa’s arm returned, guiding him to find where they’d sit. 

 _You’re fine_ , Sia reassured him. _You… knocked him into subspace, that’s all. He’s a crier._  

Harry stopped cold, causing Nebojsa to pivot around him. The Serb made it look natural, keeping his arm around Harry, angling himself in as though they were about to speak privately. 

Intelligent eyes around the room took note of them—more than a few men looking like they wanted to say hello and get an introduction to the new guy, but they saw Sia was busy and would wait until a more appropriate time.

The chap whom Harry made cry found an older gentleman and buried his face against that man’s leather-vest-clad chest, hiding his teary cheeks. Unperturbed, the older man produced a handkerchief and dabbed kindly at the bloke’s face while continuing his conversation like this was perfectly normal. 

 _Subspace_. Short-hand for _submissive head-space._ Harry knew what subspace was—he’d clumsily sent Draco there a few times, a journey into the mire of his own head. His husband’s reaction was to go limp, open his mouth and start keening. Uncontrollably, no matter how much Harry held him. Apparently this other chap cried.   

When Harry spoke, his voice came in Serbian. It was a better covert method of conversation than busting out Parseltongue in a room full of muggles. Kinky muggles. His voice dropped lower than usual. “This is _the scene_ , isn’t it?” 

“ _Da_.” 

“So, everybody here… they’re… like us. Practitioners of BDSM.” 

“ _Da_.”

Nebojsa got Harry to a table, pulling out his chair for him. The kinky muggles ruddy-well noticed that! Harry did need to sit down, though. It helped him process. Unfortunately, Nebojsa’s courtesy didn’t pull any inquiring eyes off of them. Everybody was watching now, from the corners of their eyes, curious.

Sia sat down beside him, explaining, “There are different types of groups who meet like this. We have discussions, open forums like tonight. Other meetings are workshops where we practice and teach each other. And there are parties, for play and sex. Those happen at people’s homes, or at certain underground clubs, by invitation once you’re an established member of the group, or vouched-for by another member.” 

Harry took a slow breath, looking down at the dark wooden table. He could _feel_ other blokes looking at him because of the way Sia treated him—deferential, extra respectful… like they were on a date and Harry was the girl. Nebojsa’s behavior was, for them, possibly more noteworthy than Harry making the fellow at the door burst into tears. Harry was fresh meat. They wanted to know everything about him. It was like walking into Madame Puddifoot’s tea shop, the way girls looked at him appraisingly, wanting to know what he might do. It didn’t matter that he was Harry Potter: they still wanted to know because of what they could see. 

The fact that Harry was here with Sia made him that much more interesting, but also palpably off-limits. If Sia didn’t behave the way he did, Harry could tell the two of them wouldn’t have had a second alone—blokes would be flooding over to say hello. Nebojsa’s actions set a certain tone, telling them all to back the fuck off and give Harry space. When Nebojsa got the door for him, got his chair, cleared a path for him free from interruption… Harry read that all wrong. Nebojsa wasn’t treating him like a date at all; rather as his superior, someone who outranked him, deserving of an escort like a visiting foreign dignitary. With his actions, Sia told everyone that Harry was someone special, a man above being bothered. 

“What sort of group is this, then?”

“Leathermen.” Nebojsa knew that would require more detail. “That’s what I am. Leathermen are… one of the more organized groups in BDSM. We believe in education, promoting safety, raising money for charitable causes, and we advocate for legal reforms to protect the BDSM and gay communities. Leathermen are traditionally gay men, but this particular club accepts everyone. I would say our group is, maybe, seventy-thirty; seventy percent being gay or bisexual. We do have female members as well. We observe a strict structure, rules of conduct, and social order; elected officials, members who pay dues or volunteer, financial statements, even an email newsletter.” 

Harry tried to imagine a kinky-sex-club newsletter. ‘Hey everyone, party at Steven’s dungeon next Saturday. Remember to bring your own lubricant and a snack to share!’ It seemed absurd—though more coordinated than, say, Aunt Petunia’s knitting club. 

“The Leathermen organize this dinner-meeting once a month. Meetings at restaurants or coffee shops are commonly called a ‘munch,’” he said only that word in English. “We rent this same room each time using our club dues, and we have the same waitress whom we tip generously because she knows what we are and treats us kindly. Everyone comes to discuss a topic which is chosen by the group, and we post it in a chat room online. That’s how I found them; after you offered your home to us last year, I wanted to get in touch with the local scene and attend a group… to be around others who practice and believe as I do.” 

Harry inferred, “That’s how everyone knows you. You’ve been coming here pretty regularly for a while. You’re a card-carrying member.” 

Sia nodded. These guys were his muggle friends in London. He did correct Harry, “Patched. No cards. Approved members have a club patch on our vests or jackets.” 

That was the meaning behind the leather vest Sia wore during their concert that summer. He was declaring his membership to this London-based Leathermen’s club; anyone who knew what the patch meant would’ve had a reason to talk to him at the show, to know he was considered a safe person to come out to because he was part of this Leathermen’s group who believed in certain principles and ensured that all patched members treated others with dignity and respect. The patch couldn’t be bought, but was earned along with the trust of the group as a whole. 

Their club was a form of social policing, vouching for one another as well as being able to keep out those who were disorderly or violent. They protected each other because no one else was looking out for them. 

“And you wanted me to come tonight because…?” 

The thin-lipped smile that twisted Nebojsa’s face… Harry had caught him. There was a specific reason he chose tonight, this particular meeting, to invite Harry as his guest. “Tonight’s topic is for members of military and law enforcement, as well as their families. To discuss how our practice of BDSM effects our jobs, and vice versa.”

Which explained why half the room looked like they came from Scotland Yard. They were. Constables, officers, and soldiers, the lot of them. Some of these men might even work in the same building on Fenchurch Street. 

Harry asked bluntly, “Does Dmitry come to these Leathermen munches? He is one, same as you, right?” 

“He is. Dimka likes to go to parties but, so far, he’s not involved in the scene here. He likes it more in Ruminia, where the scene is further underground—fewer meetings and discussions, more parties and play.” That was Dima: _Stop Talking, Let’s Take Our Clothes Off_ would be his unofficial motto. A few times, Harry had seen Dima desperate to get Sia’s clothes off. 

“Right,” Harry nodded. “It’s tricky to get laid off a debate, though I’m sure Dima could pull it off if he put his mind to it.” 

That snarky observation made Sia laugh… biting his lower lip, smiling, reluctantly nodding. Dmitry never had to work hard to get attention. Men and women both gravitated towards him, as much for his confidence and uncomplicated manners as anything else. 

Again, a lot of people noticed them—Harry speaking Serbian, his easy ability to make Sia chuckle, the way they seemed to finish each other’s sentences. It occurred to Harry that these chaps had never met Dima. So… they likely assumed Harry _was_ Dima… Nebojsa’s boyfriend, his lover, his committed partner they’d likely heard about. 

Harry looked his friend dead in the eye. “At what point is it proper to tell them we’re not together?” 

Sia’s expression didn’t change. He smiled, about to laugh again. He liked that Harry wasn’t intimidated, was speaking his mind even in what had to be a bizarre situation for him. 

Harry was used to being thrown head-first into a world of magic and fire-breathing monsters, topped off by a maniac undying Nazi cult leader trying to murder him. A room full of kinksters was really not so bad. At least these blokes cared about consent; hippogriffs and dragons didn’t give a shit, if they wanted to have a go at you they’d do it. There was really nothing to be afraid of here compared to, say, the Forbidden Forest. They planned to talk about the struggles of being an officer while also liking BDSM in the bedroom. No one was gonna barge in and try to kill them for it. So to Harry it wasn’t such a big deal. He’d taken on greater risk starting the DA than in coming to this munch. 

Nebojsa predicted his fellow Leathermen might look at Harry a certain way, and was fully prepared to clear the air. “We go around at the start of the meeting and make introductions. That’s the time to clarify, when everyone is listening.” 

“Okay.” 

Nebojsa thought of something else he’d need to know. “One more thing. We don’t use our real names here, for safety. If we don’t know each other’s legal names or identities—” 

Harry interrupted. He could see where this was going, cutting Sia off. “We can’t rat, or out anyone. Just like the Death Eaters wear masks to conceal who they really are.”

A long exhale left Nebojsa’s chest concave. He spoke more slowly, measured. “I don’t like the comparison, but yes. We use false names so that no one is at risk of losing their job, having their kids taken away, or getting into trouble with the law because of the stigmas surrounding BDSM. Especially important when some of us _are_ enforcers of the very laws which discriminate against us.” 

To that, Harry could concede. He didn’t want anybody getting fired or losing custody of their children because a few dipshits in positions of power were stodgy when it came to sex. “I get it. What do we call ourselves, then?” 

“We use scene names—nicknames. People make them up. Some pick a name which sounds like their own, easy to remember and respond to. Others like a new name, something random, or related to their kinks. They’re not always standard names; some are… a bit grand, or silly. It’s up to each person, generally; though it is traditional for dominants to give a name to their submissives, or those they mentor who are new to the scene and don’t have names. Some of us form leather families—groups of people with tight, long-lasting bonds, like mentors and students, partners, or regarding one another like siblings. Most leather families try to live together; not all of us can. Our families tend to have naming traditions, just like a vanilla family.” Harry understood that ‘vanilla’ was a short-hand way to refer to anyone who wasn’t kinky or involved in BDSM. 

“There are several strict-protocol families here tonight,” Sia added, glancing quickly around the room, noting new arrivals. He knew many of these men. “So you’ll hear themes in the names they gave each other upon joining the family.” 

Harry raised a brow. “Did you give Dima his name?” 

“Of course.” Because Sia was a bit of a stickler for doing things right, observing formalities or ceremony when there was meaning behind it. He wouldn’t go through the motions if it didn’t matter to him in some way. “You should think of how you’ll introduce yourself, what you want to be called while you’re here.”

Harry shrugged. “Might as well dance with the one who brought me.”

Nebojsa didn’t understand—it was an American phrase about loyalty. There was even a country song about it; Harry had memories of Charlene singing it in her kitchen, flipping pancakes in the mornings. 

He explained himself, “You know more about this than I do, so… why don’t you handle that part, and I’ll take my cues from you.” Sia brought him into this world, so it seemed fitting that he choose a name. He would know better what was appropriate. Harry wasn’t a creative person—when it came to naming his one and only pet, he’d flipped through a history book. If they ever had children, he was leaving their names up to Draco. 

The bearded man from the front of the restaurant arrived and—when the doors were shut and everyone had a beverage in front of them—he called the meeting to order. Everyone else quickly found a seat, giving him the floor and their attention. Being military, they were an orderly bunch; no shushing necessary. Everyone quieted as though a ranking officer had entered the room. 

The bearded man had an uptight north-London accent which could’ve come off as arrogant were it not for the natural depth and resonance of his voice. He spoke like a professor; someone accustomed to holding a room’s attention, speaking at length, and having to repeat himself often without sounding bored. 

“I see tonight’s topic has brought a lot of new and familiar faces, so welcome! I’m Sigma, President of The London Society of Leathermen. Joining us are your elected Vice Presidents Sir Reggie and slave Tom. And a special welcome to our honored guest, Master Blades.” He indicated the older man in the patch-covered leather vest whose sub Harry accidentally threw into waterworks earlier. ‘Blades’ probably wasn’t his real name but a reference to some type of fetish involving knives or cutting… or maybe just threatening to cut people as a kind of psychological game. Anything was possible, even for muggles. They just took longer to heal afterwards. 

Sigma looked pleased, his teeth white and smiling behind his beard. “Since we have a full room tonight, we’ll start with house rules.” 

Their rules made sense to Harry. Much like his old DA, the policies were designed around protection, productivity, and privacy. Outing each other was prohibited, as was something called ‘doxing,’ which Sia informed was publishing someone’s personal information like their phone number or home address on the internet. Pictures were also strictly off-limits. If you interrupted someone while they were speaking, you would be warned by the moderators—and if deemed rude, you’d be asked to leave. 

Kink-shaming was not tolerated, either. “Just because you don’t care for something doesn’t make it off-limits to others,” Sigma recited as though he’d said it thousands of times, a kind of mantra. “You may think it’s rubbish, but be kind to your mate the rubbish-man who hauls it away for you.” 

Harry wished his friends and family might’ve learned that lesson sooner. It was bad enough struggling with this sort of thing; being judged or rejected by your inner circle only made you feel shittier. This meeting was a place where everyone was accepted no matter what they were or weren’t into. 

Sigma rubbed his hands together, another smile splitting his beard. “And now for introductions. We’ll go around; everyone say your scene name, your power preference and orientation, and any relationships, families or commitments we should be aware of.” 

That was gibberish to Harry. Sigma started things off near Harry—but thankfully moving in the opposite direction around the room, so Harry had more than a dozen introductions to listen to before he’d be expected to speak. Sigma mercifully added a caveat that, “If you’re here to listen and observe this evening, that’s great as well. Simply say pass and we’ll skip you.” 

Men started introducing themselves. As Sia warned, some of their scene names were quite silly. No way was Harry gonna call anyone ‘Dragon Lord’ without cracking up! Having faced an actual dragon at age fourteen, he couldn’t take some of these muggles and their goofy names seriously. 

What caught him off guard was the repeated use of a set of numbers. Kinsey Six. Kinsey Four.

_What’s this Kinsey stuff?_

Nebojsa to the rescue, as always. _Kinsey was a sexologist—a scientist who studies sexual habits in humans. Kinsey suggested that sexuality isn’t limited to gay, straight, or bisexual. Kinsey had people identify themselves along a numeric spectrum, where 0 means attracted to the opposite gender and 6 is attracted to same gender. Kinsey thought that perfect 0’s or 6’s weren’t as common as was believed at the time, and that many people when given the option would put themselves somewhere in between._  

That made so much sense to Harry! He couldn’t believe Dr. Beasley never gave him any books about Dr. Kinsey and his sexuality scale. That could’ve saved Harry months of confusion and mental agony, searching for words to describe his experience. He was a Kinsey 1; predominantly interested in the opposite gender, with just a few same-gender attractions. 

 _Dima’s a 6?_ Harry asked to be sure. _He only fancies other blokes?_

 _Yes. Dima’s a hard 6. Misha is a 2. Iga is 3, liking men and women equally._  

Harry’s mind immediately went to his spouse; thinking that Draco might be a 3, or even 4 _._ Because Draco was very attracted to women, but most of his casual partners ended up being other men—maybe because men were easier to hook up with, facing less social stigma for being promiscuous? Draco described himself as bisexual because that was likely the only language he knew for being somewhere between gay and straight. Draco might lean a bit more towards men than he’d readily admit. He might say 3 in public, but in practice and in his heart, Draco was closer to a 4, fancying blokes just a smidge more. 

Harry knew it would be alright to ask of Sia, _What number are you, then?_  

Nebojsa might say when it was his turn, but Harry wanted to know ahead of time. 

Sia took a sip from the glass of water in front of him. _Well… I don’t fit on the Kinsey Scale. It assumes gender binary. I’m pansexual._  

Harry’s education with Dr. Beasley was proving increasingly limited out here in the real world. He had the vocabulary to discuss these concepts with his therapist, but his understanding of others barely scratched at the surface of possibility. 

The radio silence told Sia a definition of the term was needed. _Pansexuals can be attracted to anyone, regardless of what body parts they have or how they present themselves. I’ve liked men. I’ve liked women. I’ve liked other androgynous and gender-fluid people. I could like a drag artist, or a transgender person, or an asexual person… someone’s anatomy, how they express gender, or how they experience love doesn’t effect my ability to become interested in them. Whatever physical traits they have or presentation they choose are all great. I have no preference for genitalia or appearances. Mostly, I’m attracted to qualities which are outside of gender—things like their personality, power dynamics, life philosophy._  

Of course Nebojsa was fluid. He was looking for other things, qualities which weren’t linked to gender. Sia would be cool with his partner being anywhere in the spectrum because he wanted everyone to feel like they could be themselves around him without judgment. It was sort of ironic that such an open, fluid person ended up in a relationship with one of the most closeted, traditionally masculine guys around. But even Dima was improving, growing, for being around Sia. 

Soon enough, Harry heard another phrase which was new to him. 

 _What’s ‘verse’?_

_Short for_ _versatile. A man who’ll top or bottom, and enjoys both. It’s used by gay men referencing anal, though I suppose a woman could be verse as well._

Harry wasn’t sure how that was possible. Nebojsa picked up on that.

 _With a strap-on._  

It was a good thing Harry didn’t have anything in his mouth—he’d have spat it out! Of course he pictured Iga with a plastic cock tied between her hips, fucking Leike. Or Yuri, if he too was verse. Women could be tops, or bottoms, or versatile. That was a preference of sexual position which had nothing to do with gender. 

‘Verse’ wasn’t exactly what Harry would call himself. He topped, he enjoyed the experience, but when given a choice between positions he’d rather bottom during sex—either giving oral or getting fucked, he preferred being penetrated. He topped to make Draco happy, to indulge his increasing interest in submission; because Draco thought of catching as a submissive act, which was pureblood hetero-normative coding at its core. Draco was taught that being the bottom, a typically feminine position in his culture, was weaker than topping. 

Harry would rather make Draco submit while the git was topping him—somehow that was more subversive, more exciting, turning Draco’s perceived-as-powerful position against him. Draco got the illusion of power before Harry took it away, reclaiming it for himself. That was more arousing. 

Also, it seemed to make a lot of people very mad to think of The Boy Who Lived with a cock in his mouth. Even though _they_ were the ones voluntarily imagining it! Having come back from the dead, Harry stopped caring if his sex life making people angry; it was probably good for them to sit down and think about their own homophobia when they kink-shamed and slut-shamed their Saviour. ‘Slut-shaming’ was another thing they didn’t do at Leathermen’s group: making someone feel lesser, dirty, or unwanted because of their sexual history. 

Harry was embarrassed to realize that at several points early on in their relationship, he’d slut-shamed Draco. He was jealous of Draco’s many sexual experiences, jealous of his previous partners, and took that insecurity out on Draco, bullying him into being less of a slut if he was going to be Harry Potter’s boyfriend. That was just Harry shoving the morality he’d learned from muggles onto Draco rather than attempting to understand that where Draco came from, his sexual behavior was perfectly normal and acceptable for a bisexual wizard his age. 

Harry was able to identify the Leather Family of their club’s president, Sigma. His family used letters from the Greek alphabet as their names the same way the Black family named everyone after constellations. 

Sigma’s partner of eleven years was Gamma, a very tall South African dominant with dreadlocks and a clicking Xhosa accent which was mesmerizing to listen to. Sigma and Gamma shared a submissive, a painfully shy fifty-kilo South Asian man called Epsilon—who passed on speaking, preferring to have Gamma speak on his behalf, introducing him as their “collared submissive, Kinsey 5 house bitch” of five years. 

More confused than ever, Harry tried to map how their family was built, appealing to Sia for help. _So… Sigma and Gamma are both dominant, but they’re together sexually and romantically. They’re in love, like a regular couple. And Epsilon is… their mutual live-in slave? He cooks and cleans, and takes care of them like a servant?_ Harry was picturing two of the single, dominant-leaning people he knew: Iga and Yuri if they got together, and had Leike move in and look after them like a house elf.

 _And services them sexually,_ added Sia. _Epsilon’s collar acts a bit like a wedding ring within the scene; it signals their power relationship is committed, that Epsilon belongs to his Doms and is completely off-limits to others without their say._  

Collar—that was the leather cord necklace the man wore, long enough to hide under his shirt during the day, with a small silver lock rather than a clasp. His dominants held the keys, a metaphor for being owned by them, a consenting slave.

That collar served many purposes. Harry understood needing something physically on your body to repel unwanted advances: he used his wedding ring the exact same way. When you were a shy person—someone socialized to acquiesce to others and not kick up a fuss—you didn’t believe your own words were enough to turn people away. Having a ring or a collar was a prop; a warning sign mounted on your perimeter, keeping people out, explaining the consequences of a breach of etiquette without having to say a word. In a community where people did have multiple partners, multiple doms or subs, the collar was their barrier, the way a sub could deflect unwanted offers. 

Harry wondered if Dmitry ever wore a collar. Perhaps when the two of them closed their relationship and were monogamous? It was too bad there was no collar-equivalent for dominants. Without a universal outward symbol, doms had to go around like self-obsessed pillocks, announcing they were unavailable, forced to bring it up. Harry would’ve preferred a silent method, some type of code like submissives had. Especially as a demisexual man, he wanted a more reliable way to tell horny strangers to leave him alone without resorting to tattooing the words _asexual & married_ under the scar on his forehead. 

Harry checked his comprehension, _They’re a three-person couple? A threesome?_

Sia provided the proper phrasing. _Threesomes are casual, impermanent connections._ _We have a word for long-term, committed three-way partnerships: a triad._  

Three people in a mutual relationship was not something Harry’s monogamously-programmed brain had allowed him to imagine before, let alone consider plausible. He could believe in Hyppogriffs, Merpeople, and Jarveys because he’d seen them; he knew they were real. Threesomes were the stuff of orgies and one-offs in his mind—strictly casual sex, not a relationship. But these blokes were all together. Three of them. A triad. 

 _What about…_ Harry’s mind pushed at this concept, trying to figure out if there was some kind of limit. _I_ _s there such a thing as two couples being together? Some kind of four-way relationship?_

 _Sure._ _That’s a quad._

It was exactly like Hit Wizard deployment models—squads and forces—except as a relationship structure. Everyone had a teammate they worked with closely, their ‘primary partner’ according to the kinksters around him. And with their partner they chose to develop a mutual relationship with a third person or another primary pair. As long as everybody was happy, cared for each other, and were getting what they needed… there was no real reason why three people or even four couldn’t make a go at it. On a mundane, day-to-day level, it sounded perhaps even _more_ functional than the traditional two-person model: having multiple incomes to financially stabilize the household, multiple people to do chores or provide childcare, multiple people to spend quality time with… and of course, multiple partners to make love to—as a group or separately in pairs. 

Harry’s brain exploded. He’d never heard of anything like it before, never met people who operated this way. Sigma, Gamma, and Epsilon were a regular couple; they loved each other, had sex together, supported each other, shared bank accounts and bills, and lived under one roof… except that there were three of them—two dominants and one sub, forming a triad. 

Looking around, remembering the similar names other families used for each other… Harry realized they weren’t the only multiple-partner committed relationship in the room. There were quads and triads here, recognized and treated with the same respect as two-person couples were outside this room. Here in the scene, it was normal. 

 _Are triads or quads common?_

Nebojsa had to resist the urge to shrug, keeping his eyes fixed on the men who were introducing themselves so his movements wouldn’t look odd—as though he and Harry had superhuman telepathic powers… because they did, and they were using that magic to talk about alternative relationship organization. 

Sia reflected, _It’s rare to find three or four people who fit well together in the long-run. More often, you’ll see a primary couple who are polyamorous—an open relationship like myself and Dima. Each may have hook-ups or perhaps a secondary partner; a boyfriend or girlfriend, or a Dom or sub partner, whom they don’t share with their primary. Occasionally that structure turns polyfidelous, meaning they’re not open anymore and only have romantic experiences and sex within the agreed-upon group. I’ve seen open relationships develop into a triad or quad when everybody fancies each other. Other times a couple finds a third person or another couple and they mutually agree to merge. Triads and quads tend to form as partners get older; they’re less interested in casual sex, looking for stability, and want to settle down with two or three really spectacular people who they could never choose between._  

Everything clicked in Harry’s asexual, repressed, muggle-raised, closet-dwelling brain.

 _This_ was what Draco wanted: the four of them, himself and Harry, Dima and Sia… together. A sorcerers’ quad. Draco would have unlimited access to Dima, a pain-loving submissive to kick around whenever his sadistic urges came up, while Harry could satisfy his homoromantic needs—hand-holding, date nights, compliments and moral support—through Nebojsa, so that Draco wouldn’t be bothered by the mushy stuff which often made him feel uncomfortable. Draco wasn’t being a horny pervert by hinting at the possibility; rather, he was recognizing something Harry needed, an area where he fell short, and offering a solution. Draco consciously started pushing Harry towards an available polyamorous couple who were remarkably suited to meet both their needs. 

That’s what their summer together had been about. Everyone but Harry had seen it—how they would work together not just as a family… but as a quad. The four of them in a mutual romantic and sexual relationship. Harry was blind to it, but for the past year and a half they’d been… courting in a sense; dancing around the idea, poking at how it might be. He and Sia had kissed, getting blow jobs side-by-side—and getting off together was the definition of quad-like behavior. They’d gone on double-dates, as well as a few mock dates across partnerships. They supported each other unconditionally, sometimes splitting off into primary or secondary pairs in order to accomplish their goals. All that was missing was an acknowledgement, some formal commitment of what they could be. They’d tried and so far… in theory and under very controlled practice, it _did_ work. 

Except… Harry couldn’t do it. Unwittingly, he’d experimented with polyamory; the night they met, trying again in Romania, and one more time in New York. He fancied Sia. _A lot_. His attraction drove him, kept him at it without understanding what the hell he was doing, what his actions repeatedly suggested. A part of him was very keen to the idea of being romantic with Nebojsa without having to give up any part of his marriage to Draco. But there was no amount of alcohol Harry could consume that would make him wanna snog Dmitry. His demisexual Kinsey 1 self just didn’t feel that sort of interest in His Most Un-Serene Highness, Heavy Metal Prince of Cigarettes  & Danger. Harry’s only interest in Dima was as friends. Nor could he turn a blind eye if his husband and Dima started having sex. That would destroy the sense of emotional security Harry got from his marriage. 

Harry didn’t share. Maybe it was possessiveness inherited into his personality from Voldemort. Or perhaps a false fear of scarcity he still needed to work through after being neglected as a kid. 

He wanted Draco all to himself, to possess him body and soul. And he wanted to belong to Draco. He couldn’t be Draco’s if he was Nebojsa’s, too… could he? 

Sia learned how to love multiple partners, but Harry didn’t know if he was capable, if his capacity for romantic and sexual love was _quite_ as infinite. Harry’s love certainly came with conditions—a rather lengthy list of them, some of which he didn’t even know about yet, still figuring himself out, still trying to define what he needed. Having been fucked over so hard by the Dursleys, then Dumbledore, Harry was hesitant of anyone who said they would take care of him or act with his best interests in mind. His guts constantly reminded him how easy it was for anyone to turn on him without warning. It was hard enough trusting Draco, or trusting himself. His PTSD brain saw too many chances to cause hurt, to destroy the ones he cared about most, and to ruin himself in the process. 

Polyamory was a deep pool Harry had no business diving into if he couldn’t even stay afloat in monogamy. He had to be a husband to Draco first. Becoming a good spouse could very well take his entire life to learn. He was starting at a steep disadvantage. 

Their lives might be a hell of a lot easier as a quad. But Harry couldn’t. His heart would snap in two at the sight of Draco with another man… with Dmitry. Kissing Dmitry. Fucking Dmitry. No. His heart had already informed his brain how things needed to be. Draco _had_ to be his, and his alone.

 

 

 

 

At last it was Nebojsa’s turn to introduce himself. He had one of the softest voices of anyone in the leather club, including the more effeminate subs, but his calm and level way of speaking didn’t require much depth or volume to capture attention. 

“I’m Azrael.” Sia was named after an angel… one of the more destructive ones. It suited him. “Pansexual poly Dominant. In an open primary relationship for six years. Vith me tonight is my co-head of household, Adriel. Iz his first munch.” 

And just like that, Harry was an angel, too. One of the Christian angels of death, which was oddly suited to his history and their current line of work. Their names sounded alike, a reflection of how similar they were. 

Being named co-head of their family stopped Harry short. It was true; he’d never heard Sia say it like that before. They weren’t just dominant in their bedrooms—they were co-leaders, the decision-makers within their respective partnerships, and spoke together for their family unit. Like parents, the pair of them made all important resolutions and fashioned rules together… or at least they ought to. Like a dead-beat dad, Harry was rarely around, horrible at coordinating, and seldom listened to his family, even to the most obvious words spoken to his face… which left the heavy lifting to Nebojsa, expecting him to lead the family on his own while ‘Daddy’ went off to make war rather than deal with his dysfunctional home-life. Harry made Sia the professional rubbish collector of the family; repeatedly dropping Sia off in the middle of a disaster of Harry’s own creation and leaving him there. He abandoned Sia, knowing his compassion, love, and exhaustive moral code would compel him to clean up the mess Harry had made of things. 

When Draco was silently falling apart at Hogwarts, drinking himself to sleep and forgetting to eat meals, it was Sia who stepped up to take care of him. Harry just ordered Draco about for the brief periods he was around, fucked him silly, then took off without any explanation, disappearing for weeks only to return covered in someone else’s blood. In short, Harry became precisely the type of monster Draco was used to.   

Angel of Death, indeed. Harry was a destroyer. Nebojsa named him for what he was: destruction incarnate. 

“Adriel,” Harry repeated the name, getting it into his head as he made his own brief introduction. “Kinsey 1, MSM, dominant. Married and monogamous.” 

Other men had revealed quite personal details about themselves—that they were unpartnered, or recently broken up with, or even on hiatus from their kink practice for mental health reasons. Everyone was supportive, understanding. They were the sort of people Nebojsa would spend his time with, replenishing his own energy by being around others who approached sex and relationships in the same way. Harry could admit to this club that his husband had walked out on him and get nothing but sympathy and uplifting words. He _could_ tell them: but he wouldn’t just yet. He needed longer to settle in and get to know them. He didn’t trust so easily after everything he’d been through.

 

 

 

 

Over and over as stories were exchanged and questions asked, Harry heard submissive men called names he’d never heard in polite company: slaves, bitches, cock-sluts and whores. If kink and slut shaming were frowned upon, Harry couldn’t help but wonder, _Why is the language for submissives so derogatory?_

Sia had thought about that, too. _Degradation, humiliation, and humbling are common fetishes. Everyone is free to structure their relationship and forms of address as they wish. So long as it’s consensual…._  

 _Anything goes,_ Harry surmised. Including calling the person who cooked your meals and gave you head your ‘bitch.’ If the guy receiving the verbal abuse was into it, too, then… more power to them. He never liked being called The Boy Who Lived or The Chosen One. Yet he didn’t mind when he and Draco started flirting and Draco shortened Boy Who Lived to Wonder Boy—he didn’t mind because that was an inside joke, was consensual. Had he asked, Draco would’ve stopped. Maybe because, even then, they had a bit of a D/s relationship? Draco acted out sometimes, pushed Harry’s buttons, but ultimately he did respect Harry and wouldn’t hurt his feelings on purpose. Not anymore. 

Harry fucked up. He failed to give Draco the respect _he_ was due: the truth. No amount of name-calling could make up for that breach of trust.

Harry didn’t have to use those words or behave that way. It did make him cringe a bit to hear it, being the same sorts of things said to him by bullies like Uncle Vernon and Dudley, trying to belittle him, or screamed from Howlers after he and Draco came out. Hell, even the word ‘gay’ continued to bother him. He could hear it in conversation, had no problem if someone else identified themselves as gay. But if it was directed at him… it made his teeth grind. 

The difference was consent. Until he finished healing from his own past, Harry might still be uncomfortable hearing many of these words, even when he knew the intent was worlds apart.

 

 

 

 

Nearing the end of the munch, Sigma gestured to Harry. “Adriel. We haven’t heard from you yet. No pressure, but is there anything you’d like to bring before the group?”

There was. Something maybe these blokes were poised to understand better than anyone. 

“Something I’m struggling with,” Harry admitted; just like he was in therapy, but the kinky kind. “Is reconciling the violence I’m part of and subjected to at work against our consensual violence at home. On active duty, I might kill a man with my bare hands before he kills me. That’s the job. That’s real danger. Then I go home… and I can’t put my hands around my husband’s neck even if he wants me to. I have his consent. He’s asking. I want to. We’ve done it so many times before. But I can’t. I can’t separate the action from the job because, for me, all I see are negative consequences. I see the families of criminals left behind, grieving, alone. I see lives ruined. That’s what my hands are capable of. That’s the consequence of violence. And I don’t wanna bring that on my spouse. I want my job as far away as possible, never touching him. I know it’s different, I know my intent matters and he’s given consent, but I can’t seem to get my head around hurting him after seeing action in the field.”

It happened the night Draco left. Harry had no idea how to articulate it then. He didn’t have the language. That was one more gift Sia had given him. Finally, weeks later, he was not only ready but _able_ to talk about what he’d felt in those frightening moments leading up to Draco leaving. Harry wanted to understand himself better. Maybe then he could help Draco, too. 

One of the older men—Master Blades—lifted his hand to offer Harry some advice. Everyone else deferred to him, letting the most experienced among them speak first. 

“Adriel… the job requires aftercare,” he said simply, sagely. “What you do on duty is a weight on your soul as much as what you feel in your shoulders after a long day. Going through that, you’re gonna have needs: physical, psychological, emotional. All valid. The fact that you need time before you can engage in violence again—even consensual BDSM—shows that you’re on the right path in your mindset. You’re an honorable partner. What you’re experiencing is not any flaw of yours: it’s top-drop from the work. You know what that is?”

Harry shook his head. He readily accepted that he didn’t know much of anything.

Blades chuckled. “Top-drop isn’t sexy. No one talks about it because as dominants we’re not supposed to have needs. Top-drop is the end-result of the immense drain on the active partner of a scene, the planner—or the executioner in your case.” This old man had no idea how right he was, how close those words hit. He was speaking to one of the most prolific battlefield executioners the wizarding world had ever seen: Harry Potter, first kill age eleven. He just kept going. He never stopped, never dealt with the consequences of his actions, so of course he was unbalanced. 

Blades and Sigma exchanged a silent look, and Sigma took over explaining. “Top-drop is when you give your all, get the job done, and there’s nothing left for yourself after. It can drain you for days or even weeks, as long as you go without addressing it. You’re dropped to your limit from work,” he guessed rightly of Harry. “You’re exhausted in every possible way, so there’s nothing left to give your partner when you go to have that scene.”

Then Blades was back, speaking directly to Harry. “You’ve got needs. You’re not some inanimate weapon like the one you carry on your hip. Of course you can’t kill a man and then go home like nothing happened, fall into bed with your fella and feel his life under your hands like you’re about to kill him, too. You love him, the last thing you wanna do is harm him. What’s not tended to is _you_. Your emotions are drained, your nerves are shot, there’s no ammo left and there you are gettin’ confused when you squeeze the trigger and nothing comes out.” 

All around the room, others were nodding. They’d each experienced it—trying too soon after a violent incident at work, pushing themselves into something kinky with their partner and finding no ammo remaining in their clip. It was terrifying. It felt like failure, letting everyone down because you couldn’t perform. The job was all about performance under pressure; making the right call at the right time, and never ever wearing thin. The last seven and a half years of Harry’s life had been one big show under immeasurable strain. His _life_ had dropped him to his knees, exhausting him: work was just the most recent wound.

Master Blades confided, “I wish somebody would’a told me this when I was your age, so I’ll say it real clear: you are _entitled_ to quite a lot of aftercare after the merciless beating you take on the job. You wouldn’t put a sub through that; scene after scene with no time in between, no care. You wouldn’t fire your weapon again without cleaning and servicing it. So don’t do that to yourself, either, ya tosser. Figure out what you need, set up a protocol, and enforce it. When you have those rough days, the hard calls, give the signal. Your family will follow through for you.” His eyes flicked briefly to Nebojsa—knowing he would be there for Harry. All he had to do was say the word… learn how to say the words, _I need your help_. Or, _I need a hug._ Or, _I need you to sleep next to me tonight in case I wake up screaming._  

“Get your aftercare. Get your needs met, refuel—really maintenance yourself—and you’ll know when you’re ready to play again. The job will drop you. Respond appropriately.”    

Harry had to swallow that. He wasn’t wrong or broken, merely failing to understand himself, unable to advocate for his own needs. That was a pattern. He let the war and now the remaining Death Eaters suck his energy, his focus, when he really wanted to save every part of himself for Draco. So he came home to his husband a dry husk of a man with no emotional bandwidth, no flexibility, just brittle and about to break, crumbling to dust in Draco’s arms. 

He’d never taught Draco what he needed to recover, either, because he didn’t know. When Draco managed to do it right, to read Harry like a picture book and step in, caring for him… Harry never told Draco how much that meant to him. He had to be discovered in a closet, or to wake up in a cold sweat, hissing or screaming. That wasn’t healthy. He had to figure out what he needed and bring that to his husband, asking to have his needs fulfilled before he cracked from overuse and lack of maintenance.

In hindsight, Harry could see how foolish he was. He’d let himself go, waiting for his manic Bipolar spouse to notice he was a wreck and somehow heroically summon the energy to paste him back together before the next battle started. Harry thought the purpose of a marriage was to hold each other up—because falling apart on your spouse was a hell of a lot easier than taking responsibility for yourself. 

Harry was a child, a novice of self-awareness. Even Misha knew better; after the Umbridge trial he’d whisked Harry away to the hammam, soothing him with water and heat, taking time to talk, caring enough to notice his skin was dull and starting to break out, tending to that. Bathing was how Misha learned to deal with the violence he encountered; feeling clean, starting fresh, taking that first step towards feeling like himself again. Misha developed his own protocol, a ritual: after witnessing death, he bathed. 

Come to think of it—Nebojsa did the exact same thing. After every fight, his first instinct was to find a shower, or at least some clean water to wash his hands and face. Misha took his cues from Sia, figuring out that the same techniques worked for him, bringing him calm and re-centering his psyche. So Misha tried it with Harry, to see if a bath, a steam or a massage might help him in the same way. It did. 

Harry dipped his head… a gesture from Nebojsa, acknowledgement and acceptance, showing you were on the same page—more emotional than a nod, less formal than bowing. 

“You’re absolutely right. Thank you.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

On the long train ride home, Harry leaned back against the hard plastic seats, thinking about everything he’d heard. 

“I hope you don’t feel tricked,” Sia admitted in Serbian. He didn’t want anyone else in the carriage to understand. 

Harry pressed his lips, nearly a smile, replying, “Nah. You did the right thing. I wouldn’t have gone had you told me what it was outright. I don’t think there’s a way to describe the feeling….” 

But Nebojsa could. “Having a clan.” 

“Yeah. That’s it. Finding your people.” Harry never really had that, people who accepted him unconditionally because they were alike at their core. His people were taken away from him as a baby. He never felt right at Hogwarts, either—he was a wizard but never really one of them, always on the fringe. He found them again, something like family, within his leather family, the new unit he’d built with Draco, Dima, Sia, and Misha too. 

The train’s sway carried both their bodies, Harry’s shoulders just a glimmer too wide for the molded seats. Sia let Harry slip into what should’ve been his space, their arms touching from shoulder to elbow. That contact was perfect. 

“What do you do?” Harry asked. “For top-drop?” 

Sia looked away. He was embarrassed. “It’s silly.” Harry threw an elbow into Sia’s ribs, jabbing him, getting him to fess up. “I… smoke pot and have tickle-fights with Misha. He’s like a son to me. His laugh is so cute, he always cheers me up. Misha reminds me what happiness feels like when I can’t remember how to do it on my own.” 

Harry got that. “Draco has the most adorable laugh in the world. Every time I hear him, I can’t help it—he just makes me smile. When he’s laughing, I feel like everything’s gonna be okay.” It took a full three seconds until his face fell. He might not have Draco’s squirrely laugh in his life anymore, because he never learned to put words to what he needed, even after seven years of madness. 

Harry admitted, “I think… maybe I prefer to be taken care of by other people rather than seeing to myself. Because I got that so rarely… unconditional affection,” he named it, the thing he needed to recover. “Kind gestures. The things you do when you love someone. I never learned how to ask for that. I didn’t believe I deserved kindness, so I spent my whole life waiting for others to offer it to me. It feels more meaningful than if I just took care of myself. When Draco would cook for me, or offer to rub my shoulders… that was heaven on earth. It was him looking after me that got me through the war. He did those things because he was scared, reaching out when he was terrified of losing me, afraid we would both die. It was hard for him to do. He’s never put himself out there like that, taken care of someone out of love. I never realized that. And I never told him how much those rare, sincere displays of affection meant to me. So how would he know it was everything I needed? How important those gestures became to me? I never told him.” 

There was the answer. Harry had to start advocating for his needs, which didn’t mean asking anything of Draco, but helping him understand the impact even a simple act of love could have. 

The same way Draco’s snapping insults cut deep, so too could his fingers heal. They relied so much on Draco’s healing power that perhaps he forgot the strength of his hands, his words, his actions. Those were his true healing power; he’d forgotten how to use his heart, relying on magic instead.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry went to Orthodox church with Nebojsa. It was becoming a habit. The music brought him peace, the way it reverberated throughout his body, low notes vibrating in his throat; being one voice among many, humble, begging for forgiveness. 

His eyes often traveled to the confessional, the little closet-like box people would climb inside to tell the priest everything bad they'd done and be forgiven for their sins. He figured they were drawn to the anonymity of it. People did it because it made them feel better. And they did so anonymously because even that was an escape. It was hard admitting to the face of someone you respected that you fucked up, let them down... let yourself down. Confessing in the dark embrace of that box might make you feel better, but it was what you did outside the box that counted. Confessing meant nothing if the bad behavior never changed—like injecting a localized anesthetic without ever sewing the wound shut. You felt better, but nothing got better. 

Harry was doing that hard work now. He was learning to sew his wounds shut, not to pick at them as they slowly healed. So the confessional struck him as a cop-out, a way to feel better without anything changing. Confession had no answerability outside yourself. Harry needed more. He had to promise before the ones he hurt to abide by a higher code of conduct from now on, and to remain visible, checking in. No hidden priests in boxes for him.

After the service, kneeling beside Nebojsa as the pews around them emptied, Harry spoke.

"I did something unforgiveable," he whispered. "I want you to know about it. And you can tell Dima and Misha. It's... something you all need to know, so you can decide if you still want to be my friend. If you want me to move out, or request a different team assignment, or..."

Nebojsa put an arm around him—sensing he needed it. Sia switched to Serbian, the better to understand each other. "What have you done that's so bad, brother? I guarantee I've heard worse." 

Maybe. Maybe not. Harry was worse than the Death Eaters in a way—because he still pretended to be good, let people believe what they wanted about him rather than tell the truth and be outcast, locked in Azkaban like he deserved. He was getting away with being an accessory to kidnapping, false imprisonment, mind-alteration.... Others went to prison for less. Why should he go unpunished? Because he did this to a muggle? Or because he hadn’t gotten caught? 

He buried his face in Nebojsa's shoulder, screwed his eyes shut behind his glasses, and let himself be held. 

"Fred's girlfriend, Taylor,” he told his friend’s chest. Sia was in a shirt and tie like he wore to work. At some point he’d stopped wearing his monk robes to church—they certainly earned him strange looks on the underground, but Sia didn’t care about that sort of thing. He was going to be ordained, prepared to walk around the muggle world in those wizard-looking robes for the rest of his life. There had to be another reason. Harry didn’t know why Sia stopped when he was still the same person on the inside, still believed the same things. 

Harry spoke the truth. “She's not his girlfriend. Not really. They met at a pub, celebrating after the battle at Hogwarts. They were both really drunk and the condom failed." 

Sia squeezed Harry, a gentle jostle back-and-forth, saying he already figured as much. Fred and Taylor struck him as two people making the best of their situation, not so much a love-match. He didn’t say a word, letting Harry gather himself in the church’s echoing quiet. 

"Taylor wanted an abortion. She told Fred. He and George abducted her, tied her up in the cellar of their joke shop, and called me in to put her under the Imperius Curse… to save the baby. I didn't want to do it but—because I love Fred and George—instead of saying 'no' I stood there and listened to their reasoning. I let them talk me into it, guilting me, getting me emotional about it until I let go of my flimsy principles. In that moment I felt helpless; like a victim all over again. They said if I didn't help, they'd go to you, or Dima, or Yuri, and I didn't want that burden laid on you guys." 

"So you did it," Nebojsa inferred, understanding him so well. "You cursed an innocent woman, harmed her body and mind—to protect us from being exposed to the crimes Fred and George committed, and invited you to be complicit in, in order for the child to be born." 

The twins had played Harry for his Martyr Complex, his desire to throw himself on every sword in sight for the people he loved to be spared. What had scared him even more than his own willingness to go along was the idea of Dima or Sia getting guilted into it instead because he resisted. By saying no, he'd have been dropping that burden onto their shoulders: that was how Harry saw it at the time. Not that Fred and George were wrong and needed to be talked out of the entire thing. Influenced by his abusive programming and dissociative CPTSD, Harry’s mind had already accepted that Taylor carrying this baby to term was inevitable because the decision was handed down by people he loved and trusted—wizards, and the first brothers he'd ever known. He didn’t have it in him to say ‘no’ to his family… even when they hurt him. 

"A part of me..." Harry confessed. He wasn't very good at it; he'd never practiced, never had to take responsibility for the hurt he caused. No one made him do this; he chose to confess now because it was right, because it was owed to the ones he hurt, and because he needed accountability and support if he was going to stop. 

He was confessing to Sia as practice, getting ready to tell Draco the truth if he wanted to come home, to try again. Harry had told Ron to do the same thing—talk to his mum, practice, learn his words and explore with a safe person before he brought himself to Hermione, more organized and better able to articulate his points. Harry learned that in therapy. Now he needed Sia to be his therapy because this was one burden he couldn’t drop on his doctor without destroying her practice and harming everyone else she worked with as a result. 

God he’d fucked everything up. Hopefully there was a way to make up for the utter mess he’d caused. 

"Part of me _wanted_ to do it. I thought it could be right, that it's a parent's duty to sacrifice themselves for their kid. My mum died for me. Draco's mum got herself tortured to save him. Dumbledore sacrificed himself for Draco. Sirius died protecting me. Even you were tortured covering for me. It's... something I was taught, over and over again. I still believe that giving yourself up for the people you love makes you a good person. I did exactly that—I killed myself for Draco and it turned out alright. I expect everyone else to be as brave and stupid as me. I thought my actions gave me a lifetime pass as a good man. 

“So I was forcing Taylor to be good, in my eyes. I wanted her to love her baby, and I wanted that baby to live. But that wasn't my decision to make. I put her under the Imperius Curse so she couldn't get the abortion she wanted, to end her pregnancy safely. I made her keep the baby, move in with Fred, and be happy about all of it. I screwed up her life, put her body in danger, made her do this against her will… all because I was afraid to stand up to my brothers, because I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. I thought my family and my unborn godson were more important than Taylor’s life. I valued magic over a muggle’s rights. For a second… I thought like a Death Eater, and it didn’t feel wrong at all.” 

It was hard to admit the line he’d crossed while claiming righteousness, how seductive and comforting that ideology could be. That was how Draco got sucked in, and so many others. It was easier to stop thinking, to shut off your brain and go with what those around you made you feel. Harry had given up for a few critical seconds, stopped thinking all-together… and this was the result of his weakness, one of his greatest failures. 

"When Draco left me, I lost control of the curse. Taylor was free, and the baby was too far along for her to safely end the pregnancy. She's stuck now, because of what we did to her... what I did." 

Nebojsa pressed his cheek to the top of Harry's head. "You need to make amends, dear," he counseled, the endearment slipping out like when he talked to Misha. "I don't know what that looks like. Only Taylor can tell you how to make peace. The rest is between your soul and..." he hesitated. Normally Nebojsa would've said 'God' but he knew deep down that Harry didn't believe. He knew Harry came to church with him out of guilt—the entire time he'd been seeking forgiveness and a place of peace... long before he was willing to admit what he'd done. Church was one of the few places he might be safe from judgment for his harmful choices, because the church believed in forgiveness and absolution for the sinner along with justice for victims. 

"Taylor's free,” Harry provided. That was a small step in the right direction. “She's not under the curse anymore. I stopped that much. Fred's not happy but... I don't care. He doesn't have a right to happiness if it means taking away Taylor's free will for even a second. Even their kid's right to be born doesn't outweigh Taylor's say over what happens to her body. I've gone back a few times since, to talk with her, make sure she's getting what she wants in exchange for the favor she's doing us—she’s having a caesarian, not like she has much choice between surgery and birth at this point. She’s giving the kid to Fred." 

Nebojsa gave him another comforting squeeze. The whole time, Sia’s heartbeat remained perfectly steady against Harry’s ear. Somehow this really wasn’t the worst confession he’d ever heard. "That's good, that she's willing to see you." 

"Well... she doesn't want anything to do with me, naturally. Except that I gave her two hundred thousand pounds," Harry grumbled. "Or rather, one of Dima's diamonds worth that much. That's what she wanted in exchange for carrying the baby to term. And her memory wiped after—that was her other condition, the reason she keeps talking to me. She wants my powers backing her up against Fred, in case he decides to go back on the new deal. All things considered…” Harry sighed wearily. “I'm getting off too easy. I ought to be in Azkaban right now." 

A long breath left Nebojsa's lips, echoing the sound Harry’d made. "Who does your imprisonment benefit?” he asked rhetorically, not expecting a direct answer, more of an invitation to think. Draco did the same thing, asking questions for the sake of provoking thought. “Does confining you make anyone else safer? Would public knowledge of your involvement in this crime have any positive impact?" 

Harry had blocked that out—what the world would say if they knew what he'd done. What Mrs. Weasley might think if she knew how her first grandchild was coming into the world. The Howlers that would pile up higher than his house. What true but scalding words Minerva McGonagall's ghost would rise up from her grave to shout at him. How Draco would react. 

Of the entire world's reactions and judgments, he feared letting Draco down the most. He'd vowed to love, honor, and obey. He wasn't honoring Draco by doing what he knew was wrong. Instead he was becoming more like the people who'd hurt them with each passing day. He owed it to Draco to be a better man than Lucius Malfoy, using and discarding muggles like they were lesser beings. Harry Potter was supposed to stand for the humanity in everyone; instead he was showing weakness, frailty of morals, and a lack of true heart. Harry could stand alone against an army, but didn’t know how to stand up to those who loved him. 

Draco fought monsters for him—killed Voldemort, and Lucius, losing blood and screaming, crying, with only a sword in his hands, battling the demons hatched in his head…trying so hard to be a better man than his father. And this was how Harry repaid him. Draco was a hero in the end, while Harry was the biggest fuck-up alive. 

Instead, the Hit Wizard in Harry argued: "We put people in jail for a living, brother. Commit a crime grave enough, you go to Azkaban. Those are the rules. Why should I be above the law? I _deserve_ to be punished." 

He’d never said that out loud. But he did believe it. He wanted somebody to punish him for what he’d done. He wasn’t sure Draco would. His husband might even support him—not because Harry chose a wizard’s life over a muggle’s free will, but because deep down Draco believed it was his duty to support his spouse no matter what, even if he thought Harry was choosing wrong.

Draco would kill for Harry. Draco _always_ had his back. Even holding a gun to his chin, Draco was acting in both their best interests; in that moment he was seeing the monster in Harry, revealing that truth to him. Until Harry had control, until he knew himself, he wasn’t a safe person for Draco. 

As distressed and angry as Draco was, he wouldn’t punish Harry. Draco said it: he left for his own safety. Harry repeatedly lied, and Draco respected himself too much to stick around and subject himself to that kind of behavior from his spouse. It was unacceptable in their marriage, and it ought to have been unacceptable to Harry, too. 

Apparently Nebojsa wouldn’t punish Harry, either. 

He felt his friend swallow, tiny movements of the muscles in his jaw and neck transferring into loose strands of Harry’s hair. He didn’t have this kind of sustained closeness and comfort with anyone else outside his little leather family. Not even Ron or Hermione, or Mrs. Weasley. He would always grow self-conscious and pull away from their embraces. With Sia, as with Draco and Sirius before them, Harry kept still; accepted that he was worthy of this. 

"Do the rules work?” Nebojsa sighed heavily. He’d put significant thought into this, both theological and personal. “The threat of prison is a weapon society wields in self-defence, as a deterrent. You weren't deterred by the possibility of imprisonment. If it's not working to prevent crime, if victims don't receive justice and crimes continue unabated, then... we must advance, escalate, until the punishment is solace to victims _and_ deterrent to potential criminals, while making everyone safer." 

"Death sentences," Harry inferred. The subject was too fresh in both their minds. It had driven them apart for days, Nebojsa needing to be sure his magic wouldn’t leach into Harry, causing harm to either of them if they hugged as they were now. 

Executions were a personal subject, not just political. They’d both been executioners on more than one occasion. Both had their families executed by Death Eaters—by Voldemort himself, claiming righteousness the same as they did when they took lives. 

Harry expanded, "If Fred and George knew that even I, Harry Potter, would be put to death… they might not have asked that of me. If it was a clear trade, my life for the baby's... they love me like a brother. They wouldn't have asked me to sacrifice myself like that. But maybe Fred would've done it himself—his life for his kid's, because he believes the same as I do about putting your life on the line for your family." 

"A life for a life..." Nebojsa sighed, seeing no way through. "And a child without a father as the cost. I'm not sure who benefits then, either." 

There was no good answer, no clear way forward. They were two teenagers facing down problems much larger than themselves. 

Harry found a question swirling around in his mind—something he wanted to know but had never found the time to ask. "Sia... why did you want to become a Hit Wizard?" 

It had been his friend's idea, initially. He'd talked about it briefly during the war. His intent heavily influenced Harry's decision, knowing that if he applied Sia would be there with him. He didn't know Dima would follow them, or Ron. In some ways Harry was glad to have them at his side: in other ways, he didn't wish these burdens on his friends in exchange for their loyalty. They didn't need to follow him off a cliff if he jumped. 

Sia pressed his cheek a little harder, until Harry could feel the pressure of a cheekbone against his skull—like Sia wanted to communicate by osmosis rather than with words. "You know me," Sia said, giving nothing away. "You tell me why." 

Harry had to think about it. Nebojsa was practicing his Occlumency, not letting his thoughts slip through layers of black hair into Harry's head. Sometimes they weren't thoughts at all, but feelings shaped into words, more from the heart than the head. 

"Because... you don't think Azkaban really works to stop people who are determined to hurt others—if they want it bad enough, they're gonna do it no matter what. People like Tihomir, Bellatrix, Umbridge. Locking them up doesn’t work. They weren't gonna stop unless someone stepped up to them with deadly force. You signed up to be a killer because you can do it—you want to do it for the people who can't, who are voiceless or powerless. You're there for the person who got hurt, their representative, there to carry out their will. Whether that means executing someone like Tiho... or Fred, or me. The people who were hurt ought to make the call, and the law is just our public consensus on what punishment constitutes justice." 

Harry didn't like what he was about to say. But it was true, and it needed to be said between them. "You'd kill me if you had to. If I deserved it. You'd execute me. Or Dima. Or Draco. If we went off the edge, if we started harming others and wouldn't stop, couldn’t see that it was wrong... you'd stop us." 

Harry knew. If he did something like this again—if he went on hurting people—there was only one thing in the world left to stop him: Nebojsa would kill him. If Harry didn't stop, Nebojsa would be there to put an end to him. 

Their relationship was pretty fucked up. But Harry was the weirder one: when  asking his best friend to kill him actually gave him some measure of solace. He wouldn't be allowed to go on hurting others, and that was what he really cared about. He didn't want to hurt anyone ever again. That was the first step to getting better. He couldn’t sit in a dark box, confess his sins, then go about the rest of his life pretending like it never happened. Establishing and enforcing consequences for future violations was the next step. It got ugly, nasty, frightening. But it was necessary. There were so few others who could stop him, check him, if he went off the deep end again. Nebojsa had the power to annihilate him, that karmic white light in his hands. And Sia would, if it came to that. If they dueled—for real, a sorcerers’ fight to the death—Nebojsa would win and Harry would be dead. 

In a way, Harry had created the justice he deserved. Before he knew he might need it. He gave this power to Nebojsa. It made sense that he would be here now, prepared to stop Harry if he couldn’t stop himself. 

"As you would rise up to stop me," Nebojsa agreed. "We must check each other, be that balance. With our powers… who else can?"

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

It took longer than expected to get in touch. Harry was concerned his letter might not be answered. He’d run it through Blaise—he had no other choice, no other way to get in touch. 

Finally, Harry heard back from Theodore Nott. Theo and his mother were deep in hiding. Only a few people knew where they were holed up, having run from his Death Eater father shortly before the war started. Most people wondered whether Theo and his mom were dead, since they didn’t turn up even after Voldemort was declared dead. 

Theo had poked his head out very briefly over the summer, coming to the palace in Romania a few times—a fan of a good party. Harry hadn’t know at the time, but Theo was an alcohol connoisseur, rather an enthusiast of anything from beer and wine to hard liquor. His mother was Belgian, a descendant of the witch who invented Butterbeer. Theo’s father married his mother for her vaults. It was the Butterbeer money which allowed Mrs. Nott and her son to escape before Nott Sr could pull them into a Death Eater stronghold, locking them in for the duration of the war. Mother and son managed to get away just before the war broke out, Theo’s mum withdrawing him from Hogwarts only to fall off the face of the earth. According to most, they were presumed dead, unofficially. They hid themselves almost too well. 

Details regarding the Death Eater attacks in Ohio where Theo Nott Sr died remained confidential, highly classified. The International Council agreed it was in the best interests of the public to conceal the violence. Publicizing the actions of one Death Eater cell would only embolden others, telling them that their tactics were working. A stiff upper lip was needed; the old British war motto of _Keep Calm And Carry On_ coming to mind. Only the families of the injured or deceased were given information, and even those details were thin. 

That was where Harry stepped in. Within the British Ministry, no one apart from a few Department Heads, Minister Shacklebolt, and Harry himself knew the details or had access to the full briefing. When he realized that the Ministry had no way of contacting the Nott family in order to collect Nott Sr’s remains, Harry sprang into action. Through Blaise, he managed to reach Theo. And today Theo arrived at the Fenchurch office with his mother to be debriefed and collect his father’s body for burial. 

Harry was aware of Theo having had a steady girlfriend of several years. Draco had mentioned a long-distance relationship with a witch from Beauxbatons. Harry had no idea Theo’s girlfriend was his coworker Karine de la Salle. She’d lost her entire family to the Death Eaters. But like Harry, she could see how spouses and children of the cause could get sucked in, not necessarily believing but forced to live under the thumbs of powerful men, many of them unable to escape. Theo’s mum was filthy rich; she could sell one gemstone-encrusted piece of family jewelry and have more money than many people saw in a lifetime. She and Theo got out with their lives, and they were lucky. 

Karine stood with Theo in the briefing room, holding his hand through it all. Her gun was locked in her desk—taking her entitled bereavement leave as soon as she declared herself as Theo’s fiancée. 

That was a shock to Harry, too. Karine never mentioned her relationship status, and didn’t wear a ring. She and Theo had an understanding, Harry learned. Her family were mixed bloods with very little money, so to Theo’s father she had nothing to offer in alliance. Except Theo loved her dearly. With his father dead, he could at last come out of hiding and marry the witch he loved—the witch who went to the front lines to fight for them both. 

Harry stood at attention outside the briefing room door, waiting for Theo and Karine to come out. The reports they’d be given were judiciously edited—redacted to the point of being uninformative. The Ministry couldn’t risk the grieving Nott family potentially leaking information to the public. 

Technically speaking, Harry couldn’t tell Theo what had happened in his father’s final minutes; however, there was no law nor restriction against his telling Karine, a Hit Witch, what had happened to him as a civilian on holiday. As long as they ended up getting married, Karine could tell her future husband what she knew with no legal repercussions. In the magical world, spouses were considered one legal entity, free to share information within the marriage. 

From training, Karine knew enough of Harry’s body language to know something was up with him. As they stepped out, she took Theo’s arm, guiding him to walk at her side with her body between him and Harry. Harry was telling Karine: Theo happened to be there. All legal hoops were covered. 

“Potter. You were there, in Ohio,” she assumed. By the level of carnage, of course there had been more than one experienced Hit Wizard on-scene. Leon was good, but as a retired weapons expert there was no way he could’ve done that much damage. Harry was the most likely suspect. 

Harry nodded, confirming it. He was there; he witnessed Theo’s father’s death. 

“Please,” said Theo. “Whatever my father did. Whatever happened. I need to know. For my own peace of mind.” Everyone’s grieving process was different. Harry respected that. If Theo didn’t want to hear what had happened, Harry wouldn’t force that information on him.

Since Theo wanted the details, Harry provided them. “We were attacked—Augustus Rookwood’s hand-picked crew. Eleven of them, I think. They snuck up on my friend Leon’s family home after a holiday, when they assumed we’d be drunk and less aware. They’d already come after us earlier that night, another crew of twenty or so—a diversion to wear us down personally and thin out local Field Ops coverage.” 

The Americas had so much land to cover and so few magical people that there were less than half a dozen offices like Leon’s responsible for regions from Canada to Chile. Thin coverage in America was very different than thin coverage elsewhere, like England where witches and wizards were at their highest concentration in the world.  

“Not long after that first firefight, around three o’clock in the morning, Leon’s wards tripped. That second time, they attacked a civilian home directly. They managed to sneak inside the house. I got a few.” That was, succinctly, true. He’d killed eight wizards that night, new-movement Death Eaters under Augustus Rookwood, one of the most militant faction-leaders. “We had enough warning and supplies on-hand for Leon and Draco to arm themselves—Leo with a standard muggle shotgun, and Draco had my Beretta. It was my sidearm during the war,” he added, “the prototype for our current-issue.” 

He had his Glock 17 at his hip now. Karine’s firearm would stay in her desk until she returned to work. At least she could be with Theo openly now, supporting him. They could get on, have actual lives now that he could bury his father and rejoin society. It would be difficult. People might judge him and his mother for running. There was nothing to judge: they did what they thought they had to do to survive. 

“My father was shot with a gun,” Theo provided. “They said… multiple times. His face….” 

Harry instructed Draco to go for skull-taps that night. His husband was a reliable shot. Draco had followed through, doing as Harry told him. Harry had to live with the fact that he’d ordered his spouse to shoot his attackers in the face; Draco had to live with the memory, the sight, what he’d done on Harry’s instructions. 

“Your father charged Draco,” Harry admitted. “The Death Eaters have a game they play, assigning point values to certain targets. As my husband, Draco’s up there point-wise. It’s a bragging rights thing. Your father was trying to kill Draco in order to gain rank within Rookwood’s group. He snuck up on Draco during the fighting and raised his wand: Draco hesitated. I saw it happen. I know Draco didn’t want to shoot. Your father had his wand on Draco and was going to kill him. Draco wasn’t going to take the shot—he saw your father’s face and he locked up. Draco only fired on my orders, to defend himself.”

Theo’s knees wobbled. Karine had him. She wouldn’t let him fall. She wasn’t letting him out of her sight. Until a few minutes ago, neither of them had any idea his violent Death Eater father was dead. Through his death, both their dreams were coming true. This wasn’t a bad thing. It was just terrible, tragic, and sad. Theo was free now, in part because his schoolmate shot his father in the chest and twice more in the head. On Harry’s orders.

“I’m sorry,” Harry offered. He was. He knew what it was like to lose a parent. Several times over, including seeing Sirius and Dumbledore murdered in front of him. He could relate to what Theo was going through. 

Karine didn’t say a word. This was her fiancé’s father—she knew her role was not to be a critically-thinking Hit Witch right now but to support Theo, to be there for him emotionally. She looked at Harry, her lips pressed, seeming like she wanted to shake his hand or something to convey her gratitude. She unhinged her lips, mouthing, “ _merci_ ,” understanding Harry had found this loophole in order for Theo to know the truth. 

Harry dipped his chin. It was the least he could do. Theo had a right to know, to have some closure. Knowing the truth would allow him to move forward with his life. Harry knew what that was like, too. 

“I…” Theo searched for words. Harry never noticed Theo much. He was quiet, bookish, his hair dark and long, a bit greasy. He wasn’t handsome nor was he unfortunate-looking; an average bloke in appearance and build. His connection with Karine was strong. When he felt like he would buckle, break, he squeezed her hand tighter. Her presence gave him strength. “Thank you for telling me. I understand you’re not exactly… well, I appreciate it. And please tell Draco—I don’t blame him. For anything,” his voice turned stern. “My father was a headstrong man who made his choices and these are the consequences. I’m relieved you and Draco weren’t hurt, or your friends.” 

Harry bobbed his head. “You’re very kind.” 

Theo shrugged a single shoulder. He seemed calmer—knowledge could do that, especially after being covertly summoned to the Ministry by Harry Potter with no idea as to why. Finding out his dad was dead wasn’t the blow it might be under normal circumstances. No one who lived in proximity to the Death Eaters had anything like a ‘normal’ life. 

Harry had seen a few of Draco’s childhood memories of Theo—how they tossed the Quaffle and flew on child-size broomsticks over the lawns of Theo’s family estate while their mothers had tea together. At Hogwarts, they’d sometimes studied as part of a group in Slytherin Common Room. Theo used to ask Draco about sex, and occasionally smoked pot with him, Pansy and Blaise. Draco never allowed himself to have real friends; he kept everyone at a distance, including Theo Nott. As such, Harry wasn’t sure what to make of the wizard standing before him. All he knew of Theo was that he was quiet, had excellent grades during school, and drank heavily. 

Harry reserved any judgment. It wasn’t proper to try to take the measure of someone when they were grieving. 

“My mother’s seeing to the arrangements. There won’t be a funeral.” That was all Theo cared to say about it. They’d burn or bury his father’s body and be done with him. “If anything else comes up and you need to get in touch, I’ll be with Karrie.” Theo lifted his fiancée’s hand to kiss her fingers—because he could now. 

Finally, after more than a year living in hiding, Theo could go home with the woman he loved, back to her flat or wherever she lived. Harry wasn’t sure. They looked like two people perfectly capable of fucking the grief away. Harry wished them all the luck and love in the world.

 

 

 

 

Watching Karine and Theo step through the barrier to the old Ministry building, Harry was joined by Mads Østergaard.

“Didn’t know Karine had a boyfriend,” the tall wizard remarked. Mads was always up for a little gossip, providing it was harmless. He was a Casanova, but never cruel in Harry’s experience. Mads liked to know if a witch was involved as a reminder to himself not to flirt with her, to respect the commitment of her relationship. That seemingly casual comment signaled he was frantically trying to recall if he’d ever hit on Karine, if when she returned to work he needed to apologize. “She never mentioned. Hogwarts guy?” 

Harry nodded. “Yeah. His dad was a Death Eater but… that won’t be a problem anymore.” His use of the past tense made his meaning clear enough.

Mads’ sugar-biscuit-blond eyebrows lifted. “Good for them.” His transitions could be abrupt at times—he was smooth as a rule, part-Veela and rumored to be a master in the fine art of seduction. His awkwardness was a sign he trusted Harry, felt comfortable enough _not_ to try to get Harry to like him and simply be himself. “Hey… um, a group of us are going to a concert tonight but my friend and his date can’t make it, so there’s two extra tickets now. Any chance you and Draco are free?” 

Mads was almost as much of a metal-head as Dmitry. Whatever band Mads had tickets for, Draco would’ve loved it. Feeling a bit disappointed he couldn’t share yet another experience with Draco, Harry lied for his husband. “Draco’s already promised for the night, but I’m free. Sounds fun. And I think Ron’s around.” A concert _did_ sound like a good time, something different to do. Harry hadn’t been out with Ron in a while, and his mate was starting to lean in to Harry’s evolving taste in music—Harry was becoming a bit of a headbanger himself. There was a lot more out there than the Weird Sisters. Music might always remind him of Draco, bringing on a sharp twist of sadness, but he wasn’t going to give up smelling roses because of the thorns. 

“Too bad about Draco, but cool. Bring Ron,” Mads agreed. “You’re both off at eight?” 

“Yup.” His shift had moved later in the day, in line with Ron’s hours. 

Mads smiled. “Great. Let’s grab a beer or something after work and I’ll Side-Along you both up.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Harry dug a clean tee out of his gym locker. His dark trousers and black leather boots would be fine. Further down the row, Ron was sifting hastily through his own belongings, cobbling together something suitably muggle to wear out. Harry could tell Ron was excited to be invited out. They were meeting a group of mostly Durmstrang people at Mads’ flat. He lived in Esbjerg—being Swedish, Mads felt the only way to escape his family drama was to move to the rival country of Denmark. Maybe it kept his mother at bay? 

Mads gave them a Side-Along directly to his flat, where he ended up inviting Ron into his closet to loan him an appropriate tshirt. 

The flat struck Harry as disturbingly muggle, and mundane. The kitchen was tiny, cabinets painted white to try to make it feel less oppressive. The ceilings would’ve been fine for most people but Mads was over six feet tall. Even Harry felt a bit cramped, realizing he could’ve touched the ceiling tiles if he tried. Politely, the furniture might’ve come from Ikea—square and simplistic, neutral in color. His windows looked out on a car park—not exactly the accommodations or the view Harry was expecting of a wealthy pureblood heir. Then again, he was rather spoiled on pureblood homes, considering he owned Malfoy Manor by marriage, and the Ionescue brothers lived in a literal palace. 

Harry noted Mads’ collection of hockey sticks by the front door along with an equipment bag so huge it could hide a grown man’s dead body. Going by the well-loved appearance of his gear, Mads played often. 

His friends arrived with pickled foods and plenty of beer—faces Harry vaguely recognized from the TriWizard and parties in Romania, all in their early twenties. A few girlfriends came with, so they weren’t an entirely male party traipsing down the snowy streets to the venue an hour later. There were a dozen of them, witches and wizards from all over Europe in convincing disguise—dark clothes, leather and piercings, tattoos which could’ve been charmed-on or real. 

One of the witches wore a leather choker with a delicate lock at the back of her neck only visible with the swinging of her ponytail as she walked briskly in the cold. Her leather choker was easily mistaken as a fashion choice, goth-style jewelry. Harry understood what it was—a collar. The way she clung to her boyfriend’s arm, hanging on his every word, suggested he was the key-holder to that collar. Harry made a mental note to steer clear of her unless her dom spoke to him first. That was the polite thing to do, respecting the boundaries of their power dynamic. 

Seeing a collar out in the open got him thinking. Would Draco wear something like that? Would he even want to? Could he swallow his pride enough to admit if it was something he might be interested in, even in private? Draco was more comfortable confessing to his dominant drives, his desires to top or be aggressive. It could be like pulling teeth getting him to admit to submissive stuff… much like getting Draco to talk about his feelings. Draco suppressed many of his urges, telling himself they were wrong, unmanly, shameful; even when he acted like he was in his element and getting what he wanted, there was often something held back which Harry had to pry out of him through sexual torture or inducing subspace when he could. It wasn’t an exact art, and he hadn’t known what he was doing until recently. 

Draco would rather act than talk, which too often resulted in him getting hurt. Draco didn’t want to acknowledge how important communication was. Feeling cut off and unheard, Harry had slowly stopped talking when he should’ve kept pushing. Had he been honest and not let up… maybe Draco would be here now, wearing some subtle collar of his own, something only the two of them would know about. 

Harry was always looking at his wedding ring, touching it, occasionally pressing the cool metal to his lips when he felt he was in danger. His ring anchored him, reminding him of his purpose. Draco conjured it at their wedding, and it had been on his finger ever since. If Draco came back, he might like a more physical sign; a symbol of their renewed commitment, a representation of whatever promises they needed to make to each other to hold things together going forward. 

Harry wasn’t giving up on his marriage. For now, it felt good to do something mundane, normal. He was going to a concert with a couple of new mates, just like he and Draco used to do. He couldn’t stop living, shouldn’t punish himself, just because Draco didn’t want to be here with him. Draco could come back any time he wanted. Harry had his arms wide open, ready. 

Ron walked beside him, big Keeper’s hands stuffed in his coat pockets to combat the cold. 

“Do I look like a pillock?” Ron asked quietly of Harry. Mads’ loaner shirt suited him—black and slim, with an ominous, elongated white skull over the chest. Harry thought he recognized the symbol from a comic book. Meaning Mads bought it because he thought it looked cool, _or_ he was secretly a comic book nerd. Harry would put money on there being a hidden stash of comics somewhere in Mads’ very muggle-looking bedroom. 

For a pureblood, Mads was uncommonly in-tune with the non-magical world; existing on the other side of the divide which Ron was currently navigating, figuring out how blend these conflicting cultures together in a way which felt manageable and sustainable long-term. Ron worried he wasn’t going about it right. 

Harry slung his arm around Ron’s shoulder, silently suggesting they speed up. “Yeah mate, looks awesome! Come on, I’m freezing.”

 

 

 

 

The venue was formerly a warehouse converted for performances, with a large stage dominating the far wall, long bars on either side, and a large open area in the middle for the prerequisite mosh pit. The concrete floor would be unforgiving if anyone fell. They didn’t need much heat with so many people gathered—around four hundred, Harry guessed, looking close to the population of Hogwarts. Large electric fans set into the windows would circulate air as people danced and generated heat of their own. 

Seeing the concert signage in both Danish and Cyrillic, Harry realized he knew several of the band’s songs. They were one of very few rock-metal groups with a female lead singer, hailing from Moscow. Sia sang their songs a lot as they were written in his register, requiring very little tweaking. 

Mads and his friends had provided Danish Translation Charms for everyone in case they got separated during the show, but Harry realized Ron was at a disadvantage; he wouldn’t understand most of the performance with the band singing and speaking in Russian. 

He apologized. “It’s all good,” Ron shrugged off. “I think I’m slowly learning Romanian, anyway.” 

Russian and Romanian weren’t that close, but Harry didn’t mention it, instead letting Ron entertain him with various phrases he’d picked up from Dima and Misha—most of them swear words, quidditch terms, and passing phrases like, “it’s raining” and “Do you want a cup of coffee?” Harry astonished himself with how much Romanian he’d picked up in a year, able to translate Ron’s parroted phrases and in some cases help him with his pronunciation. Their teammates had already put in the work to learn English during school, so it was only fair that Harry and Ron pick up a little of their languages, too. 

When the show started, music thumping heavy in Harry’s chest, he let himself get swept up in it. He and Ron had fists in the air, jumping, Ron banging his head as Harry sang along. Many of these songs were from a new album released that summer. It had been all over the local rock stations in Romania. Harry had memories of driving the Ionescue’s little red Ferrari along twisting mountain roads, learning the words to these songs, singing along with their friends and Draco who actually spoke some Russian. 

These melodies took him back. Closing his eyes, Harry allowed himself to go, to revisit the happiness and sense of freedom he’d felt, acting his age during those too-short summer weeks. The roar of the crowd became beach waves in his ears, the sound of the ocean at night as they left a club searching out a bar to get drinks, or went for a splash in the ocean to wash off the sweat from dancing. 

The lead singer screamed certain parts of the song. The sound of a woman shouting used to really bother him—because the only real memory he had of his mother’s voice was the way she screamed when she was murdered over his crib. His mind forever associated a woman’s raised voice with something terrible happening. Violence. Murder. Loss. The eternal grief he felt. He recognized it now. He was prepared, finally understanding his feelings and responses, able to work with them. When she screamed, Harry no longer heard his mother. He could scream, too, getting lost in the music. 

He still didn’t speak much Russian. But these songs were in his head, his memories. His lips knew the sounds he needed to make without having to think. He let his head go, let his body follow, enjoying it. The mosh and the crowd swept him away.

 

 

 

 

Either Scandinavian manners were remarkably similar to Slavic ones, or it was considered proper magical custom never to let Harry Potter pay for his own drinks. Harry ended up downing a few more shots than he’d intended, not wanting to insult his new friends when they offered to pick up a round for him and Ron. After multiple mouthfuls of a clear liquid which he could feel burning in his eyeballs for several minutes after, he smartly switched to bottled water. The last thing he wanted to do was Apparate drunk and Splinch himself again. Once was enough to learn.   

Standing along the back wall during the band’s intermission, Harry hip-bumped Ron. “Remember to drink water,” and he swished his half-drunk bottle at Ron. “Or you’ll hate yourself in the morning.” 

Ron had a brown ale in a clear plastic cup. “Yeah, this is my last one. Wish we didn’t have work tomorrow.” 

Harry groaned. “I know. It’s like we never really left school—just replaced classes with the office.” 

He did miss the freedom he experienced over the summer, not being beholden to anyone, only taking odd jobs when he felt like helping out. He went to work at the Ministry to make a difference as an officer, to help people, and yet … some days it felt like he wasn’t doing anything helpful or remotely meaningful. He sat at his desk, read reports, went to meetings, worked out, and went home. Rinse and repeat most days. Being a Hit Wizard turned out to be rather boring most of the time. The moments of action were like the war; rare, interspersed with long cycles of wondering when the next brief, brutal cycle might start up. He understood why thirty years in magical Law Enforcement had Alastor Moody chanting “constant vigilance” under his breath. He also understood why Leon Harper left, starting over in America. The work didn’t feel hands-on-enough to satisfy a war-made soldier. 

They needed nights out like this, a chance to unwind. 

“Sooooo,” Ron drawled into the head on his ale. “I’m, uh, having lunch with Mione tomorrow.” His tense expression said, _Wish Me Luck_. 

“You two are talking again? That’s great to hear,” encouraged Harry, glad for them patching things up. 

Ron’s head tipped inexactly. He seemed more nervous than pleased—afraid of fucking things up again, afraid of her walking away. Seeing his married best friend get dumped was probably weighing on Ron’s mind, a reminder that nothing was guaranteed… not even love.

“Looks like I’m spending Christmas with her family this year,” Ron whined. He was used to Hermione sacrificing time with _her_ family to be closer with his. Privately, Harry thought it was about time Ron devoted similar attention to the Grangers—especially if it was his intention to become their son-in-law one day. But Ron didn’t need to hear that. Advice wasn’t going to stick tonight, nor was it asked for. Presently Ron needed a mate to listen to him complain whilst he was a bit drunk on a night out. 

Ron gestured inexactly, careful not to spill his drink. He too was wearing his uniform boots which would need to be clean for tomorrow, not sticky from spilled beer. 

“I don’t get _why_ she doesn’t wanna go to a palace, tho! I hear its beautiful.” It was: a fantasy come to life. It was awe-inspiring, defying imagination, dripping with magical history Harry had barely scratched the surface of. “And Dima even invited her parents, too! Mione refuses.” Ron slugged his ale, gulping, finding another complaint near the bottom of his cup. “They didn’t have to invite her family—that was bloody nice! Am-I-right? And still she hates them. She _haaaaaaaates_ Dima. She acts like he's some kinda baby-killer!" 

Harry's brows lifted darkly. The most impassive thing he could think to say was, "She has her reasons." 

Ron didn't entirely understand. Even as teammates, he didn't see that side of Dmitry. For years, Ron managed to will himself not to see that side of Harry, either, even when it slapped him in the face... the mentally ill side.

That lack of awareness wasn’t entirely Ron’s fault. People without the advantage of having been around mental illnesses like Bipolar and PTSD, or having been properly educated about mental health, they saw only the smallest sliver of the entire picture. In short, they didn’t know what the fuck they were dealing with. Mental illness wasn't omnipresent: it was impossible to point out most mental illnesses on the street. Trained professionals needed hours of examination and trust-building before arriving at an accurate diagnosis.

Most of the time a condition floated in the background, utterly invisible, like a Lethifold or Dementor in the night. Life with a mental illness was long periods of functioning normality pierced by seconds of upending, when you or your loved one slipped, when the bucket of how much one person can hold that day overflowed and there’s no stopping the wave from rushing over the walls to consume you both. You planned, you mitigated, and you rebuilt smarter in each wake. But there was no return to normal. There was only a more favorable ratio between living your lives and living the illness. 

Harry knew because it lived in him too. He’d cohabitated so long with his CPTSD that it became a part of him, another strand of hair or freckle or limb. He didn’t see it anymore. He ignored his condition for so long because believing a lie made his life more convenient, less painful. He let himself get hurt over and over again rather than scream out for help. All he did was run away from pain. He spent years letting other people call the shots so he would have someone to blame when he got hurt instead of looking at himself and acknowledging that _he_ needed to change before anything would improve. 

Ron didn't understand what it was like to have a mental illness. No one in his family had one until Harry came along. Ron had never been around it, didn't know how to recognize it. He'd never taken the time—never saw a reason to. Ron and Hermione… they were good, well-meaning people. Harry loved them. But because they hadn’t walked this road before they might never understand, or want to. He’d told them about his struggle, offered resources, asked for their help and support—and that was all he could do. It wasn’t his responsibility to teach them, nor could he force them to give a shit. They might only ever be mildly sympathetic to Harry because he was their friend with a psychological ailment, but less compassionate with others in a similar position. 

Mental illness might be one more task Harry had to face without his oldest friends. 

Whatever was going on in Dmitry’s head, whatever interior battles he was fighting; that was surely what drove the actions Hermione couldn’t forgive. And Hermione didn’t need to forgive him, either. She had a right to keep her distance. Not because Dima was a monster like his father, but because he was sick—sick like Draco, like Harry and Nebojsa and his brother. It wasn’t Dmitry’s fault. He wasn’t getting better like Harry was, but neither did he seem much worse. Like Draco, Dima might never improve, and that had to be okay. 

For Hermione, non-improvement was unacceptable. She thought there had to be a fix for every broken thing. She was driven to find answers to every mystery she encountered, to push until she found a solution. When it came to minds and fragile human hearts… sometimes there wasn’t a resolution. 

It wasn't Harry's secret to tell, though. Whatever was wrong with Dmitry, he had a right to keep that private. Even Harry didn’t really know for sure. From his own experience in therapy, he accepted that it wasn’t his place to judge, assume, or pose any uninformed ‘diagnosis’ of his own. 

"I'm not getting involved," Harry said instead, putting his hands up in surrender. "Hermione’s your girlfriend, and Dima’s your partner. You’re all my family. You need to work this one out between yourselves. I'm Switzerland on this—trapped in the middle but remaining neutral as fuck.”

An annoyed snort left Ron as he tossed his cup into a nearby rubbish bin. “We’re back to No Advice Potter, huh?” 

Harry gave a helpless shrug—a bit of acting meant to bolster Ron’s ego. “You never needed my advice, Ron. I think you’re a grown man capable of making your own decisions and managing your relationship without my guidance. I’m here to listen. I love you, and I love Hermione. Always will. But Dmitry and Nebojsa and Misha are my people now—because sometimes people like us need to have a family of other queers. Doesn’t mean I love you guys any less. They understand what I’m dealing with, what my life is like, through their own experience. They support me in ways I don’t expect you or your family or Hermione to ever understand. I need my relationship with them to be accepted—I’m not siding with anyone because I think everyone’s perspectives and opinions are valid.” 

Ron glared, his feelings hurt despite Harry’s positive, calm tone. “But you’re still choosing them over Hermione.” 

Harry exhaled the frustration and… sadness he felt. He was allowed to be upset. Disagreements like this used to be prime time to lose his temper and say things he didn’t mean. The challenge was speaking about his feelings without allowing them to take over, to make his decisions or form his words for him. 

Ron saw himself as Hermione’s ally; believing it was his duty to agree with her and take her side. Harry felt the same loyalty to Draco as his spouse, and to Dima and Sia as his chosen queer leather family. Hermione was against Dima and Sia, and angry at Harry for continuing to accept them. She didn’t approve of Harry’s choices, didn’t trust his judgment. She was waiting for the moment when Harry would get burned, proving her right. Except Harry wasn’t sure that burn was coming. He wasn’t fighting a dragon this time—the fire-breathing monsters were his friends now. They were frightened and scared; breathing fire was all they knew to protect themselves, the same as Harry. He was trying to keep everyone safe, to find peace. 

“ _They_ aren’t asking me to choose sides. And I don’t think you want that, either.” Ron was trying to be a good boyfriend _and_ a good friend. Harry appreciated the sensation of feeling stuck in the middle. “Like you said, Sia and Dima are trying to make space for everyone to spend Christmas together. They invited everyone I consider family: Hermione declined, and I’m okay with that. You won’t hurt my feelings by giving some of your time to Hermione and her family instead of me. I think it’s a good idea, you continuing to get to know the Grangers,” he admitted, encouraging the work Ron had started over the summer. “I’ll still be here. Not going anywhere… just Romania.” He snorted. To a muggle it would sound mad—Romania was quite a long plane or train ride. To a wizard, Harry would only be an owl or Apparition away. 

Ron stared off at nothing, taking the time to process everything Harry said. Harry gave him the minute he needed to think, forming his response. 

“Hermione acts like Dima’s a monster,” Ron repeated that metaphor he’d employed earlier, working it out in his head. “The poisonous kind, with fangs and stuff. She doesn’t just hate people for no reason. She’s the most logical person I know. So… _is_ he awful? Am I blind because he’s my partner? Or is Mione just wrong about him?” 

That was a legitimate question. Harry didn’t know how to answer. Hermione wasn’t exactly wrong. Dmitry wasn’t known for making great choices under pressure. But was he dangerous? No more than any other abused person if they felt backed into a corner, acting out of fear. Dmitry wasn’t unsafe: he was hurting, and sometimes his instincts or faulty behavioral programming betrayed him. 

Harry found his answer. “Dmitry’s no more a monster than I am.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Two Hit Wizards were watching muggle television in the flat’s tiny sitting room—a program about muggle airplanes. It was educational, explaining the sciences of physics and engineering which made this muggle magic possible. The officers kept talking over the program, discussing how remarkable it was that muggles managed to keep the things in the sky without magic, surprised that they didn’t smash into one another or crash on a daily basis. 

Neville collected their empty tea cups, excusing himself to the kitchen. It was getting late, and he had nothing better to do than go to bed. The Hits would be up all night, guarding him and Astoria while they slept. He was almost used to that. 

He found Astoria at the kitchen sink, her wand out, directing the dishes to wash themselves. She had a swipe of powdery white flour on her jaw—Neville spotted a bowl with a towel over it on the counter, the dough she’d made with that flour left out to prove overnight. He was getting used to her baking projects, too. Astoria had cleaned the counters and tools she’d used to cook with, leaving only that bit of flour on her face. She likely didn’t feel it, no heavier than the cosmetics she wore. 

He made sure Astoria had what she wanted now, simple pleasures, vestiges of a normal life. Her fitted dove-gray robe from Twilfitt & Tattings was new. She had eye-shadow and mascara to line her eyes with, her lips half bare—because her red-currant-colored lipstick was always rubbing off on her tea cup, leaving her bottom lip less painted than the upper. He noted her uneven lipstick when she smiled at him. He found it charming, comforting, the human touches of her impossible beauty. 

“I’ll see to those,” she offered of the empty cups in his hands. 

Neville swallowed thickly. A Death Eater’s daughter and one of the prettiest witches in all of England was smiling at him—had chosen to be around him—and was doing the washing up. This did not seem like his life, but someone else’s. Increasingly, Neville felt as though he were the unwitting star of some muggle prank show. It was comically absurd to think that Astoria Greengrass would want anything to do with Neville Longbottom, let alone willingly wash his dinner plate. 

“S’alright,” he mumbled back, setting the cups beside the sink. “I appreciate you washing up, Astoria. But you don’t have to do that. I… I don’t want you to feel obligated. You did the cooking tonight, so I think it’s only fair I clean up.” He reached for his wand, prepared to take over cleaning duties. 

Astoria wasn’t smiling anymore. Her face changed: cheeks still high but her lips shifted, no longer smiling but open, blue eyes blinking up at him. She seemed… surprised? Did Death Eater wizards not offer to wash up? Tossers. 

She rose up on her toes, touching his arm across his body, still reaching for his wand. He wasn’t going to draw it if that made her uncomfortable. He was only offering to do the dishes, of course, but after everything Astoria had been through, he wasn’t about to insensitively pull his wand around her and remind her of her past when wizards with wands had controlled her every move. 

Astoria’s weight shifted onto him, a pressure against his forearm, locking it to his body. She was using that connection as a lever. Her other hand, still holding her own wand, grabbed him by the front of his shirt. She tugged—down, insistent, direct… and then they were kissing. 

Neville had been kissed a sum total of twice in his life. Both times, it felt a bit like a chore on the witch’s part—something she felt obligated to do after several dates. A lackluster press of lips in parting, followed by an inevitable owl asking not to see each other again. He’d never been kissed like this; aggressive, yanked down by his shirt and shown precisely what was expected of him. _Kiss me back_ , Astoria’s lips demanded. _I want to kiss you. Show me how much you want to kiss me, too._  

His tongue against her lips; and she returned it, biting at his bottom lip, sucking it back between her teeth. He thought his knees might fail from the rush of blood out of his head and southward. 

The dishes were still going, running water and the occasional splash in his ears as Astoria boldly backed him into the nearest wall. He grunted, his sound loosed into her mouth as she licked his teeth. Astoria wasn’t holding back, positioning his hand low on her hip… pressing his fingertips into the curve of her bum, encouraging him to feel her beneath her figure-hugging robe. Her fingers went to his buttons, working to open his shirt. 

She nibbled on his lip before pulling back, catching her breath. She made quick work of his buttons now that she could see them properly. Neville’s heart raced in his chest—he could hear blood whooshing through his ears as Astoria parted his shirt, small hands skimming up his chest. She dug her fingers in, holding him by the bit of hair there. No one had ever done that to him. He thought it might hurt to have his chest hairs pulled but it didn’t hurt at all. She was adamant, expressing herself, appreciating these first touches of his body. She couldn’t know what her hands did to him, how faint and flushed she made him. 

“Neville, fuck me,” she demanded, breathing near as heavy as he was. “Right here, right now. Screw me.” 

“I…” he couldn’t believe, couldn’t catch his breath. Was this really happening? Surely he was dreaming. He’d wake up in bed, having come in his pants again. Witches didn’t want to have sex with him. “Really?” His voice cracked. Not sexy. 

But maybe it was, because she snapped up to smash her lips against his—a quick, warm suck, reassuring him.

“Yes.” Astoria dropped back onto her heels in order to work on her own buttons. She opened her robe, showing him one of the lace-trimmed bras and matching knickers she’d ordered from a muggle catalog. She opened her robe like she wanted him to look—knowing where his eyes would go and liking that. 

He’d never actually seen a woman in her pants before. Astoria wrapped her arms around his neck the best she could, being much shorter than him. She pressed. With his shirt open, he felt his first brush of skin-on skin, the firmness of her breasts against his ribs and her soft bare stomach on his. Gods she was so warm, so giving. She smelled like sugar, flour and cinnamon, her red lipstick already smudged around her upper lip. He’d done that. _He_ , Neville, had been snogged by Astoria Greengrass. She was in his arms, his hand on her bum, feeling her lacy knickers, her painted mouth telling him how this would go. 

“Pick me up. We can do it on the counter.” 

Of course. If they went to either of their bedrooms, the Hit Wizards in the sitting room would see them, would know what they were up to. It had to be here. His heart raced. 

“I have to tell you, I’ve never done this before,” he warned. She had a right to know. He might be awful at it. 

Astoria moved his hands to her bare waist—skin so hot, so smooth, his fingers tightened of their own volition. She pressed every inch of her small body against him, wanting him to pick her up as she’d suggested, to sit her on the counter and… have sex, right here in this tiny muggle kitchen with its bare light bulb fixed to the ceiling, illuminating her body in his arms.    

“Don’t worry,” she whispered, angling up to kiss his neck. Her mouth trailed down, nipping, making him sweat. “I don’t mind. I’ll show you what I fancy.” 

He had one ounce of cognition remaining. He used it to place his hand over Astoria’s, her hand still holding her wand. He wiggled his fingers between hers, touching the handle with her. He gave it a precise up-down flick. “ _Quietus_.” So the Hit Wizards in their sitting room wouldn’t hear. The running dish water would hopefully cover them. 

There was one other thing he needed to say. Looking into her slate blue eyes, he cupped her cheek. His thumb brushed that smudge of flour away—still amazed that he was allowed to touch her like this, to hold her, that… perhaps he could make her happy. He made her a promise: “We’ll only do what _you_ want, okay?” 

His words brought a steady, pleased sort of smile back to her lips. She licked them, knowing exactly what to say in return. “Good. Now take my knickers off. Let me show you what I want.”

 

 

 

 


	26. Revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The more I try to hurt you, the more it hurts me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **BRITISH NOTE:** Opal Fruits (aka Starburst) were invented and first marketed in the UK, with memorably silly advertisements throughout the 70’s and 80’s. Call it a Starburst and any British person in their thirties or older will indubitably punch you.
> 
>  **WARNINGS:** melancholy, mental health, PTSD triggers and freezing up, undiagnosed/untreated mental illness, Insomnia, jealousy, emotional manipulation, family arguments, domestics, mention of past self-harming behavior (cutting), marijuana use (smoking  & edibles), self-medicating, discussion of boundaries and limits, apologies & grand romantic gestures

 

_Pain_

_I guess it's a matter of sensation_

_But somehow you have a way of avoiding it all_

_In my mind_

_I have shot you and stabbed you through your heart_

_I just didn't understand_

_The ricochet is the second part_

_'Cause you can't hide what you intend_

_It glows in the dark_

_Once you've sought the path of revenge_

_There's no way to stop_

_And the more I try to hurt you_

_The more it hurts me_

_Strange_

_It seems like a character mutation_

_Though I have all the means of bringing you fuckers down_

_I can't make myself to destroy upon command_

_Somehow forgiveness lets evil make the laws_

_No, you can't hide what you intend_

_It glows in the dark_

_Once we become the thing we dread_

_There's no way to stop_

_And the more I try to hurt you_

_The more it backfires_

“[Revenge](https://youtu.be/eRGflWOpwts)”

Mark Linkous

 

 

 

 

 

Harry received an unexpected owl from Blaise.

 _Your husband is insufferable_ , he wrote. _Draco never stops talking about you. Mostly complaints, but when he’s on the piss all I hear is how much he misses you. Sober in the morning, he forbids me to bring it up. The cycle repeats itself every few days._  

Also, Draco was obsessed with learning Jewish songs—since he was at Blaise’s for Hanukkah and heard the prayers every night. 

Blaise asked Harry to come pick Draco up, as the welcome was wearing thin. _Before he converts to Judaism, if you please,_ was Blaise’s salvo. 

Harry took the day to consider how he ought to reply.

These second-hand stories of Draco’s antics made him smile. He could picture Draco standing beside Blaise, lit by the wavering candlelight of a menorah, insisting he learn all the proper words and notes of this new music. Draco was slowly coming back into himself, using music to claw his way back. Harry was proud. He knew Draco was strong enough. He had to find that fire within himself, and sometimes Harry’s presence inhibited him. 

Blaise’s letter made Harry oddly happy—and relieved that Draco was perhaps starting to see in himself what Harry had loved so dearly all along. 

Harry composed his reply in his head, writing it out after work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _Blaise,_
> 
> _Thank you for hosting Draco. I know he isn’t always easy, and we appreciate your generosity. Should you prefer him out by a certain day, let me know and I’ll make arrangements._
> 
> _He’s asked for no contact with me and as hard as that is I need to respect his wishes, so I won’t be ‘coming to collect him’ as you put it. I’m Draco’s partner, not his jailor. While he’s accustomed to that kind of behavior from his father and others, you won’t be seeing me drag him home by his ear._
> 
> _I can find somewhere else for him to stay if you’d be so kind as to pass the details on to him for approval. Give me a firm date and I’ll have him out of your flat and installed elsewhere._
> 
> _Thank you again for keeping an eye on him. You’re a good friend, and it’s perfectly reasonable to want your place to yourself again. No hard feelings._
> 
>  
> 
> _\- Harry_

 

 

He needed to find someone else to put Draco up, since it was a very bad idea for Draco to live on his own given his mental state. Harry’s intention was to ask Sia, Misha and Dima if they’d be willing to flip the current arrangement—taking Draco in, with Harry on the out. If that didn’t pan out, he thought about asking Leon and Charlene if they’d be willing to foster Draco for a while as they’d done for him during the war. Draco needed some stability in his life. He deserved that. 

Either way, Harry’s plan was to find somewhere else to live… for him and Draco, both.

 

 

 

 

Later that night he, Dima and Sia met up with Misha for dinner out. With snow on the ground and the weather so brisk, Harry wasn’t the only one craving some spicy curry to keep his insides warm. 

As they sat at a table waiting for their meals to arrive, Harry had an announcement to make. He was getting better at speaking candidly with his family… both his families. 

"So... I wanted to thank you for putting me up. I don't have the words to say what you've all meant to me." And his cheeks heated. He kept going, speaking to the table cloth. "But I need to learn how to get on, to actually _be_ independent. I'm eighteen and I’ve never lived on my own for more than a few weeks." 

In that brief time alone last year, he'd been so heartsick over sending Draco to Hogwarts that he hadn't done much else but train and punish himself. His habits became self-reproving, grinding, relentless and hyperactive: classic avoidance behaviors for a person with Complex PTSD, distracting himself with projects and manual labor so he wouldn’t have time to feel anything, burying the hurt he felt under a mountain of things to do. That needed to be worked on by trying it again; better-informed and more self-aware this time around, and armed with a ready support system. 

“It’s time I accept this separation and get used to living on my own,” he told his friends. “I've decided to move back to Grimmauld. I think I’ll make the transition after Christmas, but it may be sooner. It sounds like Draco won’t be in Italy much longer, so I’ll need to get him resettled first, and I’ll end up… wherever." 

If needed, he’d move Dmitry, Nebojsa, and Draco into his house and live in their flat with Misha—or get a flat-share with Ron if Misha didn’t feel like having a roommate. He’d figure something out. He didn’t necessarily like his situation, but he had options. 

He could tell Sia approved of the idea. The silent Serb gave the tiniest dip of his chin—acknowledging Harry’s decision, accepting. Harry was moving out. Sia thought it was a good idea for Harry to start getting on with his life, accepting that he may not live with his spouse anymore. 

Misha looked a bit sad to hear Harry might be leaving their flat. Misha did love having the company of a friendly roommate; maybe that companion would be Ginny a few months from now when she was finished with school. 

Meanwhile Dima wasn't emoting at all regarding Harry’s decision—drinking his beer while looking off at the restaurant’s decor, behaving as though Harry hadn’t spoken a word. He'd allow himself to feel later, when they weren't in public.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Dmitry couldn't sleep that night. Little wonder why. He threw himself into a recent large-scale painting—a scene from the battle of Hogwarts; flames in the sky chasing Thestrals and broomstick riders, snow on the ground below, shadowy and indistinct faces lit by sprays of spell-light. It looked like fireworks on the earth's surface with flames burning in the sky, a world turned upside-down. 

It was beautiful… in a frightening sort of way. He captured the way unconscious bodies fell from broomsticks, how the dead had lain mangled in the bloodied snow, stepped over by those still in the fight. Dmitry’s signature style was hyperrealism; like a photograph rendered in paint, he couldn’t hide, had to show each detail exactly as it had been, or at least convincingly. Dima had photos of Thestrals and magic carpets in flight, as well as varying-sized humans in winter robes—his references, pinned up where he could look at them as he worked under a Magnification Charm. 

He kept this particular painting covered during the day, not wanting Misha to see it and remember that fight. Dima probably didn't want Harry to see it, either, to realize how bad it had gotten out on the grounds whilst he was down in the castle dungeons, fighting for his life, saving Draco and going after Voldemort. Dima knew Harry would blame himself, looking at those faces and thinking of all the people he'd failed to save. 

Looking at that terrifying six-by-ten-foot painting, Nebojsa found he couldn't fall back to sleep either. 

He disentangled himself from Harry and got up—drawing open the sheer curtains which surrounded their bed, his movement catching Dima's attention. Without a word spoken, they both slipped their boots on and stepped out into the hallway to talk between themselves. They needed to discuss Harry’s decision to move out. 

Dima sound-proofed the hall with a quick flick of his switch-like wand, making sure they didn't wake Harry or Misha if they felt like hollering. 

"Go with Harry," Dima said right away, as though the decision were an obvious one. "To Grimmauld. He needs you. We'll be fine here." In short: _leave me and be with The Boy Who Live_ _d_ _T_ _o_ _R_ _eject_ _M_ _e_. 

Nebojsa's eyes rolled so hard he lost most of his field of vision for a moment. "No," he countered flatly. "Harry doesn't need me. He wants to live alone." 

Dmitry snorted—a horse-like sound, calling bullshit. " _Pe dracu_. Harry wants to stay, and he wants you. He’s only talking about moving out because of what he thinks our relationship is."

Dima wasn’t exactly wrong. Harry’s understanding of D/s relationships and polyamory was roughly sketched. Too often he applied his own preferences and principles, thinking of the two of them as ‘boyfriends’ or ‘nearly engaged.’ Because that was what Harry wanted for them, how he comprehended love and commitment. Harry had never actually asked about their plans, what they intended for the future. Harry assumed what he wanted to hear—assumed that his own desires and drives were universal. 

Nebojsa pressed his teeth together, his eyebrows rising. He needed to bring the focus of the discussion back to his and Dima’s agreed-upon roles, not what Harry wanted of them. Dima cared far too much about Harry’s opinions. 

Nebojsa delivered his sarcasm dryly. "Oh? Did Harry tell you that?" 

Gold eyes shifted, darkening. "No. Not exactly." 

"Then you managed to use Legilimency on him without his noticing?" Nebojsa pressed. "You're reading his mind now? Without his consent?" 

Dmitry answered with a glare. " _No_ , but—" 

"So you're hearing him, too? The way I do." 

That irked Dima. He wanted the same psychic link Nebojsa and Harry shared. But that would never happen. Harry would have to touch Dmitry with his powers, the blue light around his hands which had started all this. Dima was too afraid to ask for it, and Harry didn't trust Dima enough to be that intimate. 

At least in part, Nebojsa and Harry shared a connection because they'd established a deep level of trust and understanding between them. Harry didn’t want to be that close with Dima. He saw the rebel in Dmitry; his difficulty adhering to basic rules, and a growing disregard for the feelings of others. Harry could see parts of Tihomir in Dima, and for that he refused to get closer. Harry recognized Dima's potential to behave like his father. The last thing Harry wanted was another Tiho or Lucius in his life. Harry had enough enemies already. 

Nebojsa knew how Harry felt about Dima, his innermost reservations, without having ever discussed the matter. More than words exchanged in silence… he could feel. Parts of Harry transferred to him as though born on the air. He just knew these things, bits of Harry embedded in his brain. That bond fueled Dima’s jealousy more than anything else—driving a wedge between them. They’d always been tightly knit… but now, Harry was even closer, seeming to share one mind. Dmitry was envious. He wanted to think and feel the way they did—together. 

At times, it felt like Harry was holding a megaphone to his own heart, broadcasting every innocuous thought and feeling on a frequency only Nebojsa and Draco could hear for having been exposed to his sorcery. Every now and then—when Harry thought something truly private or perhaps inappropriate—he was able to enact a kind of radio silence, keeping certain things to himself. 

During the war his broadcast had been faint, like music playing in one unit of a large apartment complex. After their accident in the Law Enforcement Library, their connection became a direct line. It could feel like Harry was in his arms, wrapped around him, confessing in his ear. 

Nebojsa knew he'd heard a lot of things he shouldn't have. It wasn't always possible to tune Harry out. Perhaps he didn't know how strong he was, or how far he reached. His influence blanketed their lives. 

"I can't hear him," admitted Dima crossly. His arms were tense, hands curled, not quite fists. Mind-reading would always be a difficult subject. "You know I can't. But I understand what he wants without his having to say so." 

Nebojsa fired back. "Right. The same way your father knew what others 'wanted,' what was best for them." 

Dmitry did not react well to that. He hated his father now, but for years before he'd been brainwashed to worship Tiho as a wizard-god on earth, second only to Voldemort. Dima still reacted to criticism aimed at the man; taking it personally by association, as though inheriting his titles in some sense made them one-and-the-same. Dima hated being compared in any way to that monster. So much so that one of the arguments he offered in favor of their getting married was that he would change his surname—could become a Radić, leaving 'Ionescue' behind forever, a symbol of a fresh start. It wasn’t the worst idea he’d ever had. 

Feeling attacked, Dmitry didn't say a word. He waved his wand again, Transfiguring his grubby painting clothes into a flattering going-out ensemble: tight jeans, a form-hugging jumper, and a thick leather belt to match his favorite boots. He re-opened their front door and stormed inside, ripping his jacket off the clothes rack and stuffing his meaty arms into it. Dima was going out to cool his head. He thought he'd hit one of London's gay bars or perhaps a bathhouse and rage-fuck a stranger. 

Wouldn't be the first time. Sex was one of Dmitry's most reliable self-soothing mechanisms. He negotiated. He observed limits. He made his intentions clear and always used protection. So Nebojsa found no reason to stop the behavior if it was working for him. As a human-creature hybrid, Dmitry had significantly more energy than other wizards. His libido was through the roof—more than any one person could hope to satisfy. And honestly? It was nice to get him out of the flat sometimes. To air out the paint fumes, do laundry, have a glass of wine and be alone. A certain distance helped them both cool off after disagreeing as they were now. 

Telling Dima he was being a hot-blooded ass wasn’t going to help things along, so Nebojsa didn’t say any more. They could pick up again some other time. Harry wasn’t leaving right away, so they had time to talk. 

Nebojsa followed Dima back inside. Extending his arm, he Sorcerer-Summoned a few condoms from the nightstand—floating them Dima's way, tucking them into his pocket. 

"Stay safe, my heart," he muttered in gentle dismissal, kicking his boots off, turning back to their bed where Harry lay sound asleep, hugging a pillow. They were damn lucky Harry was such a heavy sleeper. The sip of Sleeping Draught he took most nights helped. 

Nebojsa had the top fold of the blanket in one hand, a foot sliding into bed when he heard a mighty, metallic-clattering crash. Leaping involuntarily at the sudden loud noise, he lost his balance, landing on the bed on all fours, arms down to break his fall, backside up in the air. He flipped his ponytail out of his face to see what happened: Dima had purposefully knocked over their loaded metal clothes rack—smacking it to the ground, making a mess of their things because he was in a snit. 

"You call yourself a Dom?! You know what you are?" Dima screamed. "You're a God-damned pussy! Coward! You won't go with Harry even when he _clearly_ wants you to! Just leave me. Do us all a fucking favor! This ‘accepting the separation’ thing means he’s available now. Harry’s single—and everyone knows he wants _you_. I’m just the big dumb idiot standing in the way." 

Rumors had made their way around the office—they were inevitable, when Harry was out and his law enforcement partner was such a feminine-looking man, so close to him, their relationship psychologically intimate beyond most people's comprehension. Others made their own false assumptions. Someone mentioned these rumors to Ron, who turned around and blabbed to his teammate Dmitry. 

Dima didn't understand that those rumors weren't started in support of Harry and Nebojsa as a potential couple, but to turn Harry's sexuality into something predatory—to paint him as an adulterer, and to mock Nebojsa for his appearance… implying that he looked enough like a woman for a predominantly-straight wizard like Harry to want him. Dmitry interpreted those rumors the way _he_ wanted to, as supportive of his own fantasy of his current dominant and the new dom he desired getting together; forming a kind of power-couple who could turn their combined whims on him, their mutual slave. Even with two Masters, Dmitry might not get worn out. 

Dima wanted Harry more than he’d ever wanted any other man. And someone like Dmitry wasn’t accustomed to being turned down. He didn’t know how to let this go… to let Harry go. Imagining Harry and Nebojsa together was a way to remain connected, keeping his big foot in the door with hopes that Harry might change his mind someday. Dmitry didn’t understand: it wasn’t Harry who needed to change. 

"Harry wants nothing to do with me," Dima spat bitterly. He’d never been this jealous—because he was hurting, knowing the man he loved and looked up to most wanted someone else and not him. Dima interpreted Harry wanting to move out as a rejection of him personally rather than something Harry wanted to do to work on himself. Dima thought Harry was the perfect man—couldn’t see the wounds under his armor which were slowly killing him. 

Eyes narrowed, hands in fists, Dima let his anger get the better of him. He shouted again. "I get it! I’m shit compared to The Chosen One. So throw me out with the trash, already! Be with him!" 

Mishenka heard the commotion and came racing out of his room in nothing but a pair of basketball shorts. His drawn wand and panicked look said he figured the two of them were fighting—but on the off-chance they were in fact the targets of some sinister plot, Misha wanted to be prepared to defend himself. Their house rules were so ingrained in his mind that even at the prospect of being under attack, Misha still covered up out of respect for Harry's deeply English sensibilities. Harry struggled to accept platonic social nudity, having been socialized that nakedness was both sexual and shameful. Misha put something on out of respect for Harry. They all did. 

Misha saw the spilled clothes rack, and Nebojsa's startled, protective position on the bed. Out of reflex, Nebojsa had thrown himself between Dima and Harry; raised voices always put him on the defencive, especially at home. He was up on his knees with his arms outstretched and hands fairly crackling, glowing white. 

Harry's sleeping body was defenceless. Dmitry didn't get to be _near_ Harry when he was this irrational, this angry. House protocol was to go somewhere separate and cool off. A trip to the bathhouse was only going to rile Dima up more—because none of the men there would be _Harry_ , the one he wanted but couldn’t have. Dima had to realize that for himself, had to choose to follow through with the code of behavior to which they'd all agreed and find a way to expel his current fury. He was allowed to be angry, to lose his temper. He wasn’t permitted to destroy their things or upset other members of the family in the process of venting his rage. 

Harry was awake. He put a pillow over his head at first, trying to block out Dima's shouting and get back to sleep. A low groan escaped him when Misha cried a loud and confused, " _Ce pana mea?!_ " at his brother. The expression about feathers was the Romanian equivalent of asking someone "What the hell?" 

At Misha's agitated tone, Harry dropped his pillow and reached for his glasses, knowing the situation was serious and deciding it was time to engage. 

Misha tussled with Dima, trying to get his wand away—seeing him fully dressed at this hour and assuming he was drunk, too much alcohol being the source of his outburst... not that he was irrational and hurting because Harry said he was moving out, leaving them, and Dima didn't want him to go. That was part of it. They weren’t exactly good at letting people go. 

Dmitry was stone sober and a lot stronger than his little brother. Misha dueled well but he had no reason to practice fist-fighting anymore. Dima easily batted Misha away, swearing. His volume rose, and Nebojsa’s hands lit more. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t want the brothers to fight but the protest got stuck in his throat. It broke him to see them pitted against each other. Misha didn’t give up easily, lunging at Dima again, determined to get his wand. 

Misha was making things worse by getting physical. Engaging with Dima only made him angrier; providing him with a target, someone to fight. 

As the brothers went at it, Harry made the fuzzy-headed mistake of reaching out—touching Nebojsa without looking at his hands first. Still in bed, Harry rose to his knees behind Nebojsa, slipping a protective arm around his middle to draw him back—pressing his solid chest against Nebojsa's back as a physical reminder to keep cool and attempt to de-escalate. Harry was tapping into their training, squeezing Nebojsa to keep him still and calm. 

Harry's lack of thinking got him zapped. Over his shoulder, The Boy Who Lived pressed his cheek to Nebojsa’s. The second they made skin-to-skin contact, Harry jerked as though he'd embraced an electric fence. He fell backwards on the bed with a disturbing choking sound—his spine arching in pain, limbs stiff, head thrown back, eyes rolling to the back of his head until all that could be seen was whiteness. The way his body repeatedly jerked looked like a muggle having a tonic seizure. He wasn't breathing. 

Misha saw what was happening. He released his brother and bolted over, dropping to his knees as Nebojsa did his best to disentangle himself without touching Harry's skin again. With his medical training kicking in, Misha checked for Harry's pulse at his throat. Finding it, he turned Harry's head to the side, holding his skull at the occipital bone to keep him steady while rubbing a thumb slowly up Harry's neck, encouraging blood flow to his brain with a bit of wandless emergency magic—ensuring his patient wouldn’t suffocate to death before Misha could figure out how to help him. Harry kept twitching, spasms shaking him, but he was able to breathe again with Misha’s spell. 

No one spoke. They were all too terrified for words. 

Nebojsa called for his wand, handing it over to Misha to do whatever he could to save Harry. The blackthorn wand had once been his father's so he could use it in a pinch. Misha began casting rapid charms over Harry, and within a few seconds their friend stopped shaking, his arms and legs relaxed, and floo-green eyes returned from the back of his skull—looking dazed, struggling to bring the world into focus. He came back like someone who’d taken a Beater’s bat to the head. God willing, he wouldn’t have brain-damage. Nebojsa traced a cross over his forehead, lips, and sternum; praying that Harry would recover. 

Harry had broken out in a cold sweat. Misha wiped wet curls away from his face, looking down at him, stroking his forehead in an effort to keep him calm. "You're gonna be alright," Misha reassured. He wanted Harry to believe that, yet the furrow in his brow suggested he might be lying to keep Harry stable. 

Harry was incapable of speaking just yet—he simply wheezed, trying to get air back into his lungs. His pupils were tiny black pinpricks in the green of his eyes, unresponsive when Misha waved a hand in front of his face. He might've passed out, going into shock from a single touch. Misha kept him lying down, a hand on his chest reminding him to breathe slowly. 

Harry could've died. The Boy Who Lived Twice, dead. Over something so, so stupid. 

Nebojsa looked to Dmitry standing near the door… waiting for the truth of the situation to hit him like a guilt-Bludger. Dmitry was raging over nothing—because Nebojsa and Harry could never be together. _This_ was why. If either of them lost control of their abilities, they could easily kill each other.

Tonight had proven it yet again. Dmitry was so stubborn, so focused on pleasure and immediate gratification that he forgot what could happen. Sex with Harry—one accidental, mid-orgasm blast of blue light—could _kill_ Nebojsa. Just as one trigger or fright or moment of inattention could cause Nebojsa to inadvertently torture Harry, stopping his breathing, strangling him with the touch of a finger. One shag wasn't worth suffering or potentially dying for. They'd rather remain as friends, platonic and alive. 

Dima was petrified. He was reliving that spark of pure white light taking his father's life before his eyes. Then Dolores Umbridge days ago. Now it had gone into Harry because _he_ caused a fight and startled them. As partners, Harry and Nebojsa had a shared instinct to protect each other. Dima was seeing the consequences of his actions brought down against the men he claimed to love. Harry got hurt, and it was Dima’s fault. 

Dmitry was numb. He didn't know how to react, standing there, unblinking. He might've been made of stone. 

Against Misha's coo'ed advice, Harry started moving around. Pushing up onto one elbow, he extended an arm and Summoned his keys—chucking them angrily at Dmitry. Even weakened by a near-death experience, Harry had one hell of an arm. Pure anger animated him. His keys thrashed Dima in the chest. 

" _Get out,_ " Harry growled, his voice a bit scratchy but deep, in-command, thoroughly frightening for a man who could've died seconds ago. Harry might've been exhausted but he was unequivocally speaking as head of the family, handing down an order. "Go sleep it off at Grimmauld. Come back when you can have a conversation without talking down to your family." And he flopped back against the sheets, spent. 

" _Plimbă ursu!_ " Misha snapped at his brother, dismissing him. Literally "go walk the bear," it suggested the target fuck off and die, getting mauled by the wild animal they were instructed to tame. In this case Dmitry's ego was the bear, and he needed to take a good long walk to get his feral side under control. 

Nebojsa said nothing. He couldn’t get a single word past his lips. Seeing Harry drop and start convulsing... just from touching him.... Nebojsa was reduced to hugging his knees, both hands clasped tightly over his mouth, squeezing, holding his jaw shut so his teeth couldn’t be heard chattering. 

This was a bit more than he knew how to bounce back from. Thankfully Harry had taken the lead when he froze—Harry raised his voice with authority, making it clear that Dima was barred from the flat until he cooled off. Harry Potter effectively put a duke in time-out. 

Humiliated, fuming and hurt, Dmitry turned on his heel and marched out the door, slamming it behind him. He was angry but… more than anything he felt ashamed of his behavior. Harry had never yelled at Dima like that; and Harry had really called him out, disappointed in him. 

Several canvases stacked near the door toppled over from the kinetic breeze, clattering over the floor. It was perfectly silent for a moment—Dima's Silencing Charm over the hallway still in effect. Once he hit the stairs they could hear his stomping bootfalls carrying him down the concrete stairs and out of the building, slamming the exterior door behind him. 

At least he’d taken his jacket. Nebojsa hoped his money clip was in one of the pockets. He had Harry’s keys and would hopefully follow orders, going directly to Grimmauld Place for the night. If not… there were twenty-four hour bars and clubs in London, and Dima certainly knew the circuit. This time he had a choice, a place to go. Whether or not he’d do as was asked of him had yet to be seen. 

Harry slowly rubbed his throat—a signal it hurt to talk. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, aiming his words primarily at Nebojsa but including Misha, too. “I had to. When he talks to you like that….” 

He didn’t have to say more. Sometimes Dmitry’s manners reminded Harry of the people who’d abused him—Dumbledore, his uncle, Umbridge. Even Headmaster Snape, who Nebojsa understood had a special talent for talking down to Harry, belittling him, even humiliating him in public when Harry had been only eleven or twelve years old. 

When Dmitry lost his temper and started slinging insults, Harry’s trauma from a lifetime of abuse was tapped into action. His recent training from law enforcement and from psychotherapy gave him the tools he needed to isolate and disarm unstable individuals before things got out of hand. Harry was using those techniques now on Dima. In that moment, waking up to shouting and Nebojsa kneeling protectively over him… Harry saw Dmitry as a threat. 

Sending Dima away wouldn’t help him get better. He had to want to change. But for one night, they could recover. Tomorrow they’d deal with Dima. 

“It’s… I…” Nebojsa fumbled, searching for what he truly meant to say. Or at least what was appropriate to express in the moment. He wasn’t accustomed to being rescued by Harry Potter. He understood now why Draco tip-toed around Harry at times like this. It was hard not to show your hand… to resist the urge to lay every card on the table and be bare, to pour out and give Harry everything in return, falling into the arms of the sorcerer who saved you. It wasn’t always right to lay yourself on Harry—not when he was already struggling so hard just to breathe. “Vot you did vos… right. Thank you.” 

Harry’s eyes closed, accepting. To Misha, he said, “I feel like shite. Would half a spliff and a bit more Sleeping Draught be medically advisable?” 

Harry remembered. He knew Misha smoked to reduce his anxiety in situations like these. And he knew Nebojsa’s preferred method to combat drop was a joint and some time alone with Misha. Harry was offering to knock himself out, to give them time to themselves to process. In asking for a joint, he was in a way giving them permission to have one, too. Harry’s recovery process was to get his rest and deal with his emotions with fresh eyes in the morning. Were Draco here he might’ve skipped the joint and asked for sex instead. A bit of pot was a poor substitute but readily available in the flat, so Harry made due. 

Misha smiled. He had one better. Reaching to the nightstand, he retrieved a recent concoction he’d invented for Dmitry. They looked like grapefruit-pink sugar cubes in a jar. He unscrewed the lid and offered to Harry. 

“Cannabis oil infused into sugar and gelatin, laced vith Sleeping Draught and some Dreamless Sleep. Powdered freeze-dried strawberries for flavor.” Misha might as well have recited the recipe, which was informative but indirect. When nervous, he tended to babble bookishly. 

Nebojsa summarized, “They’re pot candies that’ll put even a horse to sleep.” He might have one himself, to make sure he too slept without nightmares. As important as dreams were, tonight he could do without them. 

Harry appeared to share that sentiment. When his hand hovered in question over the jar, Misha added the dosage. “I take two.” 

“Cheers,” said Harry, plucking out the two recommended sweets and popping them into his mouth, chewing. He moved himself to lie the proper way on the bed, getting back under the covers. Even that simple movement appeared to hurt him—straining physically but refusing to wince, not wanting to let on how much pain he was in. The prefect soldier. Harry looked back at Misha, moving the soft candy around in his mouth so he could speak. “You’ve invented medicinal Opal Fruits. Magic is amazing. Cheers, mate.” 

Harry once told him that the first thing he’d ever stolen was a tube of chewy fruit pastilles from a convenience shop. He’d felt bad for stealing, but his aunt and uncle hadn’t fed him anything in nearly a week. He’d only been about five or six years old, and so small that the store clerk couldn’t see him at all when hiding behind his cousin. Encountering the profusion of candy and sweets in the wizarding world reminded Harry of starving as a kid, never knowing there was a vault of gold waiting for him, that his years of pain could’ve been spared by just a few coins kept underground. 

That was why Harry valued secrecy so much—keeping information confidential, knowing of things hidden… that was how Harry survived, the fuel-in-reserve which kept him going when anyone else would’ve burned out. He always had something buried, a survival stash, just like that little boy who stole candy and hoarded it in his closet under the stairs. The sugar in candy made it shelf-stable. It kept for a long time. Harry was always playing the long game, determined to survive. 

“Misha and I will go in his room to smoke,” Nebojsa said softly in Serbian, rising. “So you can sleep here without having to breathe it. We like to listen to music; we’ll use a Muffling Charm. If you need us…” he tapped his temple, implying for Harry to shout that way. He’d keep his sorcerer’s channel open for as long as he was awake. It might yet be a while before his own jittery nerves went down enough to let him sleep. 

Harry nodded. He would be alright on his own. His lashes fluttered, and then he was unconscious.

 

 

 

 

Nebojsa and Misha lay in his bed, passing a joint between them, staring up at the ceiling with the stereo on blast. 

Misha’s song of choice was “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Some people used to say that Nebojsa resembled Farrokh Bulsara—better known by his reinvented name: Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen. Black hair and skinny, with multiple octaves and a flamboyant, suggestively feminine mien. Most people meant it as a compliment, not realizing what else they were implying. 

It might’ve been the weed in his system but Mr. Mercury’s whimsical lyrics were making too much sense tonight—the ballad’s stories hitting too close to home, one right after another. 

“ _Any way_ _the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me_ ,” Nebojsa sang along. That was how he tried to live his life, ready for anything, permeable; allowing others to enter or leave as they needed. He tried not to hold on too tightly. 

Misha took over, passing the joint back in order to sing the next bit—telling the story of a man confessing to his mother that he’d murdered a man. 

“ _Put a gun against his head. Pulled my trigger, now he’s dead._ ” Except Misha knew blessedly little of guns. He’d killed in the war, self-defence, but had no mother to confess to. Nebojsa had to do, standing in stead. “ _Didn’t mean to make you cry. If I’m not back again this time tomorrow…_ ” Those words hit especially hard. Dmitry might not come back anytime soon; not after his idol set him down like that. “ _Carry on, carry on_ ,” Freddie urged, Misha singing along in a strained falsetto—he was a tenor but he didn’t go that high without effort. 

The two of them carried on: holding hands, eyes squeezed shut so tight, feet swishing back-and-forth to the ever-changing melody. 

 _“I don’t want to die… I sometimes wish…_ ” Despite the build in the music, Misha stopped. He couldn’t sing the words: ‘sometimes wish I’d never been born at all.’ After everything, he’d never felt that way. 

Misha used to cut himself, bleeding, trying to release the murdered creature forced to live on inside him. Misha couldn’t let the poor beast out, couldn’t free it, and only hurt himself in the process. It was Nebojsa who found out, convincing him to stop. Blood held so much power in the magical world—a pureblood wizard would’ve argued against spilling it for that reason alone. Nebojsa spoke to Misha instead of respecting his body, treating himself with kindness and care. Only his death could release the bond, and everyone died eventually. By self-harming—cutting, starving himself—he was also causing further pain to the creature whose spirit he shared. Eventually Misha learned to live with what had been done to him, accepting the creature inside him, vowing not to hurt it or himself anymore. 

Misha didn’t want to die. But he knew that sometimes his brother did, wishing he’d never been born. Those lyrics were true for Dima, but not for him. 

“Mamma…” he addressed Nebojsa just like Freddie in the music. “Are you gonna be able to fix Harry like you did for me?” 

Nebojsa couldn’t hold back his sigh. Smoke left his lips, drifting up towards the high unfinished ceilings. “Harry’s a grown man. He’s got to do his own work. If he thought he needed my help, he would’ve asked for it by now.” He started laughing—mostly out of frustration, and a bit of helplessness. It was pointless to try to change other people. But change The Boy Who Lived? He’d have better luck turning the sky orange. “Darling… I’m _your_ mom. I can’t be everybody else’s, too. Not without losing my mind.”  

Worried, Misha had to add, “What about Dimka? Can you fix him?” 

That was complicated. Nebojsa decided he’d rather be funny than serious. He took another puff before announcing, “That beast? I’m gonna need a bigger crop.” That wasn’t how a Master/slave relationship worked. It was funny because they both knew better, poking fun at the common misconceptions of the lifestyle. 

Misha spoke up, letting his feelings out. “I don’t care what you’ve gotta do. Scare him. Leave if you have to! _Make him_ listen, okay?” He tucked his face into the pillow, growling out against its give. “No more of this. The war is over. I want my big brother back.” 

Those last words were a cry, like a child begging for their mother. Misha wanted one normal thing: his older brother to lean on, learn from, and be proud of. He knew this monster who raised his voice at nothing, demanded others do his bidding without question, and wouldn’t listen to reason. That was Tiho, and they were supposed to be free of him. 

You could kill a monster, but ideas were as immortal as memory. Tiho never made a horcrux yet he lived on in his sons, whether they liked it or not. 

Nebojsa breathed loudly through his nose. He wanted to bury his face in a pillow, too, and scream. “Believe me… I want him back, too.”

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

The next morning, Harry woke to an empty bed. And a note left for him on the kitchen table. As soon as he put his glasses on, he noticed the slip of white muggle notebook paper against the dark wood, Nebojsa’s tall and slanted writing on it. Harry got up and stumbled over, leaning into the table for support when his legs weren’t precisely under him. 

Nebojsa was at church. Of course. After last night he wanted to go alone, to have that time to meditate and collect his thoughts before returning to the sight of a nasty fight with Dima, and the prospect of rehashing it all… assuming Dima had come back to earth and was ready to talk. 

It was worse because of how things went so abruptly wrong. Sia’s sorcery had flared with the brothers’ raised voices and before Harry realized what he was doing he’d grabbed his friend, hauling him back from the two spitfire, whisky-blooded princes who were bumping shoulders, puffing up on each other, about to have a go. Both of them had been seconds away from throwing punches. Harry’s instinct had been to make sure Sia was safe and would stay put, then separate the other two and make peace. He never made it out of bed, though. Nebojsa accidentally dropped him cold. 

Physically, Harry felt like shite on toast. Misha said transforming into a Granian felt like getting hit by a London double-decker bus, which was roughly how Harry felt lurching out of bed. Getting blasted by Nebojsa’s sorcerer’s ability was like falling off a broomstick. His body felt like he’d been knocked off a roof last night while hugging a cinder block. He was lucky to be alive. 

Hit Wizards were perpetually injured. Harry had prepared himself for that. Only he’d expected his wounds would happen on the job, not… in bed with Sia. Christ, it sounded wrong. 

Harry didn’t want to risk falling or losing his balance in the shower, opting for a soak in the bath instead. His entire body ached down to his bones. It was a struggle just to put his pants on. He would need magic to tie his shoes, padding around the flat in his bare feet until he needed to leave for work. 

By the time Sia came home, Harry had made it to the kitchen and was knocking up breakfast… using the back of a kitchen chair like a make-shift crutch, giving over some of his weight to save his legs as he folded over an omelette one-handed. 

They sat together and ate, sharing a pot of generously-steeped black tea, the color like coffee in their cups. Misha was still asleep and Harry didn’t want to wake him earlier than he needed to be up. Seeing his brother like that had to have been hard on Misha. Harry was inclined to let him sleep in. 

“About last night,” Harry began. He was still out of practice at handling things like this head on, but without practice he’d never improve. Sia was pretty much the perfect person to make mistakes with. He was always willing to forgive and try again. 

“ _Žao mi je_ ,” Sia whispered. He was sorry. “I never vanted to harm you.” When Dima started yelling, Sia panicked, and his white light just came out. Harry’s powers were the exact same way—a reaction, a feeling, impossible to ignore and difficult to tamp down on. It took time and a lot of practice to be able to recognize and control emotions in real time. Harry and Nebojsa had their emotion-based powers for less than a year. And both of them had PTSD, mucking up their emotional intuition—fumbling their hands on the control system of these new powers. They both filtered the world through their condition. So it was rather a miracle neither of them had killed anyone by accident, all things considered. 

Harry tipped his head, acknowledging. “It’s okay. I know it was an accident. You didn’t mean to. I hurt like hell but… it’s fine.” He meant that in the most quintessentially British way—feeling like he’d been hit by a bus, but he was fine. Fine. “I’m alive. If you could, tho, I’d appreciate it if you never tagged me again. What you’ve got is worse than the Cruciatus Curse—which I didn’t think was possible but….” He shrugged, trailing off. 

Sia’s power was a crucible, a combination of every blow he’d ever been dealt. A year’s worth of rape and torture dished out in a heartbeat. The pain of losing his parents, his entire family, and his church—the only place he’d ever felt safe. Every time Sia heart stopped, watching Dima and Misha fly into battle, never knowing if they’d survive the fight _or_ the transition back to their own bodies when the violence was over. 

Sia’s pain would crush most people to dust. 

Nebojsa bobbed his head too, avoiding Harry’s eyes. “Noted. I vill keep my magic to myzelf.” 

Harry had been mostly asleep when things started. He heard bits and pieces; all in Romanian, for which he still needed a Translation Charm for anything beyond basic phrases. He woke up to Dmitry bellowing, Sia on his knees like he was trying to protect them both. It was all a little scrambled, groggy thanks to the flying-horse-strength Sleeping Draught he had a sip of prior to bed but… Harry remembered enough to feel uncomfortable.

“Dmitry thinks… you….” Harry had to start over, being more direct. “He was asking you to break up with him and move on. To be with someone else. I thought the point of being polyamorous was that the two of you wouldn’t have to separate if you were interested in other people.” 

Nebojsa was looking out the window. There wasn’t much to see past the morning fog, but looking away seemed to make it easier for him to answer honestly. “Providing zhat ozher parties are also poly. Zomeone who needs monogamy to feel secure in zheir relationship… vell, zhat doesn’t fit vith us.” 

Harry pushed his plate away, getting to the point. “The monogamous person is me. _I’m_ the bloke Dima wants you to be with.” 

Holding his tea—blowing blindly over the surface of the hot liquid—Nebojsa gave the slowest nod. “Never mind zhat…” Long fingers drummed against his steaming hot tea cup. “One sneeze and ve could kill each ozher! Orgasm? Not vorth zhe risk.” And he shook his head, negating the idea—recognizing they could lose control of their abilities if they were ever… together. That was how this whole thing started: Harry’s magic escaping him in a blast the one time they’d kissed. 

Nebojsa was a ruddy good kisser. But Harry’d already died once for love. He didn’t feel like repeating the experience for another kiss. He wouldn’t say no to dying in bed, coming his brains out. But he’d rather be about a hundred years old when that happened, not eighteen, and he’d prefer to still be with Draco on the last day of his life. No offense meant to Nebojsa. Sia was poly. Something about loving multiple partners made him happy, felt like who he was supposed to be. Asking him to give that up—to give up Dima, to confine his calling to love freely… that would be like rejecting a part of Sia. Harry couldn’t do that. 

If you needed someone to cut out an innocent part of themselves to be with you, then that wasn’t really love at all. 

“It’s like you said before,” Harry offered. “Dima can be blinded by his impulses at times. I know because I’m the same way. I reckon after six years together he’s too cut up at the prospect of losing you to recognize that it’s not gonna happen. You and I would never risk hurting each other that way. So he can stop worrying about it and move on.” 

Nebojsa lifted his eyebrows. His bottom lip shifted as he sucked a bit of it into his mouth, causing the ring pierced through his lip to wiggle. It was the look that meant, _Tell_ _m_ _e_ _m_ _ore_. _I want to hear out loud what you think. Your words matter to me._  

Something about that look. His patience. The casual morning-meal interest in Harry’s thoughts. The fact that they could discuss these truly difficult subjects without melting down or raising voices. Harry felt comfortable in a way he’d only ever experienced with Draco, a feeling he’d fantasized about his entire life; to be free, to be able to say absolutely anything and know he’d never be judged or abandoned for it, would always and forever be… loved. 

Sia managed to give him the permission he needed to blurt out the truth. "I fancy you. For the record. I do." 

Nebojsa nodded. He knew. He fucking _knew_ already. Sly git. " _Da_. Yoo are... not exactly subtle."

Harry stared at him. 

Sia put down his tea and lifted his fork instead, tucking in to his breakfast. He was hungry. 

Harry had already told him that cooking meals was a special, intimate gesture. After being a slave to the Dursleys, Harry was particular about who he would cook for. Only people he cared about very deeply. It meant so much when Draco turned that gesture back on him, preparing him a potion or something to eat. Even being offered a sip from Draco’s coffee felt good—sharing food, sustaining each other. 

And then here he was, having prepared for Sia a thoughtfully-vegetarian breakfast. He was _so_ _fucking obvious_ outside his own head. This was… bloody romantic, sitting down to breakfast together, able to tell each other anything, meeting eyes across the table. It was what he wanted to get back to with Draco. And because his husband couldn’t meet his needs right now, Harry turned to Nebojsa instead—the most gentle and romantic chap he knew, possibly the only person who would take it as a purely emotional gesture rather than something flirtatious or sexual. 

"Yoo check me out. And flirt,” Sia’s Serbian tongue flipped L’s and rolled R’s. Harry found that sexy, a sound unique to him. “Too much for a married man, and too often to be unconscious. Yoo are a difficult man to ignore. Zomezhing about your eyes, I zhink." 

Harry's cheeks went bright red at being called out for his behavior. Also possibly because Sia was calling him handsome? Commanding, maybe, at times. His eyes... he had control over where he looked, and how long. It was exactly like Nebojsa said: he knew he wasn't supposed to look, knew it was inappropriate. It went against his own moral code, and he did it anyway. He thought he was being furtive but to everyone in the vicinity it was God damn clear what he was doing—checking out his best friend. 

The fact that he liked Sia wasn’t kept nearly as quiet as he’d thought. 

"Nothing can happen between us," Harry stated clearly through the nervous buzzing in his ears. It felt strangely good to say that out loud. All of it. “Because of the risk of accidentally knocking each other off, naturally. And because… you’re poly, and I don’t think I could be anything but monogamous—maybe with kissing under certain circumstances, but that’s my limit.” It was a fantasy of Draco’s, something Harry was nudging himself towards before their separation; but kissing was as far as Harry could imagine his heart bending without shattering. “I’m really not comfortable with anything more, sharing Draco or myself. Maybe the way I feel could evolve or open up over time but, right now at least….” He let his fingers rake through his freshly-washed hair. It wasn’t in his way anymore but he’d developed the habit, and it finally felt good under his hands. 

It was new for him to experience his body with anything other than ennui. Feeling good about himself, knowing he looked well, actually did a lot—not just for his confidence, but his ability to be forthcoming and speak the truth in these uncomfortable situations. He was starting to feel alright in his skin. 

He could’ve taken ownership of himself a long time ago. He could’ve been this man for himself _and_ for Draco. 

“I don’t know if I’ll change,” he admitted, brutally honest. “I don’t want to be possessive or controlling, which I have been in the past. I more-or-less forced Draco to accept monogamy as a condition of being with me. He’s not a naturally monogamous person like me. But I do think monogamy can be achieved without those negative behaviors I’m working on. So… you and me… it wouldn’t work, fundamentally, without asking one of us to re-arrange who we are, how we experience relationships. I wouldn’t want you holding out for me in any way. And I certainly don’t want to see you and Dima break up, too.” 

"Of courze," Nebojsa's eyebrows drew down, making a tiny wrinkle between them, as though Harry were stating the obvious again and it need not even be said. "Dima iz over-reacting. He is not uzed to handling zhese emotions: lust, jealousy, rejection. Iz all very new to him. But I had zhis exact conversation vith Draco in June. He and I agreed—yoo like me, I do notzhing about it, and turn yoo down if ever yoo are drunk and try zomezhing. Notzhing to vorry about. I have honored my vords." 

"Shit." 

Ruminating, Harry's fingers slipped through his shorter hair again. It had needed the trim; his ends were no longer split and dry but silky smooth, flowing through his fingers. Even his wave-like curls were manageable, falling back where they belonged the moment he took his hand away. That was Sia's magic shampoo at work. He ought to figure out where to buy it for himself since it was all he used now. So much of his life was better with Nebojsa in it—his hair was just one more thing to add to the growing list. And their relationship didn’t need to be sexual or romantic in any way to have these benefits. Harry was happy having Nebojsa as a friend, and it seemed he felt the same way. 

Draco had told Sia everything. That summer. Draco knew Harry was into Nebojsa because he'd confessed as much to his husband back at Hogwarts. And Draco took it upon himself to relay that information and set boundaries with Sia ahead of time, to communicate what _he_ expected in relation to his spouse, before Harry ever realized how his repressed feelings might put pressure on their friendship. 

Sometimes Harry wondered how Draco really felt. It was hard to know when he only showed affection on his own terms—Draco would give Harry a back rub, but only when he wanted to calm Harry down or get his way. Draco initiated sex... to soothe himself or pump his ego, jumping Harry when _he_ felt like it, getting mad if ever Harry didn't feel like putting out. It was so rare that Draco would reach out to hold his hand, or push his hair out of his face, or anything else Harry would consider basic tenderness towards the person you loved. Those romantic gestures which Harry craved—they weren’t Draco’s style. It was hard to know Draco cared when he so rarely showed it. Many of his expressions of love occurred where Harry couldn't see them, professed to other people's faces because they questioned the sincerity of his feelings, and Harry wasn't there to hear it for himself. 

The pinnacle of which occurred when Harry died. Draco kissed him, Hogwarts castle tumbling down around them, Death Eaters and students all running for their lives, Harry’s body lifeless on the Slytherin flagstones. Draco could kiss him when he was _dead_. But not because they were happy, or because Draco loved him and wanted to. It was still too hard for him to admit his own feelings. Draco needed some pretense, like being aroused or angry or scared, before he could act on his heavily repressed romantic desires. 

Nebojsa did that mushy, hands-on stuff Harry liked; the actions which fed his emotional and homoromantic needs. Sia never left Harry in doubt of his place in the guy's life. Nebojsa did it all the time, managed to convey that sense of unconditional love and unlimited affection without being sexual. Because Draco asked him to keep things platonic, and because as a more experienced polyamorous person Nebojsa was hyper-aware to the terms the Potters set for one another's behavior within their marriage. Sia could separate romance, affection, and sex in a way Harry couldn’t, which gave him a leg-up in expressing his feelings without overstepping anyone’s limits. 

Nebojsa had stood there for months with full knowledge of Harry's crush on him and did absolutely nothing to encourage his attention, consciously holding Harry at arm’s length... because it was the right thing to do. He found ways to be there, to give Harry what he needed without crossing anyone's boundaries. He could tell—he could always tell what Harry wanted... even before Harry knew it for himself. 

"Shit," he repeated. "You've known for a while?" 

Serene, Sia nodded, chewing. 

“How long? I mean, I only admitted to myself recently, which is embarrassing.” 

Nebojsa had to think about it, recalling the first time he got the feeling Harry Potter was into him. “Yoo vere… talking to Chern and Dušan at zhe bar. Yoo vould vatch Draco dancing—your eyes moving over Dima and Misha, sizing zhem up like quidditch competition, rivals. Zhen yoo looked at me. I could feel it zhen. Your eyes shifted. Zame energy yoo looked at Draco, turned on me.” 

The night they met. Within the first twenty minutes or so, Sia knew. Harry felt himself blush up to his ears. He couldn’t even remember checking Sia out back then. He’d been so hard and crazy for Draco that the thought of another person wouldn’t have entered his conscious mind. 

Only Sia's monk-like calm was keeping Harry from hiding his face in embarrassment. He announced to the ceiling light fixture, "You must think I'm an absolute, clueless bell-end." 

"I don't zhink zhat." 

"Then... what _do_ you think?" 

Nebojsa waited until Harry could look him in the eye again. Rather than speak, he sent what he felt across the air between them, putting his feelings into Harry's chest so he'd know they were real. 

 _I_ _think you're inexperienced in some ways, and confused. I think you've been beating yourself up for the way you feel instead of accepting it, which prevents you from moving on. You're not going to get over me by living together, which is part of why Dima and I moved out. Living together again isn't helping; sleeping in the same bed might make it worse if you weren't such an honorable man. So I’m doing everything in my power to move you away from us again and back towards Draco. I want you to be happy, and being with Draco makes you happy. No matter what else you may feel, Draco will always come first in your heart. I know that. Anything else is merely a bump in the road, something to learn from._  

"You're not 'a bump in the road,'" Harry protested. "You're my best friend." 

"And you're nearly straight," Sia countered readily, practically laughing. "I know better zhan to make designs on a straight man; zhat never ends vell. I'm a sadist, not a masochist." 

"Well..." Harry felt himself go from pink to flaming red, his throat tightening. "I'm a Kinsey 1, so I'm more like straight-adjacent." 

Nebojsa's head tilted, acknowledging that Harry had been expanding himself in the last year. Harry didn't know precisely what to call himself these days—he'd experimented with labels like MSM and mostly-straight... but in practice, he was at least partly homosexual. That word still scared him. It didn’t fit right, like one of Dudley’s old oversized shirts. He’d worn that label early in his coming out because it was all he had. It fit worse now than it did then. 

In kissing, his record was three-and-two; he'd kissed three birds and two blokes. Numerically speaking, he was closer to bisexual. Kinsey 1 described his prick, but didn’t address his actions or his heart. It was true he naturally gravitated towards women when it came to sex while turning to other men for fulfilling relationships. When he felt comfortable, when his heart opened up… kissing happened. And increasingly, that feeling was coming up with other blokes: Draco, and now Sia. 

It was public knowledge that Harry’s heart and prick got together to make an exception for Draco, so... it wasn't completely impossible that he might make another exception for Nebojsa. It was that fraction of doubt which possessed Dima last night, making him snap. He was just scared of losing his partner to a monogamous git like Harry Potter. Deep down, even a guy like Dima was afraid of not being enough. He was afraid Sia didn’t want him anymore. 

Harry understood that fear all too well: Draco might not want him ever again. 

The idea of your partner leaving you for someone else was legitimately scary. Harry used to lose his temper over that feeling all the time—whenever Draco so much as glanced at another person, Harry would fly off, practically screaming and dragging Draco away like some kind of primeval brute. So he understood where Dima was coming from, trying to evolve past that mindset himself. 

"Zhe labels become irrelevant," Nebojsa said, looking determined. "Zorcerery and polyamory aside, yoo are married. Yoo said vows. Yoo gave your vord. I vould never." 

"I know you wouldn’t," Harry affirmed sincerely. “That’s a core part of what you believe.” 

Harry understood that even without their deadly powers standing in the way, the wedding ring on his finger might as well have been an electric fence around his prick as far as Sia was concerned. To him, Harry was completely off-limits, no exceptions, for as long as his and Draco’s marriage was a monogamous one. Sia couldn't bring himself to be a party to adultery. His polyamory didn’t condone cheating. He would never intrude on the vows he stood witness to; as Harry's Best Man, Sia considered himself a sort of guardian over their marriage. He wouldn't allow outside forces to destroy the love they shared. If their marriage ended, it would be because Harry or Draco decided not to stay together. 

Harry reiterated, "So... it doesn't matter, except that we have to live with it." 

That didn't seem difficult to Nebojsa. "I can manage." The corner of his mouth lifted, a resigned sort of half-smile. "I vos going to be a monk. Not having sex vith anyvone for zhe rest of my life. Zo I zhink I can keep my trousers on zhis time." He stuck out his hand, reaching across their plates, offering to shake Harry's. He was offering a promise, a vow of his own as Harry’s Best Man. "I give yoo my vord. I vill not make passes at yoo, or do anyzhing beyond friendship. If ever I step over zhat line or make yoo uncomfortable, yoo tell me, and I vill stop." 

Harry took his hand, shaking firmly. This was what it felt like to face his problems head-on, to have a conversation around a difficult subject like proper adults. It felt surprisingly good, and wasn't half so mortifying as he'd made it out to be in his head. 

Harry had a promise of his own to make while they were at it. "I promise I'll try not to check you out so much—or learn to be discreet, at least, for both our sakes. I'm bollocks at this, I don't understand what I'm feeling half the time, but I'm gonna try. I think our relationship is worth it. I always want to be your friend, and I don't want what we have to get mucked up because of my poor handling of my feelings... which is something I'm gonna continue to work on. So I appreciate your help while I'm learning and figuring myself out." 

Nebojsa squeezed back. "Agreed. Ve have a deal."

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry managed to get a last-minute appointment with Dr. Beasley. He had quite a bit to update his therapist about. 

"I've had... a kind of breakthrough, I suppose. I wanted to share." 

Akilah nodded, reinforcing open communication through her silence. She didn't have to speak—he could tell by the rounded-up shape of her cheeks that she was happy for him and wanted to hear all about it. 

"I've realized that, whether Draco comes back or not, I need to live my life. I have to stop resting my happiness on him. That's a ton of unhealthy, co-dependant pressure to put on anyone, let alone a bloke with Bipolar. I can’t make him responsible for my stability, or blame him when I’m unstable. That’s my fault, _my_ failing, not his." 

He came to this realization, oddly enough, watching Dmitry walk out on Misha and Sia. Harry had to see his behavior reflected in someone else before he could recognize it in himself. The way Dima relied on his family to keep him level, to cater to his emotional well-being, was exactly what Harry did to Draco. He dumped his full emotional weight on his husband, expecting Draco to carry him. That wasn't fair. Just as Sia and Misha couldn't be held responsible for keeping Dima happy, so too Harry couldn't rely solely on Draco as his support system. He had to find sources of joy and fulfillment outside of marriage... especially now, when he might not _be_ married much longer. Each day he woke up without his husband beside him was a reminder of that potential future. 

"My emotional dependence on Draco is unhealthy. So what I need to do—what I've already started doing—is identifying things which I enjoy, actions representative of who I am, and focusing on those behaviors instead. I'm taking responsibility for my own emotional life—finding peace of mind. I'm figuring out how to be happy and feel like myself _without_ Draco in my life. It's not my ideal situation, obviously, but it's something I need to figure out how to do if I'm going to get on. Regardless of what Draco chooses, I need to do this for myself." 

Harry explained the steps he'd taken thus far. "I've decided to move back to Grimmauld after Christmas. I'll be spending the holiday with the Weasleys and the Ionescues—they offered the palace in Romania for everyone. I'm bringing my adoptive family and my queer family together for the first time, uniting my support network. There’ve been bumps, but I'm navigating that. 

“I also went to a concert the other night with Ron and some people I know from Durmstrang; I had fun, like I used to when Draco and I went out. I've found a way to recreate that social happiness with my friends. I’m not giving up on music, even when it reminds me of Draco. And at work, I..." he considered how to explain this one without overstepping. "Confidentiality is a factor, but... I provided a family with the information they needed to grieve. It meant a lot to me, to be honest with them about their loved one's death—to get that secret off my chest and help them move forward. It's not strictly a Hit Wizard's job but... I did the right thing. I told the truth, and it felt good. 

"I also had a couple of honest conversations with Sia: he knows I fancy him now. Turns out, Draco already told him this summer, and Sia’s known for a long time before that. But he deserved to hear it from me. And we were able to discuss our relationship, figure out how we want things to be from now on. It felt really empowering to be able to handle the whole thing like grown-ups—to have another calm, supportive person working with me towards the same goal. We're staying mates, and we'll continue working together. But my moving out is going to help us maintain a bit of distance, and hopefully ease tension with Dima." 

Akilah's head tilted, picking up on his wording. She repeated, "Tension with Dmitry?" 

Harry resisted the urge to look away. "Yeah. I wasn't aware, but his feelings are pretty conflicted. I guess, for a while now... Dmitry's had a major crush on _me_." Which had been big news to Harry. He never realized; then again, Dmitry was intensely closeted. He would never say anything to Harry's face. 

Dima's feelings were coded into his actions, certain selfless gestures—those cups of tea he left on Harry's desk, offering to fetch him take-away for lunch or taking him out for a meal. Small conversations, checking in with him, offering support. Dima didn't even do those things for Sia, his actual boyfriend! But he did them for Harry, because his feelings for Harry were perhaps different than what he and Sia shared after so many years together. 

Dmitry understood that gestures of kindness and affection were the path to Harry’s heart, and he’d been working hard to earn Harry’s love. Unfortunately with Harry’s demisexuality, it didn’t really work that way. Dmitry could earn Harry’s trust but never see that warm regard turn to sexual attraction no matter how much Harry cared for him. Harry simply wasn’t built that way. 

Harry didn't recognize Dima's true feelings until he exploded, screaming the other night. The pain of unrequited feelings drove him to that state. Dmitry walked out on his family—and that family, his loved ones, included Harry. 

Once more, Harry’s mate’s sibling had a thing for him. First he was rebuffing Ron’s little sister, now Misha’s older brother. This time around, Harry knew a bit more about establishing his boundaries. 

"As if that weren't complicated enough, Dima's also come up with the idea that Sia and I would make a good rebound couple if Draco ends up wanting a divorce. Because I'm monogamous, Dima thinks Sia should break off their relationship in order to be available to me—to take care of me and my broken heart, because Sia's the best at looking after people. But Sia doesn't want that, and neither do I. We discussed it, made our own decision to just be mates. Now Dima's furious because he's not getting his way.” 

Walking out was a power-move. Dima left because he was frustrated. Both Harry and Sia knew better than to respond to it. Reacting would put Dmitry in charge. They needed to wait until tempers cooled and conversation could be conducted by family standards. 

‘Protocol’ was the word they used. Their BDSM extended outside the bedroom, informing how they were expected to treat each other at all times. Every member of the family got the same base level of respect and dignity regardless of their role. Being screamed at and called names wasn’t acceptable behavior unless it was negotiated and agreed to ahead of time. Dmitry broke protocol. In order to apologize for that breach, he first had to get himself back under protocol by calming down and then coming home for a civil conversation. 

Dmitry wasn’t permitted contact with his family until he could do so with respect to Harry and Sia, his authority figures who outranked him. Just as Draco locked Harry out for lying. While they’d never discussed it directly, truthfulness and candor were Draco’s unspoken protocol. Without Harry making a commitment to honesty, there would be no way to reconcile in Draco’s eyes. 

Harry declared his position. “We're not Dmitry’s puppets. We do as we think is best for ourselves, not as he dictates. Dima's actually acting like I used to," admitted Harry, mortified at how autocratically he'd behaved towards his friends in the past. "He’s trying to control the people close to him to prevent himself from getting hurt. I understand that way of thinking: it comes from being abused as kids, a method of self-insulation and protection, gaining situational advantage by behaving erratically, throwing your abuser off. His actions are driven by a much deeper fear of losing his partner, not maliciousness. He wants us all to be happy—the trouble being that we vastly disagree about what that would look like. 

"It's a tricky situation to be in," Harry reflected. "I'm keeping calm and working on my goals—doing my own thing, letting those two manage their own marital problems. I don't enjoy seeing my friend upset, but Dmitry needs to accept that I'm exercising my right to say 'no thank you' to anything beyond our current platonic friendship. I don't want a new partner right now, when I'm focused on myself. Things will get easier once I've moved out, once Dima sees me getting on with life, spending a bit less of my time with them, being more self-reliant. Some distance will be good for everyone." 

"Establishing healthy boundaries, acknowledging and asserting your needs, rejecting unwanted behaviors, and saying ‘no’ under pressure," Akilah identified what he was doing. "You’re working with your emotions in real-time. I'm proud of you, Harry. This is major progress compared to when we first met." 

He _had_ come a long way. He’d developed solid reigns around his temper, better able to control his reactions. He recognized his feelings, and most of the time he was able to refrain from acting on impulse. 

"Thanks," he said, pink in his cheeks. He still wasn't used to praise even though he craved it. "I've been working hard. It's something I want—improvement."

He wouldn't say he was fixed; that wasn't reasonable. He would always have a complex case of PTSD. He remained on the pre-AVPD spectrum, but was easing himself into a healthier state of mind and improving his relationships one day at a time. He would always be recovering from his abuse, always grieving the loved ones he’d lost, always carry with him the war he’d lived through. 

Understanding himself and his condition, he could work within it. Like shooting into the wind, he had to account for his psychological drift. It was harder, would forever be a challenge. But he could manage it with practice. He refused to be the cause of any further collateral damage for not learning his gear, or failing to keep his eye on his true target. 

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Blaise was out for the evening—accompanying his mother to the opera while her husband was away on business. Blaise apologized profusely for leaving Draco on his own, but it couldn’t be helped; Blaise had a duty to his mother, and an absurd fondness for the muggle composer Puccini. 

Draco was now well versed in the sappy operas of Giacomo Puccini: poets and drunk seamstresses in an on-again off-again affair, aristocrats abandoning their duty to run off with thoroughly inappropriate lovers, and the like. Opera sated a secret hunger for the kind of common-sense-obliterating romance Blaise had never felt in his own life—something like love, and the ripped-asunder sensation of falling for someone you oughtn’t. Draco knew that tumbled feeling all too well, currently sitting at the bottom of said ravine after the fall. This was what happened to love after the curtains closed, the reason why operas never had a sequel. 

Sometimes he and Blaise would drink _Amaro al Tortufo_ , smoke, and listen to an entire opera lying on his living room floor, using his muggle-style record player; letting the sound wash over them, a kind of shared daydream, carried off into another world. 

Blaise didn’t own a television despite his flat having electricity. He didn’t have a game console either, or even a deck of playing cards. He owned few books other than his old school texts. His sources of entertainment within his home were a tall, orderly stack of fashion magazines and his extensive record collection—mostly operas, with a smattering of other genres which seemed to have been gifted to him, the attempts of others to expand his musical taste over the years. But Blaise rarely budged. He fancied opera, and unapologetically drowned his flat with his favorites. 

Bored of silence, Draco selected an album which appeared to have never been opened, a non-magical artist called Johnny Hodges. The music startled him, forced to consult the sleeve. It was a style utterly foreign to him, an American invention called “jazz.” Hodges’ instrument was a saxophone—some cross between a trumpet and a flute. Draco had never heard the like of it before. The instrument made a sound like a pining, somewhat fat Augurey in heat. Controlled, it was rather beautiful; a whiny, melodious wail. 

The record sleeve in his hands—and its music in his ears—made Draco irrationally resentful. This magnificent jazz was just one more thing which had been kept from him his entire life. He couldn’t have it because it wasn’t magical-enough, wasn’t good enough, wasn’t pureblood-enough. Anything muggle was inherently lesser. Jazz was stunning, and until this moment he never knew it existed; that deprivation infuriated him. His hands gripping the jacket began to shake. 

Blaise had this album gathering dust on his shelf, yet he never listened to it… while Draco would’ve been berated and boxed round the ears should he ever be caught with such a thing. He was never permitted access—never allowed outside the Manor gates without a chaperone. He was kept, monitored at all times. He assumed he was watched so closely because he was precious, above such things, but no; it was to keep him from being exposed to the rest of the world, forever isolated. Staff, acquaintances, and even his own mother were made to act as his jailors. It was drilled into him to avoid wizards like the Weasleys, not to associate with anyone who had contact with dirty, lowly muggles. 

Draco was trained to abhor the lesser world; because if he heard jazz music or heavy metal, read a muggle book or talked to a stranger in a shop… his beliefs—the carefully constructed cage around his mind—might be pierced and shatter like a dropped crystal ball. He might hear _this_ melody and be seduced by its call. He might become curious about the world outside the Death Eaters, not half so filthy or uncivilized as he’d been fooled into believing. Under the sway of this saxophone’s siren song, Draco might come to realize that he existed in a fantasy land… a lie coated in chocolate and jammed down his throat since the day he could swallow. 

Draco had no conception of how small his universe really was, how narrow and confined. Not until he was out—not just running away to get high for a night but _free_. When Harry took him to see a film; talking to strange muggles on a telephone or conversing freely in their public spaces without a minder; downing beers while watching a hockey game; learning to defend himself with a gun. And now, listening to an old jazz record, a portal into the infinity he’d never known was out there. He was only just beginning to fathom how little he actually knew... how much knowledge and life he’d been denied—trained to reject, to cover his ears and avert his gaze, to staunchly stay in his confinement. He was made to feel afraid of the outside world. And it worked: even now he was still afraid, the record sleeve fluttering with the tremble of his hands. 

He was afraid… but now he was angry, too. Furious at the wizards who’d made him this way. 

No wonder Harry rejected him seven years ago. Perhaps The Chosen One saw, even then, that Draco bought into the gilded cage he was sold since birth. Focused on staying alive and fighting the Dark Lord, young hero Harry had no time for someone so willingly small-minded; a lamb, never questioning, kept warm by his own padding, groomed for shearing. 

Last year, Harry had sent him albums—muggle CD’s—to pass the time at Hogwarts. They were Harry’s love letters, his quiet way of opening a door and inviting Draco through, showing him delightful pieces of the world he’d missed out on; Harry’s muggle world. Even then, Draco was dismissive to Harry’s face whilst secretly enjoying the albums in private. Maybe, had he ever said ‘thank you’ rather than being a screaming cunt… Harry might not have stopped, might’ve held on rather than pulling away, lying, treating him like that lamb in a cage he wanted to be. Draco wasn’t sure if he knew how to be anything else, if it was possible to change. 

It turned out that jazz, like Puccini, made him sentimental. Even that was new, unexpected: that muggle music, this melody, could move him. 

Sometimes he felt… too much. Emotions he couldn’t name swirled inside him, fighting instincts long hammered into him. He’d always prided himself on being a rational person but, in retrospect, most of his decisions were driven by his ego, a desire to please, or a bruised heart rather than his cunning head. The grip he supposedly had on his emotions was an allusion, one more lie he told himself. 

His rational mind informed him it was time to seek a distraction. Too much ‘feeling’ might lead him to do something he didn’t mean. Too much feeling without adequate thinking was how he’d crawled into bed with Harry, agreed to marry him, fought Voldemort for him… those feelings were more than he knew how to contain. He’d never been good at holding back the tide. 

Draco helped himself to an open bottle of pure Sangiovese Chianti and sat down beside Blaise’s magazines, searching for one he hadn’t read five times over. He needed something routine to think about. The Italians’ _Vogue_ reminded him of a French wizarding publication his mother once adored, the quarterly _Le Tendance_. She used to read it to him on occasion. Once, her photograph appeared in its pages, remarking on a robe she wore to a Ministry gala. She’d been on clouds for weeks after. That was the happiest Draco had ever seen seen his mother outside her music room. 

There hadn’t been a new issue in over a year—after the magazine’s office in magical Paris was attacked and burned down by Death Eaters. It didn’t look as though _Le Tendance_ was coming back, so _Witch Weekly_ and the glossy pages of _Vogue_ would have to suffice as a semblance of culture. 

Searching through Blaise’s carefully organized titles, Draco stopped. There was a spine he didn’t recognize—something unlike the others, stuffed at the bottom of the pile as though Blaise didn’t want his houseguest or anyone else to see it: a new magazine called _Lovegood News_. The date was recent, only last week. 

Luna and Harry had done it, then; resurrecting her father’s printing press in Iceland, setting her up as a publisher. This was her premiere issue. Leaving Draco to wonder… why would Blaise hide it from him? 

Draco’s errant magic had the stack levitating. He snatched the magazine. 

Its cover was a moving photograph of a natural hot spring nestled in snowy mountains. Several indistinct witches in swimming gear sat in the bubbly water, steam rising into the chilly air around them as they laughed and chatted. It was an excellent subtle advertisement for the coming spa—hinting without being overt, encouraging speculation of where these witches were and how one might visit. 

Flipping through, Draco realized the tone was a drastic departure from _The Quibbler_. Luna herself hadn’t changed, merely her focus as an editor. There were no profiles on fictitious creatures, no conspiracy theories, no articles needing to be read upside-down. Instead, Law Enforcement officials from around the world had been interviewed, asked for personal safety tips and recommending spells to secure one’s home. Madame Malkin’s winter designs were featured in a photo spread shot under the glass ceiling of Carkitt Market. Three Belgian wizards presented their designs for a brewery in Horizont Alley—they’d already purchased a building and were in renovations, intending to open in the spring. Quidditch referee Hassan Mustafa’s daughter was marrying a muggle-born; she and her fiancé authored a column offering advice for coming out as magical to one’s relatives, including information on the related secrecy statutes and how to determine when it was legal to divulge one’s status. 

The entire magazine was printed in a Translating Ink, allowing anyone who picked it up to read it. To Draco it appeared bi-lingually, simultaneously in English and French. Certain words which his brain considered inherently Francophone appeared as such, with others in English. He could read it perfectly, but to others it might’ve been a jumble. It was an incredible feat of perception-based Neutral magic.  

As a publication, _Lovegood News_ certainly had an agenda—integration, normalizing Harry-Potter-type freethinking, advocating for the acceptance of muggles as equals, merely a different culture rather than a lesser species. The magazine’s lexicon and inclusion of so much muggle-ness made their point abundantly clear. 

Draco stopped at the main feature story. The bold font was hard to miss. “Convicted: Dolores Umbridge Guilty of Child Torture at Hogwarts School.” 

The headline didn’t catch him off-guard. It was the full-page photograph of his husband beneath the words.

A dead muggle’s saxophone cried in his ears—mimicking the sound his heart made, watching a tear track down Harry’s cheek. He was caught in that moment, forever between crying and determined. Harry looked off into the distance, a far-reaching gaze Draco had seen so many times throughout the war. He looked strong, but inside he must’ve been so tired. 

A disruptive sensation overtook Draco’s body; as though there were a Dark Mark inked on his diaphragm and it was pulling, dragging him, banging under his ribs, demanding he respond. He was supposed to be at Harry’s side. His hand was meant to be brushing that tear away. Harry… needed him. 

Something told him to go—to put on his shoes and Apparate, racing to Harry wherever he was. The photo was nearly a week old but that didn’t matter. He could find Harry and make it better. Somehow. It was his duty to put their Saviour back together again after every battle. 

But what would change? Reunited and heart reassembled, Harry would be free to lie to him again… to be kind one moment and detached the next, oscillating between husband and soldier with no way to predict who might come out at any given moment. The existence of both men inside the same body wasn’t new to Draco; he wasn’t any better, an insurgent and a coward living in the same mind. 

Did he want to go back? To be with Harry again? Was it guilt or fear steering his guts in that moment? He couldn’t properly identify the churning feeling in his guts. But he knew: he didn’t have to jump every time Harry bled or shed a tear. 

The photograph was wide. To Harry’s sides were other shoulders, familiar bodies in blue robes flanking him. Strands of red hair at one side with a protruding ear—Ron. And a chalk-white tattooed neck—Nebojsa. Harry wasn’t alone in that courtroom. That was a trick of the framing, making The Boy Who Lived its focus while forgetting those around him. The world would rather see Harry’s singular greatness without acknowledging all those who worked to get him where he was—including Draco. They’d rather see Harry alone, their hero, a tear on his cheek and needing comfort which wasn’t there. So they could all imagine themselves as the one to cup his face and brush that tear away. 

Draco glanced to the page’s far corner, reading the fine print beneath the iconic image. “Photographed by Colin J. Creevey.” Another subtle masterpiece. 

Draco Summoned parchment and a quill, knowing what he would do.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry was the only person left sitting in glass-walled conference room at Fenchurch, staring at a series of magically-animated maps. The meeting regarding said maps was long over, but he remained… fingers folded over his beard, breathing slowly through his nose… thinking. 

They’d combined details of recent attacks and known Death Eater sightings with intelligence gained from Astoria Greengrass and the two-dozen Death Eaters captured in Ohio—who were still leaking information to save their skins, cutting deals for reduced prison time or to avoid deportation back to their home countries where they’d face further criminal trials. 

The resulting maps were before Harry now, showing multiple hot zones; suspected areas where various factions might be based. Being wizards, they made parts of the map glow—yellow for sightings or corroborated intel, blue for violent incidents, overlapping to make green hot-spots where Death Eaters were perhaps more likely to be. 

It was impossible to know for sure. With Apparition, a magical person could cross the globe in an instant. When traditional magical methods failed to prevent attacks, they resorted to this muggle heat-mapping method.

Contrary to Harry’s school-boy impressions, Death Eaters did _not_ come from all over the world. They tended to be of certain nationalities—British, French, and Russian were the largest contingents, most faction commanders hailing from those three countries, with followers from the Balkan and Baltic States, South Africa, and a few known Americans. As such, they were likely to be concealing themselves and their bases of operation primarily in Europe. 

Under pressure, people tended to resort to what they knew—like Harry sat in small spaces because they reminded him of his childhood closet, helped him feel ignored and insignificant. He still liked sitting in cars or the bathtub to calm himself down, evoking the same sensations. 

The Death Eaters would hide in territories they were most familiar with, where they were confident they could remain well-concealed. They were likely in remote abandoned buildings, or holiday homes they’d managed to keep off the books in countries with poor diplomatic relations with their home country. The most powerful commanders would be hiding on properties concealed in plain sight by advanced-level magic. 

Working in groups was only partly to the Death Eaters’ advantage because the inevitable in-fighting and power struggles due to rivalries in leadership caused so much activity that they exposed themselves to law enforcement trying to take each other out. The smaller contingents struggling for recognition acted out repeatedly, recklessly, getting themselves picked off while the larger and better-organized factions survived, growing in strength and numbers as previously unaffiliated families or those who’d lost their leader flocked to them for safety. 

None of them could go home. They were on watch lists. Aurors and Hits were staking out their homes, their family members, their known haunts. The second they appeared in the magical or muggle worlds, they’d be captured, questioned, and put on trial. So their only option was to remain underground, remain committed to the cause, avoiding detection as best they could with whatever resources remained at their disposal. Hundreds of known Death Eaters were already locked out of their vaults at Gringotts. If they weren’t desperate or destitute already, they soon would be. 

The customary ‘search and destroy’ battle plan of the Aurors and Hits was backfiring. The fear generated through arrests and public trials was driving sympathizers under the wings of increasingly powerful and deeply sadistic leaders like Augustus Rookwood and the Didiers. A hundred little factions were far less dangerous than three or four highly strategic ones.                                                   

The glowing map told Harry a story he could’ve already guessed at. The Death Eaters were demonstrating a strong presence around the French-German border and southward into Switzerland. They had footholds in Latvia and Estonia, central Ukraine, and the Greek isles. They might very well be concealing themselves in the UK, but it was only through improved inter-country initiatives that British law enforcement might be able to accurately track Death Eaters from the sites of these attacks on foreign soil back to their UK bases. That was the best way to capture their leaders, or gain sufficient intelligence to lure them out of hiding in a controlled fashion. Until they could follow Death Eaters from other countries back to England, they would always be reactionary rather than pre-emptive. 

Frustrated and staring outside into the snow, Harry watched a black and brown eagle owl emerge from the drifting white powder surrounding the office building. It flew through what appeared to be a solid window—an enchanted barrier for owls only, allowing them free passage into the building. Even with telephones and email, they needed to be able to receive owls. The Notice-Me-Not Spells layered around the structure so that muggles wouldn’t see the owls flying in and out were impressive; on-scale with those used for the Quidditch World Cup, yet barricaded and sealed with runes so as not to degrade the integrity of the hundreds of computers and servers operating inside the building. 

He kept reminding himself that magic and muggle technology _could_ coexist, just like their wielders—that this was the reason the Death Eaters kept fighting, resisting break-throughs and cooperative endeavors like Fenchurch which continued to prove their ideology wrong. 

Harry observed as the dark eagle owl with snow trailing off of its wings glided over people’s heads, winding through the open floor of desks to land purposefully on top of Nebojsa’s keyboard. Sia enticed it with a treat, kindly luring the bird off of his computer before it could type any more gibberish into his report. Sia was too gentle a soul to just pick the bird up and move it. 

It took Harry a second to realize he knew that big stubborn owl—it was Blaise Zabini's. 

Nebojsa had a message from Draco. Harry recognized the neat, very slanted, posh cursive handwriting on the parchment as Sia unfolded it. Sia read Draco’s note twice before folding it up and dashing his reply. The eagle owl waited for him—or waited for more treats, since Sia kept a jar of them on his desk. 

When Sia was done writing, he brought the owl to the window, releasing it back to deliver his answer. 

He stopped at the open conference room door—knowing his partner had been watching him the whole time and ignoring Harry's gaze, going about his business like nothing was the matter. Hopefully Harry’s attention came off as curious and not… inappropriate. 

"I go to zee him," Nebojsa said, peeking his head into the room, leaning a bony shoulder against the metal doorframe. "Tonight, after vork." 

Harry nodded, taking his hands away from his face to speak. "Okay." 

He wouldn't ask his friend to advocate on his behalf. He didn't know what Draco wanted, or what Nebojsa might say to him in private. Harry had to trust—to believe in what he and Draco had, to believe in his best friend. He had to let them both make their own decisions. It wasn't his right to try to influence or control them. Because he loved them, he sat in his chair and let them act on their own, without his Chosen interference. He was no longer The Boy Who Lived To Stick His Nose In Things. He was done playing God, trying to control people so he wouldn’t get hurt. Sometimes he needed to get hurt in order to learn. And ultimately other people’s freedom was more important to him than his own pain-free existence. 

Harry lifted his voice. "Sia?" 

His fellow sorcerer had turned away, on his way back to the pile of parchments on his desk needing digital transcribing. He looked back at Harry, raising a black eyebrow, licking his lips. His face said, _Yes, dear?_ Like Harry was about to ask him to grab the rubbish on his way out or something. Their communication was that easy, that mundane. 

Harry bit the inside of his cheek, chewing his words before he spoke them. There was a lot he wanted to say, but it didn't take very many words to express. "You're a good man. Thank you. For everything."

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

When Nebojsa arrived at Blaise Zabini's apartment, Draco was already drunk. That wasn't a great start, but it could have been worse. 

Nebojsa accepted a bottle of mineral water and settled in for the inevitable rant. Blaise positioned himself in the kitchen with a short cigar, conscious to blow his smoke towards the cracked-open window. The climate in Italy was more temperate than Serbia; even in December, only a light sweater or jacket was needed for the rains, no trace of snow on the ground. The fresh air coming through the window smelled of damp earth, with hints of salt and fish from the nearby harbor. 

The cool air was in contrast to the Dragon’s hot words. 

Draco was still acting furious that Harry started therapy and didn't tell him. Draco saw it as an insult—that he was too much to handle, that their relationship was so fucked up that even the great Harry Potter didn't know how to save it. Unspoken, hidden within his fumes, was a self-conscious desperation: perhaps Draco didn't feel worthy of a man like Harry, and feared that his instability and insecurities were in fact driving his husband away. 

That was an intense survivor's guilt brewing in Draco. He watched Harry die for him, only to be reborn. Most people would be intimidated to see a wizard rise from the dead. It had never been done before. 

Draco was forgetting about the nature of that rebirth—that Harry wouldn't be alive if they didn't love each other. Harry came back, was able to live again, because he and Draco wanted to spend their lives together. Nothing would stop Harry from being with the man he loved. With therapy, he was committing himself to becoming the best he could be—a better communicator, more honest, more stable—in support of their marriage. He was in it, forever. Therapy was for Harry, the necessary work he recognized as needing to be done for his own sanity after everything he’d lived and died through. 

Of course Draco, whip-reared by a complete narcissist, needed to make it about himself. 

Nebojsa had gone through this with Dmitry—and on a lesser scale, with Misha too. People raised under the influence of horrible men like Lucius Malfoy and Tihomir Ionescue had a much harder time of it. They needed a gentle hand, understanding, and a great deal of patient re-education in what love really was. 

In Draco’s defence, Harry's singular determination was frightening. Nebojsa imagined, with that kind of emotional force directed at himself... yes, he'd have run off to get trashed in Italy, too. He wouldn't know what to do, how to receive a love that intense. Like Christ's love, giving his life for all men... except this was concentrated, as though the son of God had taken a spouse and given himself for that single mortal being. That kind of love could drive a person out of their mind—to be the center, the reason, for so much suffering as well as so much divine acceptance. 

"He vonts yoo to come home," Nebojsa insisted, his hands out, pleading with Draco to listen to him. "You stoopid, stoopid fucking cunt." 

He knew that was what Harry and Draco called each other, their idea of a pet name. And he used it on purpose, to remind Draco of the emotions which bound him to his spouse in the first place—their grudging, often rivalrous respect. They were meant to push each other.

"Then why isn't he HERE!?" Draco screamed. Several random household objects began to levitate with his unchecked anger. 

"Because he respects yoo," supplied Nebojsa. "Yoo told him not to come. _Yoo said_ yoo vanted to be alone. Harry iz a sorcerer, not a Telepath! He cannot know yoo change your mind. He only knows your vishes as yoo speak zhem. He refuses to violate your consent."                                                                                                                             

Draco whispered, a soft "Shite," the opposite of his screaming only a moment ago; as though the candle of his rage had been snuffed by realization. The floating objects fell to the floor, a glass bobble breaking on impact. Blaise grunted, pulled his wand, and wordlessly spelled the shattered glass back to rights. The well-dressed Italian wasn’t perturbed, accustomed to Draco throwing tantrums over the years. Blaise seemed only to wish this particular fit wasn’t occurring inside his flat. 

Draco muttered, staring at nothing, at last comprehending. "He... he's being...." 

" _Dominant_ ," Nebojsa finished the thought in Parseltongue, a hand to his chest. He wasn't sure if Draco was out to Blaise or not. Better to say what he needed in more private language. Going by Draco’s history, he seemed to have the barest understanding of what that dominant role really meant outside of a purely sexual context. 

Nebojsa explained the power position as he experienced it. " _Dominance comes from a place of profound peace. Harry ssshows increasing mastery over himssself. He ssshows the highesssst resspect for you, your body, your wishessss. He will not impose himssself on you. He will not force you to ssssubmit. There isss no ssssuch thing assss forced sssubmission_ ," Nebojsa cocked his eyebrows, tilting forward with the seriousness of his words. " _There issss willing ssssssurender, the gift of trussst in the form of control: anything elsse issss abuse of power._ ”

Most of what Draco knew in his life had been gross abuse of power. That was why he struggled to accept love. He couldn’t understand something being mutual, shared without condition. 

Nebojsa spelled it out plainly: “ _Harry will not abuse the power you've given him. Sssssso he waitsss for you, to choosse whether or not you wisssssh to belong to him, because he cannot and will not 'make you' hisssss. He isssss dominant, not a monssssster._ " 

This was elementary power negotiation; but since Draco had never felt compelled to submit before, it might as well have been his first dominant/submissive relationship. He was green. He didn't know how to interpret his own feelings or desires. Just because he wanted Harry to dominate him, own him, brutalize him... didn't mean Harry would do so outside the confines of safe, agreed-upon parameters. Harry wouldn't beat him in the street. Harry wouldn't show up here uninvited and force Draco to come home. Harry wouldn't impose his will on Draco. Because that wasn't dominance: that was abuse. Draco had been expecting Harry to abuse him, and didn't understand why Harry was putting his foot down, why Harry was uninterested in abusive behaviors. 

Draco had no models of healthy marriage in his past—let alone a healthy power-structure relationship to draw upon. He'd been mistreated for so long that he interpreted being harmed as the highest form of affection. Now, because Harry refused to behave badly—would not lose his temper, would not violate Draco's request to keep his distance, would not force the situation to his own advantage—Draco falsely assumed that Harry didn't love him. 

" _If you want him to come to you_ ," Nebojsa offered. " _Give him permisssssion. If you want to know hissssss thoughtsss, assssssk for them. Expressssing your desiress doesssss not make you a bad sssubmissive._ " 

They’d never said that word between them. Not explicitly. Draco never openly identified as submissive. And perhaps he wasn’t with anyone else. But for Harry, _with_ Harry, it was what he felt. Nebojsa saw it in the way Draco looked at Harry, the way they had sex, the manner in which they touched each other. Harry was the leader of their marriage, dominant, and Draco was his; submissive, property, spouse—whatever words they decided on. Their power dynamic was clear; organically evolved from mutual desire. 

He knew Draco still considered himself a victim—of his father, of the Death Eaters, of a truly cult-like culture of blatant xenophobia, violence, and hatred. Draco had been trained to be the perfect victim, too; he was taught not to question what was done to him, never to speak up for himself, to belittle others and push them away so that he could never experience anyone's compassion or have a chance at getting help. Stubborn Harry burst through seventeen years of brainwashing and barricades to touch Draco’s heart.

Draco was still learning how to trust. He'd never been told it was _good_ to ask for help. Even his letter—which was sent to beg Nebojsa to come—sounded like a petulant child screaming for attention. Draco still saw himself as helpless, as incapable of taking action. Everything was done _to_ him. Nothing was his fault, or his responsibility. He never accepted his own agency: it was forbidden. And it would always be that way unless he learned to take responsibility for himself—learned to work through his feelings, make decisions on his own, and express his desires to the one man in the world who could make literally anything come true. 

Nebojsa glared at Draco. The Dragon seriously did not understand that he held the power of the universe at his fingertips. All he had to do was ask for it. Harry would die for him again, a thousand times. All Draco had to do was ask. His submission wasn’t weakness—it was an access point to the greatest power in the universe. Love, and in their case, some questionably intense sorcery, too.

" _Your participation isssss what he needsss in order to act. Your sssssubmission must be asssss equally active asssss hisss dominance_."

From his perch in the kitchen, Blaise rolled his eyes. Though he couldn't understand the hissing, he guessed at the general subject of their conversation. He couldn't remain silent any longer, snapping out: "Stop being a fucking pussy, Draco. It’s been nearly a month. Talk to your damn husband, or take that ring off your finger." 

Nebojsa also rolled his eyes too, but for very different reasons. That kind of talk wasn't going to do Draco any more good than the racist blood-purity nonsense which had been stuffed down his throat for sixteen years prior. 

Nebojsa had worked through this bullshit with Misha—who was more open and willing to learn. Being younger, Misha hadn't absorbed as much toxic masculine structure as his older brothers. Dima was still remarkably awful. He bought into internalized stereotypes about men and women and gender in general. Dima centered his whole life on what he considered the highest qualities of masculinity: being strong, silent, able to take pain and not flinch. Which was amazing in the bedroom, but highly dysfunctional everywhere else. Nebojsa didn't want that kind of thinking—sexism—to replace the racism and self-hatred Draco was trying so hard to unlearn. It might be too easy for him to substitute one brand of bigotry for another. 

Nebojsa paraphrased, a healthier instruction without gendered bias. "Stop vaiting for ozhers to tell yoo vot your life vill be. _Harry isssss ssstill in charge—of himssssself foremossst, and you asssssss well, ssshould you choose to return_ ," he added on a hiss. Blaise snorted loudly at his English statement, clearly agreeing with that much. 

Blaise was likely not part of the BDSM community. He might never understand that for Draco, Harry's submissive, it was comforting to know that his dominant would remain so—aggressive, on the front lines, a leader... his protector, always. Harry would not allow Draco to be harmed, abused, or taken advantage of ever again. And sometimes that meant reigning himself in. A significant weight was lifted from Draco when he entrusted himself to Harry. That was the core of submission. Safety and release was what Draco craved from his dominant partner. But it couldn’t be taken or forced. Draco had to participate, to declare himself and continue to do so. 

" _You musssst help him. Sssssupport him. Be hisssss hand, ssssso he can wield true power, through you_." 

Like the old pureblood marriage vows, they weren't intended to be equal in this type of partnership. Everyone went in with full knowledge and consent, agreeing to the uneven division of authority and obedience. What BDSM strove for was not perfect equality but balance—one partner supporting where the other was weak. They could not be exactly the same and hope to succeed within a power structure. Their differences made them stronger when they learned to lean on each other. Draco had to admit when he needed Harry to carry him, so that Harry could step up and follow through, acting with Draco’s full trust. And Harry had to be patient, to exercise his judgment at every turn, to be sure he only wielded himself rightly—judiciously, peacefully, with consent, clear expectations, and consequences should he falter. Draco had to begin speaking his mind, to state what he wanted, to give consent or revoke it, to fashion boundaries for himself and insist those rules be honored. One strong when the other was weak. They needed to learn to carry each other. 

"Alright." At last Draco conceded. He finally sat down at the table, having been on his feet since Nebojsa arrived. That he was able to stop fidgeting and sit was a decisive improvement. Draco demanded, "Somebody get me a quill." 

He was ready—to write to Harry, to state himself, to ask for what he needed. Nebojsa raised his hand, conjuring a sheet of parchment.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

 

Nebojsa returned home to find Harry in bed for the night; lounging over the bedspread, shirtless, with nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms on his entire warrior’s body, his hair vaguely wet from an evening shower. 

Harry barely noticed when Nebojsa came through the door; music playing and his attention lost in a book Nebojsa had loaned him about BDSM best-practices. It was still surprising to see Harry Potter reading fluently in Serbian. Though perhaps not as startling as finding The Boy Who Lived bare-chested and waiting for him in his bed. 

This married, grey-asexual man clearly had no idea how sexy he looked. His hair loose, heavy waves framing his face. Glasses slipping a bit down the length of his nose. His cup of tea long-forgotten on the nightstand and obviously gone cold—he was too absorbed in his reading to notice. That passion and desire to learn, his commitment to doing things right… it was truly beautiful. And directed solely at Draco, wanting to better himself for his husband. 

Looking around, Nebojsa realized why Harry felt comfortable lounging around with his shirt off. Dmitry still hadn’t come home—meaning that he and Harry would be going to bed together… just the two of them. Side by side, he was going to sleep with Harry. No pretense of war, or needing to keep each other warm else they die in prison. Harry was alright with it, knew they could sleep together in the same bed without crossing boundaries or breaking promises given to each other and their partners. Harry was staunchly a man of his word. 

Nebojsa unzipped his jacket, marveling. He’d never experienced anything quite like this before. It was a glimpse at what it would be like… to be in a normal, romantic, non D/s relationship. To come home to a partner who was also an equal, waiting up in bed for you, wanting to hear how your day went. 

He could understand the temptation, why others preferred an even disbursement of power; knowing you’d only ever be expected to shoulder fifty percent of the responsibility in the relationship. That might give a lot of people peace of mind. 

But he and Harry weren’t of that variety. At this point, they each felt called to be the undisputed leader of their unit, coming together as captains when situations arose but always in command at home. This man lounging in his bed was an illusion at best, a glimpse at who Harry was with his husband… with Draco, the man he needed to get back to: the drunk sorcerer Nebojsa had spent the better part of his evening attempting to talk some reason into. 

An owl would arrive in the morning—Nebojsa advised Draco to sleep on it, to consider his words soberly before sending them on. Time would tell. By morning, they would know. Tonight, he had to deal with The Chosen One half-dressed in his bed.

 

 

 

 

"Harry?" 

He looked up in time to see Nebojsa take an extendedly deep breath into his lungs, down into his stomach—visibly bucking up his courage. "I need yoo to vear a shirt to bed, please." 

"Oh!" Harry flushed, heat and color so deep it spilled down his neck to his bare chest—his nude upper body which Nebojsa found… attractive. Sia had come home to Harry, barely dressed, waiting for him in bed. Of course that turned him on! Harry was acting like a boyfriend for fuck’s sake, doing what he did at home with Draco. Sia was right—he ought to put a shirt on. Being in their bed with no shirt was a rudely mixed-message in light of his confession the other day. Harry hadn’t thought about how his appearance might come off; he’d simply gotten out of the shower and flopped down with a book he wanted to read. Now he could feel his skin prickling with the first bloom of embarrassment-sweat. "Right. Yeah, can-do." 

For once, Harry got the implied message right away. Sleeping skin-to-skin would turn Nebojsa on. Sia was only asking Harry to wear a shirt to help keep things between them non-sexual, as agreed. 

Nebojsa nodded. There was more. He continued in Serbian, "And I need you to buy some deodorant, _molim vas_. Or borrow cologne. Or just... change your shirts more often, please." 

Harry closed his eyes, wanting to sink into the mattress and disappear. He was beyond embarrassed. _He smelled! He’d just taken a shower and already he smelled bad._ He thought he might die on the spot. 

"No," Nebojsa corrected him out loud, breathy, eyes darting away as he peeled off his jacket. "The opposite." 

Oh. The way he smelled... Nebojsa fancied it. A little too much, maybe? Like Draco, the scent of Harry's body—the unique blend of his skin, oil and sweat—turned Nebojsa on, too. 

Harry hadn't worn deodorant in over a year. As soon as he realized Draco enjoyed his smell, he'd binned it and never looked back. Deodorant became one less thing he had to worry about in a very busy life. He would ask Misha if he could use some cologne, something neutral, from now on. He figured that going from his own smell to something of Dmitry's might not address the problem sufficiently; Nebojsa would have scent-association to the heavier fragrances Dima wore. It would be better if Harry smelled like Misha. Smelling like Misha would make Harry more neutral, familial—or at least, the kind of family you didn’t have sex with. 

"Okay," Harry acknowledged, agreeing to that small concession. It wasn't a big deal to change those behaviors if they helped Sia out.

Since they were stating limits and things which needed alteration, Harry set his book aside and got out of bed. He stood tall in order to propose a request of his own. "I need _you_ to watch your mouth around me. No more swearing, okay?" 

Nebojsa's brows rose. He hadn't figured that out—that his rare occasions of foul-mouthed-ness turned Harry's crank. Harry, like his spouse, was a bit attracted to deviant behavior and rule-breaking... as long as it didn't hurt anyone. A kind and generally serene, monk-like person like Nebojsa saying ‘shit’ or especially ‘fuck’ was a fascinating contradiction—a twist of the angelic blended with sensual deviance which drew Harry in. 

It would be helpful if Sia didn't curse around him, taking care to keep his language neutral. 

Sia readily agreed. "Deal." 

He offered is hand, and they shook on it, simple as that. It only took eighteen years for Harry to learn how to set healthy boundaries. It felt... strangely good.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The following morning, Harry received the most simultaneously romantic and cryptic owl of his life. Of course it came from Draco. Two sentences, penned at a harsher angle than usual, as though he'd dashed them off a bit shit-faced, forcing himself to write his mind before he lost his nerve or his buzz.

 

 

 

 

> _Don't talk to me. Do something about it._

 

 

Draco didn't bother to sign it. He knew Harry would recognize even his drunk handwriting. 

Seeing Draco’s supremely lashed penmanship, Harry realized it wasn’t so new to his eyes—too closely resembling a few of the ruder notes Draco had flown across the Great Hall during fourth and fifth years. Draco had been covertly intoxicated back at school, bolstered by liquid courage and attempting to gain Harry’s attention any way he could. Draco used to get drunk before dinner, bucking up his courage to pen mean notes to his ‘rival’ and observe his reactions to those cruel words. How did any nearby adult fail to see that for what it was? Two closeted wizards too afraid of themselves and blaming their emotions on each other rather than face the truth that they were _definitely_ into each other. 

Draco was still struggling to communicate years later—falling back to this old method of cryptic, drunken challenges delivered on wings. He'd exhausted his capability in writing this brief note. The desire he expressed was clear. He needed Harry to be non-verbal with him: his command of ‘do something’ suggesting physical affection, favors, experiences they could share. Draco needed what muggles called A Grand Gesture. This letter was Draco’s request, his permission; at least he was ready to tell Harry what he needed. 

Harry penned a reply—not to Draco but again to Blaise, sketching out a rough plan. Hopefully this could be the last time Harry had to owl Blaise ever again—no offense to Blaise. 

Harry planned to arrive in Genoa that evening. He asked that Blaise attempt to keep Draco sober and at home… and to leave the windows open.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

Harry knew it was clichéd. _Passé_ , Draco might say. Well out of fashion. It was such a muggle thing to do. But Harry was half a muggle, honestly, having grown up in that alternate world. And he was a romantic, too. Draco would never expect it, which was what made it so perfect and bloody trite all at the same time. For Draco, it would certainly be a first. 

Harry found himself standing outside Blaise’s building. The streets of Genoa were cobbled and uneven, the city drenched with noise and light—street lamps, cars, the faint white glow of lights on ships coming in and out of the harbor. Thankfully the streets immediately around Blaise’s flat were some of the oldest in the city and too narrow for cars, more of a walking path meandering at a steep angle up the hillside before it gave way to the actual mountains in the distance. Blaise’s building was pale blonde stone, three stories tall, with massive black-metal-trimmed windows looking out over the city and the bay below. 

Blaise lived on the top-most floor. Sure enough, he’d thrown every window open, catching the evening breeze off of the bay. 

Harry inhaled a breath of air which smelled of the sea even in winter. It had rained what looked like most of the day, the streets still wet and glistening in the lamplight. The perfect setting for a tall, dark-haired man strolling the streets alone with a guitar in his hand. Harry never expected in his life that he would get to be that man. 

He dreamed of something like this—the opportunity to love someone, to be romantic, to make these sorts of gestures. In his young fantasies, he hadn’t been half so nervous. He fumbled his fingers along the guitar neck, finding his chords. 

Standing in the street, Draco’s own acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder, staring up at the top row of windows, Harry started to play. 

It was Draco’s song. He’d played it since he was a child. They still had no idea where it had come from, and it didn’t much matter at this point. The song had meaning for Draco. His mother had played it while he was being tortured in the cellar. She’d used it to remind him not to give up hope—to tell him she was there, she was on his side, and she was working on a way out for him. That she loved him infinitely. That he was the most important person in her life. That she would sacrifice herself for him if it meant he’d be free. 

That was what Harry wanted to say. He would sacrifice himself, again and again, for Draco. Even if that meant letting him go. 

Sia had helped him arrange it, to transition the melody from piano to guitar, removing much of the nuance, stripping it down until it was simple enough that a novice like Harry could play it. He’d always intended to show Draco someday. Sia heartily approved of the romantic gesture, suggesting Harry master it for their anniversary. 

Then again, Sia learned English from watching 80’s romantic comedies staring his first-ever crush, John Cusack. So Sia didn’t think it was at all over-the-top to play songs to the person you loved… even standing outside their window on a rainy night, hoping they’d notice you, forgive you, find it in their hearts to give you another shot. Sia didn’t make fun of Harry at all. He told Harry to go for it—helping him practice the more complex fingerings in the stairwell at work, sitting with him until he got every note right. 

Harry couldn’t bear the thought of fucking this song up. Not knowing what it meant to Draco. 

Maybe there were words? Or perhaps it was a true instrumental. They might never know. And that was the beauty of music; how it could have different meanings to every person who heard it or carried it with them through life. Harry hoped that when Draco heard this song, he would know that it meant the same thing to both of them. _I’m never giving up on you. So don’t give up on yourself._  

Draco’s face emerged from the window above him, holding a wine bottle—looking like he was about to throw it. He was in silhouette against the inside light: red cheeks, squinted eyes flashing, and a pale shirt half-buttoned. Harry hoped Blaise had been successful in preventing Draco from drinking before he arrived. Yes, the bottle in his hand was sealed. Draco set it aside when he realized the source of the obscure music wasn’t some random strolling street musician but his own husband outside… The Boy Who Lived doing his best to serenade him. 

Draco looked down at him and listened to him play. 

Harry didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Draco would know everything which was on his mind and in his heart from that song. 

When Harry was done, he let out a long breath, his fingers strumming, finding the only other tune he reliably knew. It was “Wonderwall.” He started humming, turning, walking away. _I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now…._  

Those words were so true. Harry sang to himself… for himself, not enough to carry over his footsteps on the cobblestones. He’d never considered himself to be a good singer—any talent he had was blowback from Draco’s own abilities, shared with him through their blood magic. His voice, though it was his own, was a gift from Draco. 

Focusing on the familiar muggle melody was a distraction, a good way to keep himself from crying. This was his gesture, and in a way he was saying goodbye. His fingers moved against the strings, his feet walking away in time to the music.

 

 

 _“And all the roads we have to walk are winding,_  
_And all the lights that lead us there are blinding,_  
_There are many things that I would like to say to you,_

_But I don't know how…”_

 

 

Harry was learning how. Maybe too little too late. He was nearly at the end of the block when Draco shouted after him. 

“Harry—wait!” 

He stopped where he was; letting Draco run down the stairs, run down the street, coming to him. Draco wasn’t slowing down, and Harry barely had time to move the guitar out of the way before Draco tackled him, launching himself into Harry’s arms. 

Harry staggered back, glad that he hadn’t stopped working out despite being depressed as hell and not wanting to. Draco had never been hard to lift. In fact if he wasn’t mistaken, Draco might’ve lost half a stone in the month they’d been apart… but Harry didn’t want Draco to feel his arms trembling. He wanted to be solid, holding Draco tightly against him. 

Draco didn’t know how to say it, either. How he felt. What it was like being in a war zone together. How angry he was. How hurt. He didn’t have the words, which was why he needed Harry here, needed to clamp around his neck and hang there like a little kid—holding on to him for dear life. 

“Might we go home?” Draco mumbled against the side of Harry’s head. He wasn’t letting go, or protesting, or kicking that he wanted to be let down. He let Harry take his weight, holding him up, his feet dangling. 

Harry squeezed him so intensely that air left his lungs in a wheeze. “Of course, luv.” 

High above them, Harry caught sight of Blaise leaning out his open window, watching them hug in the street. Blaise pressed his palms together in the universal gesture of prayer, shaking them slightly at the night sky, as though to say _Yahweh be praised, now get the fuck out of my house!_ He promptly pulled the window shut and snatched the bottle of wine for himself, stomping off out of sight. 

Witnessing Blaise’s reaction, Harry made a quick judgment call. “Let’s… come back for your things in the morning,” he suggested. 

Draco nodded against him. “Yeah, okay. I wanna go home.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Nebojsa waited with apprehension down to his toes. Either Harry was coming back, defeated... or he wasn't coming back at all. That would be best, of course. But knowing their mutual string of almost-guaranteed bad luck, tonight might not go in their favor. Uncertainty urged him to say a quick prayer, which turned into another, and before he realized he had a _brojanica_ in his hand, fingers skimming over the knots as his lips moved soundlessly. 

It was a strange, disorienting sensation… _not_ wanting someone you loved to come home. 

As if on queue, the apartment door unlocked. He hadn't heard footsteps in the hallway. Surprised, he started, turning around to see who it was. 

Dmitry. Head bowed, he shuffled in, closing the door with his foot before crouching to unlace his boots. He wore the same clothes he’d left in, nothing noticeably amiss. 

Nebojsa waited, not saying a word. 

With his boots untied, Dima looked up. He noticed Nebojsa was the only one home. Misha was at the house in Romania, making preparations for their guests—preparations Dmitry had been put in charge of and then failed to deliver, letting his responsibilities fall to others at the last minute. 

Dima's golden eyes traveled the main room, noting who else wasn’t around. "Where's Harry?" 

Keeping emotion out of their voices was a skill learned by everyone at Durmstrang; necessary for survival, but useful in dealing with others outside of school as well. Nebojsa felt a lot, yet he didn't want to act on those feelings. Not yet. So he asked flatly in return, devoid of any feeling, "Why?" 

Dmitry couldn't make eye contact, like a scolded child. "Because," he murmured. "I owe him an apology." 

It was difficult to control his eyebrows—they were always his tell, the first muscles to twitch when he was about to lose his temper. Nebojsa's eyebrows wanted to fly up to the ceiling. Harry wasn't the only one due an apology! He wanted to shout: _T_ _wo_ _days you've been gone, Dima! You left us, cut us out completely. I had no idea where you were. You don't even have a mobile phone. How were we supposed to reach you? What if something happened to Misha? You're his legal guardian_ _._ _I have no_ _authority_ _to take care of him_ _._ _I have no rights at all._  

What it really came down to was the consideration due to family. Dmitry treated him like family when it was convenient, but wouldn't hesitate to walk all over him or walk out when he didn't get his way. Dmitry wanted a family, yet he had no idea how to be a part of one, and sometimes it felt like he had no interest in learning. Dmitry loved very dearly—the problem wasn’t that he didn’t feel. What he lacked could be called ‘respect.’ Decency. The little standards of humanity to which he hadn’t been sufficiently exposed. 

Nebojsa had to remind himself—for the hundred-thousandth time—that Dmitry’s lack of ethics was not his fault, but a product of his upbringing which he wanted to unlearn. Again, he didn’t know how, didn’t know anything else. Getting angry with him wouldn’t solve anything: talking would.

"Well..." Nebojsa forced himself to shrug, sighing; the expulsion of air being a calming mechanism, a way to keep himself in check if he was to teach a lesson tonight. "Harry's out. He might not be coming back, actually, if all goes well." 

"He's with Draco?" Dmitry perked up, hopeful. Despite his own desires, at his core he did want Harry and Draco to be happy, to reconcile. "Is Draco coming back?" 

"We shall see." 

Dima’s slow-moving eyes processed that his brother wasn’t home, either. He forced himself to ask after him. “Mishenka?” 

“Settling the new house elves.” Whose contracts Dmitry was tasked with, to be completed yesterday. When he absconded, Mikhail stepped up. 

He’d arranged a non-traditional employment rather than binding servitude. The elves looking after the palace would have wages, a lenient work schedule, time off, and their own quarters. With more than twenty guests to entertain, it was necessary to have staff… and most Romanian witches and wizards would rather drink liquefied dragon dung than work for the sons of Tihomir Ionescue. So they hired elves.

Dmitry forgot. It wasn’t important to him. He never learned how to welcome a party of strangers into his home. That was never expected of a duke’s second son. 

“I… _fuck me_ ,” Dima swore. “I was supposed to do that, wasn’t I?” 

“You forgot?” 

Shaking his head, Dmitry told the truth by touching his thick fingers to his temple. “ _Finite Incantatem._ ” With a rush of wandless magic, he released his own Glamour Charm. 

His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, the skin around his gaze puffed up from constantly rubbing at his tired eyes. Chemicals coursing through his body wouldn’t let him sleep; not drugs but false signals from his brain, tricking his body into this state like a siren luring sailors to their deaths. Dima likely hadn’t slept in two days. Short-term memory and time perception started to lapse around thirty-six hours of sleep deprivation—right around the time Dmitry should’ve been meeting with the elves and seeing to the palace. He was probably in a bar somewhere, smoking, mindlessly watching muggle sports; his starving, disengaged brain failing to remind him where he ought to be, what he truly cared about more than his own bruised ego. 

“How long?” Nebojsa asked, wanting to be sure. 

“Not at all.” A somewhat nonsensical answer, but it was enough to decipher. He hadn’t slept in the two days he’d been away. 

Dmitry came home at approximately the seventy-two hour mark, or three days without sleep. It was the point where he was at risk for hallucinations or other serious sensory dysfunction. After three days, he was unsafe. It was his protocol now to surrender himself at that point—to his Master, his brother, a trusted friend, or a hospital if there was no one else. Committing himself was one of the more frightening things Dmitry faced, a test of his fortitude over his sense of shame: he would surrender himself because of a promise, but never acknowledge it was necessary because he was sick and not taking proper care of himself. 

Dima went to the side of the bed, pulling out a pair of handcuffs. 

“No,” Nebojsa countered, surprised. He thought Dmitry knew better. "I won't do that. Pain comes with trust. I won't hurt you so long as I can't trust you—to play safe, or to keep your word to us." 

That wasn’t humiliation. It was the truth, and it was painful. Dmitry wanted punishment, to be lashed or struck, as though his suffering could make up for what he’d done. 

Dmitry was lost. He didn’t know what else to do. So Nebojsa took the cuffs from his hands, replacing them with a few hastily Summoned items. A glass of water. A vitamin tablet. Misha’s eye cream so he wouldn’t look like an Inferius in the morning. Dutifully, Dmitry swallowed the tablet and downed the water, unscrewing the jar’s lid and unenthusiastically dabbing his finger into the rose-scented gel. 

“Do you think you can sleep? With me?” 

Dmitry shrugged. Likely not. 

“Will you sit, then? We can watch a movie.” Misha was always buying more VHS tapes: feel-good sports films, musicals, science fiction. He liked everything he could get his hands on. “If it’s boring you might fall asleep anyway.” 

Dima reached out. Rather than put the cream on his own eyes, he went for his partner’s—somehow guessing that beneath his own disguising charm, he might be looking pretty rough, too. Nebojsa closed his eyes, letting Dmitry dab the cool gel over his lids. 

Closing his eyes heightened his hearing, making him more aware of Dmitry’s less-than-steady breathing. He must’ve been slouching, cutting off his airway. He _was_ tired, perhaps even exhausted, but his brain didn’t hear what his body was trying to say. He made a little sound, a cut-off whine like he did in his sleep. 

“ _Žao mi je_.” Dima was sorry. He could only say it this way, without eye contact—without consequences. 

Nebojsa moved closer, looking for physical contact instead. His hand found Dmitry’s chest. “I know you are.” He spoke with his eyes closed, feeling Dmitry’s heartbeat beneath his palm. “I accept your apology. But being sorry or being forgiven doesn’t change anything. What I really want is for you to keep trying, to do better in these situations, to make different choices in the future.” 

Dmitry understood what was being asked of him. “Not to hurt you in the first place.” 

“Yes. That’s what I want.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Back at Grimmauld Place, Draco went right to the kitchen—sticking his head in the ice box like he’d never left. That casual, mundane gesture stopped Harry short. Draco was looking for something to eat, but there was nothing. 

Grimmauld hadn't been properly updated since the 1920's, and as such they had a very old-fashioned wizarding ice box rather than a refrigerator. There was a small door at the top where a conjured ice block sat, with a Cooling Charm circulating to keep the food in the main compartment from spoiling. Every few days the charms had to be refreshed. That had been Harry's job so long as he'd lived there. He'd watched his power grow by it—each time his charm lasted a bit longer, a physical measurement clearly demonstrating that he was improving, was one step closer to being able to overpower Voldemort. He'd made strides training with Alastor Moody, but his abilities really seemed to take off after he and Draco got together, as the war picked up around them... his magic always working in self-preservation, responding to threat, improving because if he didn't advance he'd surely die. 

Harry hadn't been home for a while. He'd emptied out the ice box when they left for America back in November. So Draco was left staring at a few condiment jars and little else—nothing had changed, as though the last four weeks had never happened. It felt a bit like starting over. 

Draco observed the mostly-empty ice box a moment, feeling Harry's Cooling Charm against his skin, the cold air enough to ruffle his hair over his forehead. Harry’s magic had lasted the better part of a month and was still going strong. Draco pieced together the presence of magic juxtaposed against the lack of food, arriving at a correct conclusion. 

"You haven't been living here..." he said, shutting the ice box door. 

Harry shook his head. "It was... too hard. Too many good memories here, of us." 

Draco understood. Grimmauld was their place, the strange home they'd made together; taking down the taxidermied house elf heads, brightening up the rugs, fucking in every room until the place felt a bit more like their own. 

Draco was looking absently at the cupboards now, not ready for eye-contact, but he spoke to Harry. "Where...?" 

Where had he gone? Where did he stay if not here? "With Dima and Sia." 

Draco's lips pressed, tightening to a thin line. With a certain pompousness, he drawled, "Of course. How was the three-way?" 

"WHAT?!" Harry spluttered. "No! It wasn't like that at all." 

Draco just shrugged, like it wasn't a big deal either way. Except it was—at least, to Harry it was a huge fucking deal. Draco thought he would cheat? It put a giant bleeding crack like an axe wound in his heart that Draco would think him capable of going back on his word so callously. 

Remaining calm wasn't Harry’s instinct when accused of something he hadn't done—he had to forcibly bring himself down, breathing through his nose, counting the seconds. It took him three breaths to get back to an objective state. 

He spoke evenly, projecting calm. "Draco, why would you say that? Do you not trust me to keep my word when you need time apart?" 

An ashy eyebrow quirked. Harry knew the expression would wiggle the white scar at Draco's hairline, invisible because he was wearing his hair shaggy and messy these days. Draco was looking at him as though he were blind, about to state the obvious because Harry couldn't see it. 

"Uh... you and Sia have been into each other since the night we met." He showed his palms, as though it should've been abundantly clear. Except it wasn't obvious to Harry—it took him nearly a year to figure out what Draco and the rest of the fucking world had seen in an instant. "I left. I said I wasn't coming back. You'd have been well within your rights to—" 

"Nothing happened," Harry told his husband, cutting him off. There had been ample opportunity but... in his heart, that wasn't something Harry was comfortable doing. 

"Sia's got an iron will, everybody knows that," reflected Draco, taking the entire conversation casually. The idea of Harry cheating on him didn’t seem to bother him the way it irked and offended Harry. Draco’s jaw was relaxed while Harry’s was tense. "I asked him to ignore you, to turn you away if an occasion ever presented. I take it that even with me out of the picture, he kept to his word as much as you." 

A protest sprung immediately to Harry's lips, slipping out before he had a chance to think it over. "You weren't out of the picture, Draco. But..." he stopped himself, saying what he truly felt. "Thank you for seeing that potential, and for intervening ahead of it becoming a real problem. I had no clue. I wouldn't have even known how to start that conversation, let alone have it back then. I appreciate you taking the initiative, looking out for me." 

Draco stared at him. He wasn't used to hearing brutal honesty from Harry—it had been a long, long time. Since before the war, maybe. Harry had shut himself down emotionally, not wanting to burden Draco with everything going on in his head and heart. But being open with each other was the core of a marriage, which explained why theirs nearly fell apart. He had to be an open book, to tear down every wall, to take off his own armor and be stripped bare. He owed that to Draco. It was for Harry's own good as much as Draco's. It wasn't about being one another's keeper, but rather a confidant, a confessor, holding each other's secrets safe. 

"Nothing happened with Nebojsa," Harry repeated. "Because I didn't want it to. But also, I guess, because you asked him to shut shit down if I accidentally crossed a line. Thanks for doing that—looking out for me, anticipating what I would need. You've always understood me. I think you know me better than I know myself." 

Draco stared at him for a long time. He didn't need to speak—his eyes did that for him... and his heart, the voice inside him reaching out to Harry across the space between them. He wasn’t even conscious of doing it. 

 _You haven’t talked to me like this since… the war, I think. Being honest. Telling me exactly how you feel. It still makes me nervous, makes me think something awful’s coming. Like you might die again tomorrow._  

Naturally. Draco was never taught how to talk about his feelings, believing the lie that they were useless things to stifle lest they be used against him. Being emotional with Draco became especially important. It was a way to break down the walls between them, to give Draco a sense of control over what they had and where things were going. Knowing how Harry felt gave Draco strength, stability derived from knowledge. Without emotional intimacy, things fell apart. 

Draco began shutting down Harry's romantic advances once their lives were no longer in danger; that rejection causing Harry to pull away, hiding himself when he should've kept trying, looked for another way, continued to share himself however Draco would accept. A grand guitar-playing gesture earlier in the fall, or maybe a weekend trip to Paris just the two of them... he just had to open himself up to Draco over and over again, no matter how much he got rejected. Draco deserved a hundred thousand chances at happiness. 

"Look... Draco." He said his husband's name with some weight, commanding his attention with the timbre of his voice. Draco's head snapped to attention, demonstrating he was listening. "Nothing happened between me and our friends. I didn’t want to. That said, I don't need to know what you did or didn't do in Italy. _You_ broke up with me, like you said. You were thinking about what your life would be like without me in it. I get that. You needed time to yourself. And I understand that monogamy isn't something that comes naturally to you the way it is for me. I know you've gone along with it for seventeen months as a favor to me, because it's something _I_ need. Thank you for that. And if you had sex with someone else... I'm gonna be okay with it. I'm not mad.” That needed to be said—reiterated until it sunk in for Draco. He wouldn’t be punished or looked-down-on for anything he did while they were separated. That was his time to himself. “I promise I'll never hold it against you. Whatever you did or didn't do is alright with me because that's who you are outside of our marriage. I can't expect you to be any less than yourself. 

"I didn't do anything with Sia because that's not in my nature. I thought about it a lot, tho. I realized that if I didn't need us to be monogamous, then... this summer," he blushed but pushed on, the perfect quip bursting at his lips and he found he didn't need to stop it. He wanted Draco to know exactly what he thought, degenerate and fucked up as his musings were. "All twenty-four centimeters of you would've been so far up Dima's ass so fast he'd be coughing precome." 

Draco broke out in a maniacal, cartoon-villain cackle—squirrel-tittering, physically tilting with the force of it, catching the counter with his bum just to keep his balance as he laughed so hard his eyes squeezed shut. Draco wheezed, sucking in air because he could barely breathe. Harry made him laugh _that_ hard. 

Draco held up a hand, palm up, like a muggle swearing an oath on an invisible bible. "True!" he admitted, clutching his stomach with his other hand. He was swearing on his own guts: if Harry didn't need monogamy, Draco _would_ _be_ balls-deep in Dmitry. And that was okay. Draco was allowed to be attracted to other people. 

It was... a release, being able to talk about it. To make jokes about it. A year ago they'd argued over it because Harry didn't have his shit in order. Draco could've laughed this hard a year ago. They could've talked this out and been that much closer for it had Harry not gotten his head stuck up his own arse, thinking Draco's sexual attention was some scarce commodity he had to physically control or he'd lose it. Nothing was going to take Draco away from him except Draco—or Harry's own stupidity driving his husband away. Draco would only leave again if Harry deserved it, if it was what was best for Draco himself. Harry didn't control Draco: he never had, and he never could. Nor did he want to. Controlling Draco could not make him happy, and Draco would be miserable. 

Draco gasped for air, still laughing. "It's a bit odd for me that I buggered his brother. I've never been in that indelicate situation before but... it's not strange enough to stop the thought from crossing my mind." He squinted at Harry, adding, "You truly are a freak, Potter. You are quite literally the _only person on earth_ who doesn't wanna fuck Dima, even just a little." 

Nonchalant, Harry professed his feelings when it came to their friend. "I guess... I am a freak. Dima's like a brother to me. I realize he's bloody fit, I'm not blind, but..." he shrugged. "I feel zero need to do anything. The same way I feel about every other attractive person on earth except for you." 

A line split Draco's forehead as his eyebrows shifted, making a sharply-arching shape above his flashing eyes. "And Nebojsa." 

Harry turned scarlet. But he nodded, affirming the truth. "Yeah. You and Nebojsa." 

Draco snorted. Then he was cackling again—because Harry finally admitted it. He wanted Nebojsa. Which meant Draco had been right all along, and his husband so loved being right. 

They could talk about it without the world ending. They were laughing about it. Harry felt like such an idiot—which wasn't a new sensation around Draco, but it had been a while since his husband had schooled him so roundly. He'd been so afraid of this conversation, needing to control Draco's sexuality to make sure he stayed. It was better when they indulged together, divulging these randy, thoroughly-inappropriate thoughts to each other. Like religious people had confession, a way to get their mistakes off their chest—they needed this. They'd needed it for a long fucking time. 

There was a lot yet to talk about. Things Harry needed to get off his chest. Apologies to offer and agreements to be made. But that didn’t have to happen tonight. 

"Oi… you hungry?" Harry asked. Draco had been looking in the ice box and cupboards but there wasn't much of interest there. He wasn't one to sit down and eat a plain bowl of rice. Looking about meant he was either hungry or bored. Draco hadn’t really expressed much of an appetite the last few years—starting when his father went to Azkaban. When Harry left for the war, Draco ate even less. His current pursuit of food was more for something to do, chasing a former pastime to distract from his uneasy feelings. Draco had never broken up with someone before, nor had he ever patched things up. This was new territory for both of them. Harry tried to make it as easy as possible to move forward… hopefully together. A meal was a good place to start. 

Draco lifted a shoulder. "I could eat. 'S there anythin' open at this hour?" 

Which was such a charmingly muggle thing to say, it made Harry grin. Draco was used to Harry taking him on dates, going out to eat. And he deeply appreciated that Draco didn’t just expect Harry to cook, to serve him because he’d deigned to come back. They could go out. 

"Everything’s open when we can Apparate," Harry said with confidence, feeling like a wizard. "What're you in the mood for? Seafood? Sushi? Something spicy?" 

"Spicy," Draco agreed. "Italy's great but...." Draco didn't have to say anything more because Harry understood. Over the summer Draco became quite fond of the wide variety of Asian foods they had access to living in London. There wasn't anything quite like that level of heat in traditional Italian cuisine. Draco's diet while living with Blaise had probably been predominantly alcohol-based, anyway. Harry hadn't seen his husband looking so thin since Hogwarts, the last time he'd drank heavily and ate very little. 

Draco wanted to eat, and that was something Harry could deliver. 

"I think it's close to breakfast time in Bangkok," Harry offered. “They’re what, seven hours ahead?” 

"...Thailand?" Draco questioned, his tone rising with his eyebrows. He knew where Bangkok was; what he wasn't so sure of was Harry's offer to go, to take him to Thailand on a whim. "For breakfast?" 

Harry shrugged one shoulder. "Sure. I mean—you're hungry, so... why not?" 

Draco's face was... precisely the stunned, fraught, disbelieving expression he'd worn the night Harry proposed. Like that night, it was late—practically the next day. And like that night, Draco was seeing Harry's impulsive, recklessly romantic side; the part of him that would Apparate around the world in the middle of the night to see Draco smile, who would suffer through food too spicy for him and navigate unknown streets just to make Draco happy, to hold his hand and go on that adventure together. 

He knew this part of Harry existed—the man who loved to spoil him, surprise him, provide him with new experiences. But perhaps he'd forgotten _why_ Harry was like this. It wasn't just for Draco. Harry was getting out of his cupboard. He'd be pulling himself out of that cupboard for the rest of his life. With Draco by his side, Harry refused to go back. He rejected the limits other people placed on him, seeing them for the false cages they were. If they wanted to Apparate to Thailand for eggs and streaky bacon, there was nothing and no one to stop them. They were the Potters: and they could do anything, because they were free.  

Like the night he asked Draco to marry him, Harry held out his hand. "C'mon, Dragon," he said, smiling gently, that hand outstretched between them. "Let's go eat." 

So like that night a year ago, Draco laughed to stop himself from crying, and said, "Quick. Before I change my mind, you crazy blighter."

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **UPDATE NOTE:** Next chapter posting 10 January.


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